[civilitty]

> My personal pet conspiracy theory is that the U.S. leadership realized that the U.S. homeland was not defensible against asymmetric attacks of this nature. They needed to create an external beacon for the jihadists–a theater in which the U.S. military would be the target and the aggressor, not soft targets. And so they chose Iraq, with its dormant sectarian divisions being a perfect cauldron to which those enemies would be drawn.

Interesting conspiracy theory! Especially considering that the resulting mess caused a massive refugee crisis and a spike of terrorism in Europe. Even if it didn't keep the terrorist mired in the Middle East, it redirected the violence towards our allies, thus maintaining the general casus beli.