I hear a lot from neo-conservatives who missed out on the cold war about "Iraq was the right thing to do." Sure, and taking out Castro was the right thing to do, but we never got a chance to do it when the costs would not have far outweighed the benefits. The hard lesson learned in decades of fighting the Soviet was simple: do the right thing in the wrong way, and you get the wrong result.
The hawk then doesn't justify any action by "it was the right thing to do" - because the result of an action isn't just the headline benefits, it is the trade offs of all the other things that could have been done, and the consequences of all of the blow back. This is why Nixon's policy in South East Asia was a disaster: arguably getting out of Vietnam was good - however, destabilizing the region and then getting out was a terrible mistake - which 2 million Khmer paid for with their lives in the killing fields.
When we hear a story about one drug dealer killing another, we don't shed any tears for the drug dealer that is dead, but we don't let his murder off simply because he performed some marginal service to the community. The logic here being that the guy who ended up on top probably is up to no good, and probably is more trouble than the guy he killed. More than that, it is a broken window, that leads to other broken windows.
This is why going into Iraq the wrong way is going to cost us: because we intentionally violated international norms of behavior. This means, first, that we cannot hold others to them - since there is, trust me, no shortage of resource rich real estate on the planet that has a less than satisfactory government ruling over it. Second, it means that the mess is now ours alone. Third, it means that others know that trusting us is, frankly, a mugs game - they won't wait to see whether we follow the rules.
What could have happened was simple and direct: indicting Saddam and the Baathists in the Hague for war crimes - post the Iraq war - would have been easy. The food for oil deal was mandated by the treaty, and mismanaging it to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis was, bluntly, genocide. That we chose not to pursue this obvious avenue, one which would have forced the French and anyone else to either side with overthrow of Saddam, and his replacement, or to directly side with the winking at genocide - would have sealed the deal.
Why didn't we? Let's face facts, it would not have allowed Bush to turn on the spigot of spending, which he needed to execute his leveraged buy out of the 2004 election - a trillion dollars will flow between 2003 and 2004 - and that will make Bush look at least passable in the economy department.
Once again - when someone does the right thing in the wrong way - he probably is doing it for the wrong reasons, and the wrong results will ensue. Because no one does something for the wrong reason without expecting to get paid.
So Saddam me no Saddam's - the invasion was a mercenary bid for profit, and the people who ran it expect, not the thanks of a grateful people - but return on investement.
Always nice to make money by spending other people's blood, don't you think? Unfortunately, one can't just get more by going to the blood bank.