heres another way of looking at the war on iraq,

In 1971 when Nixon dismantled the Bretton Woods system of backing the US dollar with gold - it was essentially a tax on passed on to the rest of the world since the US dollar became devalued.

In 1972 the US agreed to support the House of Saud in return for making the US $ the currency of the oil trade.

(note that in 2000 Saddam Hussein wanted to sell oil for Euro's)

a tax on the rest of the world

again in 2004, facing the deepest deficit of any nation in history the US govt devalued the US dollar (now 50% of what it was when Bush was appointed) again this was an indirect tax on the rest of the world

another reason to change the trading of oil into another currency.