I don't buy it. Bush wanted an excuse long before 9/11 to take out Sadam. He also wanted to invade Iraq before Afganistan, but was convinced that the allies would not go along. If Bush was truly concerned about WMD, he would have let the inspectors do their jobs. Your description of Bush would require someone with some depth and sincerity. That Bush doesn't exist. 

Your case might stand the test if it were not for the elephants in the room-

We were not attacked by Iraq.  We were attacked by Osama Bin Laden.  If Bush wanted the American people to follow him on his own personal quest, he should not have let Bin Laden escape to Pakistan, which is the other elephant.

When A.Q. Khan was running his open air bazaar for nuke parts to which the "Open for Business" sign was on the door for anyone and anybody to read, there was no Bush worry about that enterprise.  When Bin Laden walked into Pakistan it was like trotting home off an out of the park hit.  Musharraf, once he had his nuclear weapons, was forced to shut down Khan- but not till he gave him a "Presidential Medal of Honor" and a pardon.  Bush not only allowed this to happen but reneged on the "No Distinction" pledge in Musharraf's case.  Had he gone into Pakistan and flushed Osama, he would have had all the weight he needed to tell Saddam- "since we were in the neighborhood we thought we would drop in"- and would have had the support of a scared, and revenge filled electorate.

Iraq was on the menu from day one, after Cheney's energy task force informed him the Saudi's were running out of oil and despite all the bribes paid to Saddam under the Oil for Food program, that bastard had signed contracts with the French and the Russians, but not them.  This and some misguided notion that we need permanent client bases in the Middle East to keep a handle on China sealed Saddam's fate.  Taking on Saddam was like pulling out a punching bag and going a few rounds.

Taking on the Iraqi people, however, is not turning out so easy.... 

I agree. I don't discount any of the things laid out above, but I just can't get past this passage:

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush's beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House - ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. "Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade."

Bush's circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: "They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches."
It just fits perfectly with everything we've seen, particularly with Bush's impetuous carrier appearance.

“As Magus Tabor always said:  There is an insufficient reason for everything” (453).

First of all, there were many in the administration who wanted to invade and occupy Iraq, not just Bush.  That he bears ultimate responsibility for the decision does not mean his reasons for going to war are the only ones that matter.  We might not have gone to war if the Pentagon, Vice President's office, Rove, and others didn't want to do it.  Their support, and their reasoning, doubtless influenced Bush, as it should.

Second, and more importantly, we should be thinking more broadly about this.  Sure, the White House wanted to prove their mettle, particularly that it was serious about the 2002 National Security Strategy, in which the executive branch claimed authority to engage in preventive (rather than pre-emptive) war.  But why was Iraq the target of choice?  Surely there were any number of defenseless countries that hadn't attacked us that we could have cooked up an excuse for invading.  Let's forget for a moment whether we'll sound sophisticated at cocktail parties and just state the obvious: Iraq sits on a giant bed of oil and therefore has enormous (a) economic implications for a narrow strain of U.S. elites, and (b) geopolitical implications for the U.S.  These explanations that don't include oil verge on mind-boggling.

Another reason was domestic politics.  The public has never felt easy about the economy since Bush took office.  Corporate scandals looked like they could make a difference in the 2002 elections.  Resort to military adventures to distract the country from other things is a tried and true technique for leaders all over the world, in all eras.  Given the gullibility of the public after 9/11, 2002 America was particularly susceptible to such maneuvering.  And it worked.  If anyone has any doubt about this point, remember the timing of the war resolution.  That simply could not have been a coincidence.

Finally, consider a point that, again, might make for awkward cocktail chatter but is nevertheless true.  The U.S. planned from the very beginning to expropriate Iraq's economy.  When we began the occupation of Iraq, we didn't just privatize Iraqi industries: we put those industries in the hands of U.S. companies before the locals had a chance to weigh in.  Incidentally, that's the opposite of democracy, so claims about hoping to spread democracy are simply bogus.  But for our purposes here, the economic colonization of Iraq simply cannot be ignored as a reason for going to war. 

Or as Wallace Stevens said in Connoisseur of Chaos, “The squirming facts exceed the squamous mind.”   

Typo alert.  First NSC meeting was 1/30/2001.

This explains why Bush focused less on combating the terrorists than on going after state sponsors -- first Afghanistan (home to al Qaeda), then Iraq (which, even though its ties to terrorism had frayed, represented a lucrative target).

...

Toppling the Taliban was the first step -- and because it turned out to be so easy, going after Saddam was a logical next step.

So, why did Bush go to war?  Because Iraq was a "lucrative target," that was a "logical next step" after the easy win in Afghanistan.  What made Iraq lucrative?  Why was it logical?  I'm reading and re-reading the passage, and I don't see it.  It's not-too-subtle question begging: attacking Iraq was a good idea because it was a lucrative, logical idea.  The question of why remains unanswered.

I'm on board with those that have noted that the desire to invade Iraq was demonstrated well before 9/11...Paul O'Neil's notes are exhibit one.

But if we're going to restrict the analysis to W's reasons alone, we can't forget the motivation for revenge - Saddam's attempted hit on his dad.  Oh, and I don't think 43 wants to outshine his dad...it's more like he wants to outshine Jeb, the one that everyone else in the family assumed would be president.

Oh, and were the 14 permanent air bases that we've built to replace the Saudi bases and maintain some degree of hegemony over "our" oil  in any way his idea, or someone else's?

Given your three reasons -- Saddam wanted nukes, terrorist have state sponsors, we had to attack someone to not look weak -- it's plainly clear just how completely wrong BushCo was.

Lots of people want nukes, but because of the inspections Saddam was far from getting them. Terrorist cells don't need state sponsors. And attacking the wrong country actually makes you look pretty stupid, if not weak.

But I really disagree with the whole premise that Bush thought all this stuff through. He's nothing more than a spoiled rich kid who went through life getting by on his parents' money, his parents' connections, and his own special way of bullshitting everyone (see: Bush's Dazzling of Press on Campaign Trail).

No, the eight minutes of frozen inaction on the morning of 9/11 was the real Bush.

This all sounds great ... and oh so sober and rational.  Straight out of a textbook.  But as most of the other commentators have already pointed out, there is ample historical evidence of the fact that the Bush administration came into office wanting to do Iraq from the get-go.  They didn't need no stinkin' 9/11 or WMDs - those events just greased the skids.

The most compelling reason for attack for them was your third one - and it was a reason they already found fully compelling even before 9/11.  They believed that the Clinton administration, and even the Bush I administration, had been embarrassingly weak and timid in the face of America's enemies.  They thought Clinton had made the country vulnerable to attack by failing to respond aggressively and resolutely across a whole range of provocations.  They felt he had humiliated us.  They wanted to send a global message, and send the next guy who even looked at us funny to Hades.

It wasn't Saddam's threat to the US that provoked them.  Please! It was his very weakness that was the problem, and the source of our national humiliation.  Saddam was a miserable little Middle East Arab piss-ant.  And when he thumbed his nose at us for a decade, Clinton had done nothing except launch a few cruise missiles!  Oh, the shame!  Their idea was that when some rube like Saddam defies the United States, you just kill him right away, and his family, and his friends, and you topple his stupid little government - and then you say to the world  "OK, any of the rest of you punks feeling lucky?  Make our day!!"  That's how you keep the world in line in Cheney-land.

I think the attitude I just described reflects the thinking of many key people in the Bush I administration.  As for Bush himself, its even simpler.

George W. Bush is not Marcus Aurelius.  He is not driven by a foreign policy theory of some kind, or even a comprehensive strategy.  Do you think he actually wrote his second inaugural address?  Do you think he wrote any of those foreign policy speeches he gave on the stump in 1999 or 2001?  Do you think he even understood the Condi Rice-authored words he was mouthing?  Bush is a much simpler, cruder and more self-centered fellow - more earthy and passionate than the national security strategist you describe.  I suspect these are the kinds of thoughts that dominated his own mind in 2002:

-- That Saddama bin Laden guy is an evil terrorist.  They're all terrorits.

-- Saddama is also an asshole who tried to kill my dad.

-- Americans will think I am really cool if I take out Saddam.  And I want to be a war President.  Winning wars is what all the great Presidents did - like President Washington and President Franklin and President Patton.

-- I know God wants me to be President, and he wants me to attack the Arabs.  I can feel it!

-- Dad screwed up when he didn't kill Saddama.  People liked Reagan better.  I'm going to be more like Reagan - there must be some medical students we can rescue somewhere, or some people to free.  "Mr. Bin Hussein, tear down that wall!"

-- That Middle East place needs to be fixed.  It is a cesspool of violent and fanatical America-hating crackpots - all the way from Egypt to Whateveristan.  AIPAC is always bugging me to take care of it, and so are Dick and the oil guys.  It's time to clean out the stables.

-- After we demolish Iraq, I can give all my friends jobs in the reconstruction.  The oil will flow freely; the price will drop; the construction opportunities will abound; we'll be able to buy any weapons systems we need - they'll love me.  And the campaign donations in 2004 will be unprecedented.  I'll be President forever!

We also have to remember that in 2002 the country was gripped by a xenophobic and jingoistic war fever.  There was a tremendous national impulse for war.  The reason it was so ridiculously easy to "sell" the war is that most Americans did not need to be sold.  They just wanted to attack something.  They especially wanted to kill a bunch of Arabs - or "camel jockeys" or "sand niggers" or "ragheads" or one of the other colorful terms that could be heard up and down the AM radio dial in those days.  It was "those people" after all who had attacked us.  The media was already investing millions sending people into the theater, and training and equipping them.  They were working out the embedding arrangements with the Pentagon.  There was no way they were going to pull their people out without getting their war - that would be throwing money down the drain.  The popular US attitude toward the UN charade was "C'mon...what is all this UN crap?!  Let's get on with it!

>What brought this new calculus home to Bush were reports just weeks after 9/11 that another attack, this time using radiological or possibly even nuclear weapons, was in the offing  <

>"Clearly . . . the sense of urgency has gone up," said a senior government policymaker on nuclear, biological and chemical terror. Another high-ranking official said, "The more you gather information, the more our concerns increased about al Qaeda's focus on weapons of mass destruction of all kinds."<

>believes that al Qaeda could already control a stolen Soviet-era tactical nuclear warhead or enough weapons-grade material to fashion a functioning, if less efficient, atomic bomb.<

Your three points are far from irrational, however, I think that you left out an important bit of context.

Back in 2000, back before 9-11, back before the day when  our history and future were supposedly changed (and, though I'm a New Yorker and an America and recognize the signifigcance of 9-11, I don't see it as necessarily history-changing or future-changing, but see both of those results as decisions we made with consequences we now deal with) Bush campaigned for President as a near isolationist.  Apologies, by the way, for my long and jarring parenthetical and for this long and jarring apology.

Bush campaigned as an isolationist and, even if with a lot of help from the Supreme Court, won the presidency as an isolationist, without a mandate but despite the controversey, with popular support within rounding error margin of 50%.  Think back to then, even as a Democrat, and you have to remember that, if you were asked if, 6 years later, we'd be occupying two countries at once and dealing with a majoy insurgency against out presence in Iraq and, whether you're right or left, love Bush or hate him, I bet you would have said "not possible."

Did 9-11 change things?

Sure.  But it also revealed things.

In terms of Iraq and your first two points... the right had been planning to overthrow Saddam and to remake that country for years.  Hell, the right criticized Bush's father for not doing so a decade before.  So, one could take your point 1 at face value, say that state sponsors or terrorism, or suspected state sponsors of terrorism, had become legitimate targets, and leave it at that.  Left at that, I wouldn't necessarily disagree.  However, it was not left at that, in context.  Was 9-11 an event that changed policies?  Sure.  But it was also an event that created an opening for a lot of right wing policy makers who had craved another Iraq war during nearly a decade during which an event like 9-11 was unthinkable, or a nightmare fantasy, to pundits on both sides of the politcal debate.  Seriously, did 9-11 change things, or just create some politically viable opportunities for people who had, before then, strongly held views that were so outside of the mainstream that Colin Powell, who led the first Gulf War, had dismissed them?

As for your third point, which you call "our need for lucrative targets" but describe as our need to strike some terror and to make an example out of any conceivable threat to the US... well, again, I'm convinced you're smart and I buy your logic, but... who have been the real threats to the US since 2000?  Our newfoun allies in Pakistan nuclearized in violation of international treaties.  Our trading partners in India have done the same.  But at least both wanted and developed their nukes out of fear from each other, rather than us.  Iran wanted nukes and almost got them.  But they wanted them in order to deter Iraq, lest the sanctions be lifted.  Iraq, according to CIA agent Charles Duelfer's report, wanted nukes too.  But not to use against the US.  They wanted them in order to deal with... Iran.  China, so nuclearized that they could vaporize the US (and, of course, vivce versa and MAD again, but this time, more in our favor) is another favored trading partner.  North Korea wanted them and at least secretly leaked the notion of hitting Hawaii.   So... countries are going nuclear, which shouldn't suprise us, since we're nuclear and since it's paid off for us.  But... Iraq?  For one thing, they weren't developing WMD except in the fantasties of their government ministers.  For another thing, even if those fantasies were fulfilled, Iran was more their target than us.  For yet another, even if we were their target, they couldn't pull it off.  So, of all the dangerous counties I've droaned on about here... we chose Iraq?  Come on.

I know that you're trying to explain, rather than justify, what's happened.  But, to me, an honest explanation should read more like a true failure of judgment, for idealogical reasons that had nothing to do with the facts of the world, than an honest mistake.  it was there side, after all, who coined the term "reality based," and who used it as an insult. 

 "First, the 9/11 attacks changed his -- as well as many other people's -- risk calculus.  Living with an Iraq ruled by a brutal dictator with evident appetite for nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction may have been tolerable before the twin towers were brought down, it wasn't acceptable to Bush after that horrendous attack. "

I do not buy this at all. There were strong indications that emerged from Clarke, and the former Treasury Secretary that BushCheney decided to take over Iraq BEFORE 9/11. In fact, it seems to be the only way to understand the way the US prosecuted the Afghan war that the decision to invade Iraq was already fixed.

   Failure of judgement is a good explanation, but I think you have to consider the possibility that Bush is actually trying to hurt the country.  How could a mole do a better job? 

Baloney is right!

Unfortunately, Ivo isn't interested in understand why Bush went to war, he's only interested in projecting why Ivo Daalder might want to go to war.   He insists upon coming up with a "rational" explanation for what was clearly a non-rational act on Bush's part.

The DC think tank intellectuals seem to be compelled to come up with excuses and explanations for Bush's behavior in order to keep themselves in business.   But the only real explanation for Bush's actions is that Bush wanted to go to war because Bush wanted to go to war.   It was a completely insane decision, and its execution reflects the complete insanity of the original decision.