[ZenGum]

About the motivation for invading Iraq, have you ever seen a Chinese tug-of-war?
There are four individuals, each pulling individually toward one of the four points of the compass. That is, all four are pulling in different directions. They are connected by a long rope going around all four in a big square. Each person has a chair about 5 feet beyond their reach from the starting point, which they try to reach and sit on.
It often happens that the group as a whole will move under the influence of TWO pullers, and thus move, eg, north-east, even though nobody was pulling north-east.
This is my favorite metaphor for how many political decisions get made. One lobby group wants to have a war but doesn't care where. Someone else wants to pressure Iraq but doesn't want a war. The result is a war against Iraq.
Multiply the complexity by about a hundred and that's about what happens.