About this: I myself predicted that there would be a McFly effect, because most of the day-to-day republicans I meet emphasise accountability, honesty and integrity in politics. I was wrong, folks are bending their political perspectives like pretzels in order to avoid throwing in the towel on this war and on Bush.</b

My theory is that attacking Iraq and removing Saddam is a thing that conservatives generally think was a good and sufficient goal to attain regardless of WMDs. They did then, and they still do. The WMD scare and the al Queda scare were just tools to get the rest of us to come along. The true believers never required these scares to be true to support the war.

Why does a true believer think the war is justified? A lot of strange (to me) possibilities come to mind: Scaring the shit out of Islamic countries as an aid to (or replacement for) diplomacy. The need to hit somebody because of the 9/11 attacks. The need to pay Saddam for any nose-thumbing he may have done since GWI. The various predictions that posit that our problems with the Islamic world will end if we replaced the govt of Iraq with a stable democracy. Etc.

It's mainly reptile-brain (fight-or-flight, anger/fear-based) logic, but that's my best guess at motivations.

Note to war-supporters: this is analysis, not a slam. If you find it insulting, I apologize, but it's not intended as an insult.