just as WWII was bigger than Pearl Harbor. Saddam was actively sponsoring terrorists, such as paying blood money to the families of suicide bombers in Israel. It doesn't matter if those 19 men were from Iraq or not. It matters that one more state sponsor of international terrorism is no longer in power, especially one that had access to 10% of the world's known oil reserves and corrupt politicians in the UN, France, Germany, Russia, etc. who were actively working to keep him in power. It helps that another terror sponsor in Libya has seen the error of his ways. It isn't the end by any means, but it's a good start.

Back to the WWII analogy, even though Germany did declare war on the US (one of Hitler's dumbest moves), America's passion in late 1941 was to go after the Japanese to avenge Pearl Harbor. However, the Germany First strategy meant that the Pacific War got the short end of personnel and equipment priorities. The leadership saw where the bigger threat was and went after it even though it wasn't the popular thing to do at the time.