"counterfactual universes are pointless" only if the front end of your brain doesn't work. If a house burns down, and I point out that the house would still be there if it hadn't burned down, is that a "fantasy," or simple analysis of an obvious alternative? Iran's nuclear program preceded 9/11, and Saddam was champing at the bit to get his own working again. I cannot come up with a credible scenario that has Saddam taking up knitting while Iran refines uranium. You can come up with a scenario where Saddam attempts to stop it. Let me know how that works out.

The alternative that is constantly implied by the anti-Iraq people is that we would have been able to put enough troops into Afghanistan to effectively generate the kind of democratic regime change in a sectarian society that we are trying to create in Iraq, without the same problems. Think that through a while.

A side issue: Describe how the number of troops and equipment it would take to effectively accomplish the Afghanistan mission would NOT tie up our military so that other nations could not effectively be dealt with.

A few more points:

There IS no "credible threat of military power" when dealing with megalomaniac lunatics. We threatened the HELL out of Iraq prior to the invasion, including surrounding the damn nation with firepower. What did it buy us? What do you think the response of the dictator of North Korea would be towards troops gathering on his border?

You're going to have a hard time convincing me that if we were not in Iraq, but had just lost our 2,000th man in Afghanistan, that you would still be supporting the war.

I remember the end of 2001 in Afghanistan, with our media touting civilian casualties, and predicting awful failure. This is just one example of what was going on. There are plenty more.

"The Left would be all gung-ho for Afghanistan" is a flat-out lie. So far only Bowser here is honest enough to have been consistent on this.