My take is that the US political class was operating on the correct belief that their violence would lead to an event that would give them the excuse they needed to launch USAPATRIOT and the GWOT, or something like it. I guess you could compare it to, idk, flooding of a drained swamp. You know that a swamp will flood next time there’s a big rain upstream. You don’t have to destroy the dikes. You just wait for your moment. Like a predator employing an ambush hunting strategy. They know prey will come along and they’re content to wait.
Analyzing the occupation and invasion is hard for me. If you assume their goal was to remove Saddam and create a stable regional “democratic” ally under US hegemony they clearly fucked up and were totally incompetent. If you assume their goal was to get filthy stinking rich, prop up the MIC, expand the US police state, and they didn’t really give a shit about Iraq or about the US military, then they succeeded spectacularly. Idk how much of each is true.