We know the "Arab Street", it needs to be punished.

People like Osama bin Ladin did not come out of a vacuum. This is a resurgent Islam. Remember that Islam came out of the desert and conquered the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of southern Europe before the First Crusade got started.

Oil? Now that we control the oil in Iraq, we now have some leverage on the oil shieks. We can hurt their profits by flooding the market with cheap oil. It's like grabbing them by the short hairs.

Another advantage is that all the Islamic religious fanatics are now coming into Iraq for Jihad. That means we get an opportunity to kill these guys.

The war is on. You may want to cut and run, but 911 should have shown you that the war will come to you. Better that we fight these guys on their homelands rather than our homelands.