True, but with the War on Terror as it existed before Iraq, the mission was to remove direct threats against the U.S. (al-Qaeda) and capture the leaders responsible for 9/11. We're further from that goal than ever before right now.

Iraq is an irrelevant sidebar into interfering with Middle Eastern politics. I agree that we can't immediately cut and run from Iraq and just let the country fall apart. But I disagree with the idea that we can somehow force them to adopt Western democracy like communists attempted to force communism on other countries during the Cold War. True democracy comes from internal desire of the people, not because another country invades and tells you that you're now a westernized republic with a market economy. The smarter move, I'd argue, would be to stabilize the area enough for the Iraqi military and police to control it themselves, then leave the Iraqis to find their own path. If you do that a fundamentalist failed state in Iraq, such as the one that existed in Afghanistan, is unlikely due to Iraq's geographic location, demographic makeup and its utility as an oil producer (all very different than Afghanistan's). If the country fragments after stabilization, it will likely do so in a much less disruptive fashion, and if it succeeds the Iraqi people would be more likely to appreciate us for letting them find their own way, rather than forcing our ways upon them. At least we wouldn't be throwing money and troops' lives down an unproductive hole like we are right now.

The biggest threat to us is independent non-nation affiliated players like al-Qaeda anyway, not state-sponsored terror groups.