Iraq is an incredibly important strategic area that's why!! Are people really that naive and small minded???? What a strange, stupid world it would be if our best and brightest directed the scarce resources of the most powerful nations towards changing conditions in the unimportant areas of the world. The US only has so much capability. It only makes sense to spend American taxpayers dollars in endeavors that will benefit them in the long run. This can mean spending dollars in ventures that will result in long term global stability that is in the interests of US national security. Global stability also is good for the global economy, which in turn is good for the AMERICAN economy. A good global economy is good for preventing extremism and fanaticism as people who are happy and working hard don't have time to sit around contemplating god and how he wants to kill every "infidel".