You get these right-wingers claiming that the American demonstration of "resolve" is a good consequence of the Iraq War, the idea apparently being that we'll be better able to intimidate bad countries into changing their ways. If we actually were getting these benefits, I'd be impressed -- there's plenty of ways I'd want to make North Korea and Iran change their behavior. But look what's actually happened. North Korea looks to be test-launching long-range missiles, breaking a moratorium on launches that started in 1999, and Iran has moved ahead with its nuclear program. There's still plenty of hope for diplomacy in Iran's case, but we're in a much worse bargaining position than we were in three years ago.
Rather than frightening other countries into knuckling under, we scared them into improving their nuclear defenses against future American aggression, making the world a much more dangerous place. Just one more reason to avoid wanton invasions.
