A little historical correction from someone who was in the thick of it (I was an adult in NYC in those days): While the war in Iraq and the one in Afghanistan were linked inasmuch as both were started under George W. Bush, the Iraq war wasn't a response to or consequence of 9/11. Rather, it was the invasion of Afghanistan, where the Taliban had long been giving safe haven to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, that resulted from the 9/11 attack. The Iraq war started a couple of years later, and was kind of an "Act II" to the first Gulf War, when George Herbert Walker Bush (W's father) was President. The first Gulf War was a response to Saddam Hussein's attempted annexation of Kuwait. At the end of that war, the US and its allies decided not to push through to Baghdad or depose Hussein, perhaps because their intelligence forewarned of the chaos that might ensue in the subsequent power vacuum. Unfortunately, "W" didn't have that kind of intelligence. He wanted to, in his view, finish what his father had started twelve years earlier. Accusations were made that Hussein had developed "weapons of mass destruction" (no such weapons were ever found) and that was used as the rationale for the invasion. (Bush also pointed out that Hussein had used gas weapons domestically against the Kurds, which was true. Left out of that discussion was the fact that the gas weapons had been provided by the US years earlier for Hussein's war against Iran in the early 1980s, a war in which over 1 million people died. Hussein was "our guy" that time.) What eventually ensued from the invasion of Iraq and the deposition of Hussein ... Iranian domination of Iraq, the rise of ISIS, etc ... were the outcomes that the first George Bush was hoping to avoid. But none of that was a consequence of 9/11. A lot of people think the outcome in Afghanistan might have been better had W not become distracted by Iraq and spread US resources too thin. Parenthetically, Al Qaeda (9/11) and ISIS (Iraqi Sunni insurgency) don't even get along. They kind of loathe each other, and both of them hate the Iranians.
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A little historical correction from someone who was in the thick of it (I was an adult in NYC in those days):
While the war in Iraq and the one in Afghanistan were linked inasmuch as both were started under George W. Bush, the Iraq war wasn't a response to or consequence of 9/11. Rather, it was the invasion of Afghanistan, where the Taliban had long been giving safe haven to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, that resulted from the 9/11 attack.
The Iraq war started a couple of years later, and was kind of an "Act II" to the first Gulf War, when George Herbert Walker Bush (W's father) was President. The first Gulf War was a response to Saddam Hussein's attempted annexation of Kuwait. At the end of that war, the US and its allies decided not to push through to Baghdad or depose Hussein, perhaps because their intelligence forewarned of the chaos that might ensue in the subsequent power vacuum.
Unfortunately, "W" didn't have that kind of intelligence. He wanted to, in his view, finish what his father had started twelve years earlier. Accusations were made that Hussein had developed "weapons of mass destruction" (no such weapons were ever found) and that was used as the rationale for the invasion. (Bush also pointed out that Hussein had used gas weapons domestically against the Kurds, which was true. Left out of that discussion was the fact that the gas weapons had been provided by the US years earlier for Hussein's war against Iran in the early 1980s, a war in which over 1 million people died. Hussein was "our guy" that time.)
What eventually ensued from the invasion of Iraq and the deposition of Hussein ... Iranian domination of Iraq, the rise of ISIS, etc ... were the outcomes that the first George Bush was hoping to avoid. But none of that was a consequence of 9/11. A lot of people think the outcome in Afghanistan might have been better had W not become distracted by Iraq and spread US resources too thin.
Parenthetically, Al Qaeda (9/11) and ISIS (Iraqi Sunni insurgency) don't even get along. They kind of loathe each other, and both of them hate the Iranians.