"The invasion of Iraq was always about protecting the illegally formed nation of Israel."
Uhhh what exactly is your definition of "legal"???
Israel was formed by a resolution of the United Nations in 1947. How is this "illegal"?? In your own mind perhaps?
As for the motives of the Iraq invasion, people do not realize how incredibly important a reliable source of oil is to civilization. The use of oil and other energy sources goes hand in hand with mankind's standard of living almost exactly. Without cheap energy, civilization as we know it WILL END. People that profess that we just need utilize the other energy sources that the big oil companies have been suppressing are talking out of their asses. Our society relies on wealth being available to the majority of society, not just the elite. Any other energy source will be prohibitively expensive and the average consumer will end up spending most of their wealth on essentials like just on keeping warm and using electricity. The economy as we know it will collapse without cheap energy. China is aware of these facts and is already securing as much oil as it can. So the leadership of the United States would be remiss in its duties to the American people if it did not act now to ensure that oil producing nations continue to produce oil as long as possible without the instability of a rogue fanatical leadership that threatens other oil producing nation such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It is simply intelligent, pragmatic long term strategy.