Thomas P. M. Barnett, author of the Pentagon’s New Map makes sense of our Iraq strategy:

The only way America can truly achieve strategic security in the age of globalization is by destroying disconnectedness. We fight fire with fire. Al Qaeda, whose true grievances lie wholly within the Persian Gulf, tried to destroy the Core?s connectedness on 9/11 by triggering what I call a system perturbation that would throw our rules into flux. Its hope was to shock America and the West into abandoning the Gulf region first militarily, then politically, and finally economically. Al Qaeda hoped to detoxify the region?s societies through disconnectedness.
But the president decided correctly to fight back by trying to destroy disconnectedness in the Gulf region. We seek to do unto al Qaeda as it did unto us: trigger a system perturbation that will send all the region?s rule sets into flux. Saddam Hussein?s outlaw regime was dangerously disconnected from the globalizing world?from our rule sets, our norms, and all the ties that bind the Core together in mutually assured dependence.