But on #2, the Saddam bit (not the Saudi bit, on which I agree with you). For all his faults and pathologies, Saddam was not a fundamentalist and he didn't engage in terrorism against the West. He was a political animal primarily interested in self-preservation. He was someone you could negotiate with and contain, which is what we'd done before we chose to force the issue, which a decade later has led us to here.
With ISIS, these guys dream of inflicting harm on the West. The hard core of them are global jihadis who showed up for the fight, and will keep fighting, and they'd rather die than lose at some bargaining table. If we leave Saddam alone, he'd have kept to himself. If we leave these guys alone, they'll eventually launch the next 9/11, while making life Hell on a whole lot of other people in the meantime. They may not be an existential threat to our union, but they could drag us into some dark places. Better to fight them on their turf (while reminding mainstream Islam that we can be the good guys) than on ours.
