The war in Iraq

Before the war started I used to predict that we'll win the war and then start wondering what exactly did we win. Now the war has pretty much been won. So what did we win there?

Saddam is gone, right. Democracy is coming to Iraq. The problem with establishment of democracy in other countries is that how do you know they are going to vote for the right people (meaning: desirable from our point of view)? And if they aren't, why should we bother establishing their democracy for them?

So who are Iraqis going to vote for? They have a slight Shia majority - are they going to establish a lovely fundamentalist Shia republic like Iran, and are my tax dollars going to pay for that?

Oops, probably shouldn't talk about my tax dollars, what with foreign earned income deduction and all... But anyway...

Or will Sunnis manage to establish a fundamentalist Sunni republic after all? Eek, does not sound good either.
Saddam, although undoubtedly a murderer and an evil dictator, tended to keep religious fundamentalists in check. Can we do it better?

These are not rhetorical questions, I seriously don't know. Will the new Iraqi government be better than Saddam, will they keep fundamentalists in check better than Saddam, will they support terrorists less than Saddam?

There is a certain benefit in showing the world that it's quite possible to kick the ass of even a fairly large and fairly militarized Arab country, but that kind of thing tends to be quickly forgotten and you can't keep kicking their ass all the time just to remind them. And Murr-Murr Qaddafi being everybody's friend now is also sort of a benefit. Still I am not sure whether benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Did anyone even get a decent amount of oil out of the whole thing?