Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

We're on the same page but this is pretty much what I was saying - there would have been an opportunistic "hidden" Al Qaeda presence that would not have been able to gain a foothold. The benefits of the invasion for them would have been two-fold: both taking down the regime and leaving the country weakened and in tatters allowing them time to grow, and also providing a massive "stock" of devastated people who are easy to indoctrinate. I always think of it this way... Can you imagine yourself becoming a terrorist hell-bent on the destruction of the west? Probably not. Now imagine your only child has just been killed by shrapnel on their way home, from a US drone attack. Now can you imagine gleefully plotting the downfall of the west? I can. I'd watch the world burn.

Anyway... yeah, that's basically what I was saying. Silent, waiting presence + hundreds of thousands of people with dead family members + man with solid grip on the country taken out of play = instant army. I'm also very skeptical that western military analysts wouldn't have realized this before the start of the war.