It seems incredible that the US leaders did not think that violence could escalate as a result of declaring war on Iraq. I believe they thought of this scenario, and their policy was intentional. Now they can stay in power and continue benefiting from their business interests in the war. I have to quote myself in April 2003 on this one:

I don't think that military action can be effective without large investments in other areas. [...] This is unfortunate, because using military power without similar investments in the healing of the woulds of war will generate new dictators, new terrorist groups, and generate new instability in the world.

Perhaps a winning strategy for U.S. would be to invest half of its military budjet on aiding the poor and the oppressed people of the world. This would constitute about $200 billion (based on U.S. military budget request for Fiscal Year 2003). This aid should be channeled through a neutral agency, such as the United Nations. This way the aid could not be used to strengthen the Western economic hold on these nations. Using the existing UN structures, U.S. could help the less-well-developed countries to build up their education, medical care, and local industry. And I'm not writing about the sweatshops here.

I believe the Western countries have already made their choice, and the world is of their making. In the developing nations and the dictatorships there is hunger, disease, and oppression. In the developed countries there is a high standard of living, and a small possibility of dying in a terrorist action. Perhaps this is a reasonable tradeoff.