Not a Boffin, Gulf War One was allowed under the terms of a UN Resolution, to just LIBERATE Kuwait, not to invade and occupy Iraq. Remember coalition forces stopped after the attacks on the road to Basra, and sorted out a ceasefire as Saddam was aware that the coalition could have keep going all the way to Baghdad. Gulf War Two was started on a basis of spin lies and deception by avaricious mendacious politicians and against the sprit of the UN.
To return to the main point, some countries with such disparate views and religions need to foot on the population to maintain peace. Lose that and the country descends into the situation which we now see in Libya, Syria and Iraq, of people slaughtering each other and poor ill educated people being manoeuvred and manipulated by both politicans and religious zealots for their own ends.