The reality of Saddam Hussein and the blunder of the Iraq War.
There were literally dozens of men who were underlings of Hussein who could have easily maintained the status quo. Now many of these underlings are working with ISIL because they understand how to rule with brutality. The only reason they are working with ISIL is because the Baath Party became illegal after the overthrow of Hussein by our invasion of Iraq.
If nothing else, the US has proven time and again we have great intelligence operative capabilities whereby we can remove one brutal dictator in a third world nation and replace them with another brutal dictator who will be more friendly to us. We've done this on numerous occasions.
We could ahve easily used a covert operation to take out Hussein and his sons while propping up one of the people now engaged with ISIL who would have immediately denounced everything Saddam Hussein did while bowing and scraping to American whims begging us to ally with them.
The paper tiger would have been taken out only to be replaced by another paper tiger more acquiescent to our needs. If they start moving away from us, we could do it again.
Hussein was never a direct threat. We had a moron in charge who just had to prove he could finish the job his daddy never finished in his eyes.