When the White House of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney began beating the drums for an invasion of Iraq in 2002, the rest of the world was still digesting the horror of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan. If there ever was a coalition of the willing, it was there, diplomatically and militarily, ready to hit at a threat that most Western countries, at least, perceived as a global threat.

Yet in the midst of an invasion into one far-flung land with a clear directive, talk turned to conquering another with a premise as preposterous as it was dangerous. The threat of weapons of mass destruction, missiles 45 minutes from being launched at British targets in the Mediterranean, and the biggest doozy of them all: operational collaboration and actual links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

There was as much connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida as there is between eating bread crusts and having curly hair. Even as CIA intelligence told them otherwise, White House officials and other neo-conservatives pounded the claim, through, until it was eventually debunked years later in declassified documents.

The support from the rest of the world dropped off. The U.S. had to tout lists of countries willing to be publicly associated with any action in Iraq. It didn't include Arab nations. It was not clear where - and with whom - Bush's "with us or against us" policy might end.

Once the search for WMD turned up empty-handed, the administration began recalibrating its reasons for being there. It went from declaring the fall of a tyrant and the establishment of a real Arab democracy in the Middle East, to creating enough of a stable security environment to allow Iraq's splintered politicians to seal their own vacuum.

Finally, ten years on, a global consideration of the war in Iraq reveals these consequences:

- More than a million Iraqi refugees scattered across the world in countries that will accept them.

- More than three million Iraqis displaced within the country, pushed out of their homes and running from sectarian violence.

- A rupture in diplomatic and security alliances across the Middle East that have irrevocably altered the landscape for U.S. and Western strategic interests.

- A rising Iran, emboldened by the death of its main nemesis, now exerts greater influence over a region stretching from the Persian sands all the way to the verdant Levant.

- A loss of face for the U.S. in the Middle East and North Africa and a dent in its image as a military superpower after being undercut and hammered for years by militia groups in the streets of Baghdad, Diyala and Ramadi.

- The Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the Haditha massacre and other breaches of American military protocol paralyzed the administration's efforts to 'win hearts and minds' in Iraq and set back by years efforts to stabilize the region.