Lowkey, could invading iraq have been a prelude to this move away from friendliness with the house of saud? We all know they were not happy about it at all and have been doing their best to sabotage Shia rule there. If, let's say, CIA discovered evidence during that time that they were funding 9/11 terrorists, we'd have no direct play against them because they'd cut us off from oil and our economy would be destroyed. Instead, we play the long game in gradually improving relations with iran, developing our own natural resources and baiting them into a situation where they would have to support multiple proxy wars in the middle east through mercenary fighters. Obviously admitting any of this into the public is an untenable solution, so they had to come up with some outlandish stories about weapons of mass destruction...
Just a thought. Was never able to figure out the real motivation for iraq, as we didn't gain anything tangible from the entire operation