What if Iraq never happened?

As other regimes laugh (i.e. the junta in Burma) when the US talks about the evils of torture, secret prisons, etc one has to wonder what would have happened if Iraq never happened. While Saddam probably would still be in power: it's pretty clear from examples such as Libya and even North Korea that you can keep the WMD threat at bay essentially indefinitely (I know NK has nukes now but that was because we dropped the agreed framework thinking that Talking Loudly while Carrying a Small Stick is effective and since then we have had to essentially to go backwards in time by approving a deal that isn't as good as the Clinton deal).

In addition, the fear factor of American Military Power with the success of the 1st Gulf War and Afgan war would have been incredible. The threat of force we forget at times is as powerful as actual force used. Add to the power of the US arms the moral authority we would have had (Defeating the Taliban/Al Queda, stopping Genocide in Bosnia) and the US could have been possibly a much more powerful influence in areas of the world such as Sudan and Burma.

On the other hand I fear without the failure of Iraq, George Bush would have had an even more powerful hand in domestic policy that would have been disastrous. How much fuss would really
have been put up against illegal domestic wiretapping, our own torture policie, gay bashing, etc w/o the monkey of Iraq on Bush's back? In the end, knowing how dismal this administration has been on actually planning for the future they probably would have made some disastrous mistake. After all, China has been on the neocon lineup for awhile