Scott Rasmussen is on the job:

Just 17% of voters believe the U.S. would be safer today if we had avoided the War with Iraq and left Saddam Hussein in power. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 47% take the opposite view and say that such a strategy would have made life in the U.S. more dangerous. Thirty-percent (30%) think it would be about the same either way.

What does it mean? Most Americans have a realistic understanding of what transpires with the destruction of a dictatorship, only a few don't, and a goodly number aren't sure yet. It's obvious to me that if more Americans knew the trials and tribulations of democratization — like the inevitable perils, sorrows, setbacks and triumphs of Japan and Germany — they'd have more faith. If they understood that the one mistake America truly did make was to overestimate the humanity of its authoritarian enemies, they would pardon it; for that mistake is the virtuous flaw of peaceful people. As it is, those uncertain must be convinced that liberating Iraq was right.