Removing him from the country does take away a longterm problem

In my opinion that is the whole point.
Whatever the excuse presented to the public is, the point is that after the collapse of the USSR there is a huge gap in the world in terms of "control". While at the beginning the US and the West in general seemed to believe that a natural, spontaneous democratization process would take place where dictatorship used to be, unfortunately they were actually proved wrong, and very much so after Sep 11th. What is happening now, I think, is a long-term effort to regain control on those areas which the end of the cold war turned into "lands of nobody", "noboby" being also dictators who can promote/protect terrorism.
Soon after Sep. 11th Bush said a long war had started, and said it would not last less than 10 years. He meant it.
Here I am not saying this is wrong, and I am not saying it is right. I am just saying that a "novo ordo seculorum" is being put into place right now, and it is not going to be quick and easy. How could it be?

My 5 cents...