Excellent points you bring up about how America has fallen short in infrastructure, education, etc., etc.
But it is wrong to infer that the Iraq War is why these problems persist. That's simply partisan rhetoric. Those problems were there before Bush and the Republicans took the reigns.
Prior to that, Democrats had continuous control of Congress for 40 years, spent trillions of dollars, and those problems only got worse.
Take Louisiana as an example. Democrats have had an absolute monopoly on political power there for decades. In that time, billions of federal tax dollars went to New Orleans, supposedly earmarked to fix the levees. Where did all the money go? Louisiana policy makers set the stage for the Katrina disaster in New Orleans long before Bush got us into Iraq.

We are all war weary. Harping on General Petraeus' projection of America being in Iraq for another ten years ignores how long Americans have had to be stationed as peacekeepers in other war zones. We've been in Germany and the Philipines sixty years and South Korea for fifty. It should be noted that those wars, and Vietnam included, were begun by Democrat presidents.
Bush's War appears- for now- to have been a futile effort resulting in nothing other than chaos and pointless slaughter.Time will tell. Eventually, Bush may one day be regarded as the Leonidis of his times.
History may look more kindly on Bush's actions than on his Democratic predecessor's lack of action. President Bill Clinton did NOT send American troops to stop the genocide in the Rwanda in the 1990's. Many believe that if Clinton had sent troops, America would have prevented what is now known to have been the worst civilian massacre in modern history.