We study analytically the asymptotics of the upper bound on energy dissipation for the two-dimensional plane Couette flow considered numerically in Part 1 of this work, in order to identify the mechanisms underlying the variational approach. With the help of shape functions that specify the variational profiles either in the interior or in the boundary layers, it becomes possible to quantitatively explain all numerically observed features, from the occurrence of two branches of minimizing wavenumbers to the asymptotic parameter scaling with the Reynolds number. In addition, we derive a new variational principle for the asymptotic bound on the dissipation rate. The analysis of this principle reveals that the best possible bound can only be attained if the variational profiles allow the shape of the boundary layers to change with increasing Reynolds number.