Given that, of course, the United States is not in a position to nation building and certainly does not have the credibility or fiscal ability to do so. We also play as destructive a role often for every time we play a positive one. With bridges collapsing and schools furloughing in the most historically prosperous parts of America, it’s really hard to make the case that Afghanistan should be our focus when Americans at home can’t make ends meet.

Given that, what is prudent now should not be what is viewed as written in stone permanently. In the 1990s, it was prudent and necessary to take out Milosevic and end a major genocide of Eastern European Muslims. When they have the ability to do so, superpowers should avert disaster. They shouldn’t try to offensively reshape the world, however, and certainly shouldn’t make building up other nations a priority over building their own.

To say what is good, however – I would say that symbolic support of Iranian dissidents would benefit us far more than acting like we’re about to take out that regime or assist Israel in doing so. There are many liberal democrats throughout the Muslim world that could be the natural allies of America if we took a more JFK esque “Ich bin ein Berliner” approach than a “United States Uber Alles” one.

Or maybe this country should keep spending trillions of dollars in the Middle East and central Asia to ensure that things get mired perpetually deeper into what you fear. idk. We don’t have the money to do for much longer anyway. Maybe then the Great Islamlic Dread Armies will engulf us at that time.