You have a point here, Iraq should not have been invaded, and Saddam Hussein should have been allowed to massacre his own people, but now it is too late, if the US pulls out, Iran will fill in the gap. It would be the same in Asia, if the US pulls out, China will walk in.
Not our problem. This is the 21st century, we can strike any country at any time right from here. The concept of military allies is outdated, we don't need allies, only trade partners. Read my other reply, not saying we can never help anyone again, but the way we decide who to help, how much help, and how we help needs to drastically change.
You are right that it is all about trade partners. But if an army provides protection for a country, for example, Taiwan, that country should repay that protection in trading agreements. Another problem is that if China gets influence around the World, it is inevitable that their cultural and economical and political system will spread around the World too.
The key is deciding what countries are worthwhile to help and which ones are not. And invading Iraq was not worthwhile, Syria was probably also not worthwhile.
Well, Desert Storm was somewhat justified, the dude did invade Kuwait and was planning on cornering the oil market, it was 2 birds with one stone: we help Kuwait, we secure our dependency/access to all that petroleum.
Desert Shield was just a pissing contest. Did Saddam have WMD? Absolutely, of course he did. Was any of it a danger to us? Meh, probably not. They all have that shit over there, most can't afford nukes, it's the best they can do, or they have the financial ability but not globalist permission. Hans Blix's report even reported sarin over there, just not in illegal quantities.. Uh ok then Hans. Then all the convoy movements from sites that were to be soon inspected. So yeah, he might have not been terribly innocent, but the whole trying to tie him to 9/11 and shit was a stretch, and where we went too far
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