Precedent

[kandrathe]

I guess I would be content and view this war successful if the resulting regime in Iraq is civil, will try to act as a responsible member of the world community, and is only just hostile to the US, just as most of the rest of the Arabs states are (publicly that is).

<rant>
But I must say that I'm a little tired of America being put between the rock and the hard pavement. We are blamed for supporting Isreal, but we never get credit for supporting Turkey, Saudi Arabia (and the surrounds), Jordan, Egypt and countless other nations. We are called upon constantly (for over 30 years) to act as intermediaries between the Arab states and Israel, but anytime we make progress some extremists on either side muck it up, and then our embassies, buildings, and peoples get bombed and destroyed. Our soldiers have stood between North and South Koreans for 50 years, and the thanks we get are to have the problem of North Korean agression also dumped into our laps. The penchant for most Americans is *isolationism*, and to let Europe, the Middle East, or Asia deal with its own problems. The majority of Americans just want to get up in the morning, kiss their kids, go off to work, come home, kiss the spouse, eat some dinner, watch the news, and go to bed. But, everytime we decide to just tune out the constant squabbling around the rest of the world, we get burned. When we try to proactively try to defuse a potential hot spot, we get accused of hegemony. Truely, I hope our next President is a softly spoken accountant.
</rant>