We won’t and shouldn’t do what would be required to defeat them.
Unlike the Roman empire we aren’t willing to commit genocide to bend the survivors to our will.
We had our fill of brutal conquest on our own continent.
America should never have gone abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
Going there in the first place was debatable after 9/11, staying there and going into Iraq was just plain stupid.
“Fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” was a lie, we’ve been radicalizing them over there and importing them over here, it’s time we brought our forces home and dealt with our problems here.
You are generally right. If not for the ‘export of democracy’ all of them couldn’t care less about US. Now combine it with open borders and voila.