Of course we're not. The founding fathers had no insane dreams of becoming "world policemen." We can probably blame Woodrow Wilson for that idea. He, like the man-child currently disgracing the oval office, thought that democracy could be spread and that it would cure all the world's ills. You'd think that "conservatives" would oppose such boondoggles. Pat Buchanan and Lew Rockwell, despite some modest shortcomings, understand this. They are the true conservatives--not the inbred parrots squawking praises to Bush.
Jim,
I don't disagree with your analysis of Saddam, though where it falls between fact and opinion is debatable.
However, my primary issue with all of this goes back decades in history. For 60 years (setting aside for the moment the Barbary pirates or the Spanish-American war), we have inserted ourselves into the national affairs of people around the globe.
Can you make a case that these policies have proven successful enough to continue them for another 60 years, which is essentially what President Bush is asking my generation to do?
That is the reality I face, unlike many of the older Americans. I expect to be engaged in this struggle against the jihadis for my entire life, if the President's view is correct about needing to rebuild middle east culture. (Of course, we've already been doing that for 30 years, with limited success and much failure, most recently illustrated by Sharon's abandonment of Gaza...)
I'm just not sure that nation rebuilding can work in these places. Comparing the Sunnis and Shias in Iraq to the Japanese people is not valid. Nor is a Hitler/Saddam comparison, as we didn't directly grease the skids for Hitler to assume control (though we our post WWI deals did lead to Hitler and Stalin...)
Also, look at Carter's disastrous efforts to remake the Middle East. We would be better off today if our government in the 70's had restrained itself to allowing foreign countries the right of self-determination that we demand for ourselves.
Insanity = repeating a behavior and expecting a different result. Isn't our foreign policy with regards to the Middle East insane, by this definition? Overall, I am just not sure that we are all that much better off where we are today than where we might be having not inserted ourselves into one country after another for the past half century.