Ever notice how schizophrenic our US foreign policy is? Like a bad politician, we were always "for that dictator before we were against him"! It's not like our foreign policy is "evil" or the product of bad intent though - the United States has always been well-intentioned enough when it comes to our dealings with other nations. It's just that we really don't know enough about what we're doing. There always seem to be a slew of unintended consequences to our foreign entanglements (of course the same can be said for all manner of central planning!)
Take Iraq for instance... We went there to eradicate Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" and to stop him from "handing them over to Al Qaeda". Then, when it turned out that neither of those reasons were valid, we changed it to a Wilsonian "spreading of democracy". All of those things are well intentioned and noble on their face, but unfortunately, like every big government intervention into volatile areas, reaped all manner of unplanned consequences (more oil contracts for China and more dead Iraqi Christians to name just two.)
And, have you ever noticed how every time we slap sanctions on a country, Russia and China step in and start trading with that country? Is it because Russia and China are our sworn enemies? Or is because they are smart enough to recognize large untapped markets when they see them? I have to think it's the latter. Of course this leaves all the "experts" scatching their heads and wondering "why do Russia and China always oppose us?" Well DUH!!
In truth, our foreign policy can only be described as---to paraphrase ESPN's Chris Berman---"bumblin', stumblin', foreign policy!"
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