Ken,
Wishful thinking on your part I believe. (And hope is not a plan
)
America going to war (and not just sending in a few troops a la Grenada or Panama as an exercise of testosterone release) is, IMHO, the national equivalent of a domestic "crime of passion." We knee jerk and send the troops off somewhere because we react very much as a husband would should he come home and found the missus in bed with another man--no rational thought involved, purely a visceral reaction.
The low level troop commitments have less emotional motivation, but it is still present to some degree(as the "testosterone release" phrasing in my description above indicates).
If you want strong, "take charge"national leadership, I suspect you have to accept the propensity for irrational responses to major provocations as well.
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