Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
Perhaps I am misreading history but I don't see fights to effect regime change followed by an attempt to alter the character of the next government as an aberration.
The history IMO is unsettled but that is certainly one valid reading of it. A question is whether it is not an aberration but merely a current fad. R2P for example, has about as many detractors as it does supporters and it is possible for that meddlesome wind to shift...
It is more palatable to a liberal mindset to justify war as a quasi-religious fight to spread "democracy" (by which they really mean individual liberties or more correctly individual rights like women's rights).
A less arguable assertion -- but one which, to say the least, has a proven track record of less than stellar success. The cracks in the theory are starting to show and grow.
It is, for better or worse, the future.
Perhaps -- or we could get a bit smarter. No one has done that at all well and the US due to its political system performs more poorly than most. That "liberal mindset" that assumes it knows what is best -- usually for others but not the set mind's self -- is steadily working itself into a state of disrepute. the question is how quickly that fad is replaced by a return to pragmatism. We'll have to wait and see.