The whole “spreading freedom” reason came in after it was 100% clear that there were not and had not been any WMDs. It was in fact merely an excuse to save face. Perhaps some Americans may have convinced themselves that those were our initial intentions, but I doubt you could tell it to any foreigner without provoking uncontrollable laughter.

In WWII many allies knew what Hitler was doing to Jews, Gays, gypsies etc. long before they started the war on them. The US declined to get involved at all until being attacked. But now we look back and would swear that everyone involved went on a virtuous crusade to save the Jews, instead of waiting to attack until Hitler became a threat to us personally.

Mind you, this is not unique to any one country, not by a long shot. Spain laughably liked to pretend that it was only colonizing the Americas to spread Christianity, rather than to, say, pillage natural resources.

Countries usually will only go to war when they stand to gain or at least when the consequences of not doing so are worse. In a sense this is as it should be, since war should not be declared lightly and a country has a responsibility to it's armed forces and regular citizens to not put them at risk for no reason.

Of course, there are exceptions. Intervention in Africa would be a notable one. It's also true that most western countries have become much better about wars generally. It's no longer considered acceptable to go to war, kill as many people as you possibly can, and then leave the country burning. As badly done as it has been, it's commendable that the US at least tries to rebuild some of what it knocked down in Iraq.

Certainly I see the upside of overthrowing an evil dictator, but I simply don't see that this was the primary motivation for Iraq. We could land in Burma tomorrow and hand the people back their country in 2 months (assuming we weren't already on two fronts). These are a people who are hungering for Democracy, have cried out for help and are under the heel of vicious dictators. That would be a true crusade.

Yes, in the case of the neo-cons (who disappeared after 2006). They in their own way were as unrealistic as well as high- and good-minded as Jimmy Carter was.

When the current administration took office in Jan 2000, they already had a foreign policy model that was built around the ideology of “spread democracy for the good of the US”. It wasn't developed as a slogan in hindsight for rallying the populace.

He was a destabilizing presence in the region and might well have continued to threaten Israel.

You're kidding? right?

If there is a destabilizing country in the Middle East, it is Israel. It has been one of the primary cause of Middle Eastern Wars for the last fifty years, and the primary driver of Terrorism.

As far as morality goes, I am sure that our support of Saudi Arabia ( A remnant of the Middle Ages) is not driven by our sense of morality, but by our love of OIL, our overthrowing the Mossadeq Government is not driven by our sense of morality, but by our love of MONEY.

Morality is the bullshit we use to sell pointless wars, coups and the raping and pillaging of defenseless countries to the gullible suckers who get to vote every four years.