The rise of the Soviet Union as a global contender after WWII, made it difficult for the US to always resort to war as a first choice, fearing an open confrontation with the pro-Soviet bloc and possibly a nuclear war. It was Henry Kissinger that helped navigate America's imperial interests at the time, resorting to most underhanded and, often, criminal tactics to achieve his goals.
But the demise of the USSR has opened up US appetite for global hegemony like never before. The US's interventionist strategy became most dominant throughout the 1990s, to the present time. If Republican or Democratic administrations differed in any way, it was largely in rhetoric, not action. Whereas Republicans justified their interventions based on pre-emptive doctrines, Democrats referenced humanitarian interventionism. Both were equally deadly and, combined, destabilized the Middle East beyond repair.
The Presidency of Obama is hardly a significant departure from the norm, although his doctrine -- "leading from behind," at times and aerial bombardment as opposed to "boots on the ground" and so on -- is mostly compelled by circumstances and not in the least a departure from the policies of his predecessors.
While US administrations change their tactics, infuse their doctrines and adapt to various political conditions, wherever they intervene in the world, massive, complex disasters follow.
Clinton might have come, saw and Gaddafi was brutally murdered, but the country has also descended into a "state of nature" type of chaos, where extreme violence meted out by militant brutes and managed by western-backed politicians, have taken reign.
Similar fates have been suffered by Iraq, Yemen and Syria -- one sanctioned, invaded and occupied, another served as a war front for the US war on al-Qaeda, the third was groomed for intervention many years ago, in publicly available documents prepared by pro-Israel American neoconservative organizations.
Thus, it is essential that we understand such historical contexts before, once more, delving into impractical political feuds that, ultimately, validate the very US political establishment which, whether led by Republicans or Democrats, have wrought unmitigated harm to the Middle East, instability and incalculable deaths.
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