Um. You're the one who brought up the completely off-topic subject of Bush's legacy.
And then you pulled a Riley by retreating to the supposedly safe polemical ground of Iraq-war-bad.
Well, I don't hold a degree in polytactics, but I did stay at a holiday inn somewhere near FrontSight once, so I think I've got a handle on this one. The logic that you missed was this: If the President is not to interfere in such issues in America, what kind of sense does it make to make him solely responsible for those issues in other countries? Suddenly the basic political principles of government by consent, federalism, and competence just become meaningless when America invades another country?
Of course they don't-good government here is good government elsewhere, as many of the founding fathers understood, being the enlightenment era universalists that they were.
Uh. Yeah. If Iraq had been doing that whole enlightenment thing, we wouldn't be there. And if we hadn't taken on the task of rebuilding Iraq, you would most certainly be whining about that, too.
And, no, I'm not being inconsistent or hypocritical. I doubt the founders were so naive as to think that toppling dictators was all that was required for freedom to flourish. In fact, I think they knew that very well, from experience.
From what I know of political science, as opposed to polytactics, the Iraqis were/are a bit lacking on basic foundations that make a free state possible. Little things like rights, the rule of law, competitive elections, "civil society" (as the political scientists put it), etc.
So, yeah, we're imposing democracy and freedom on them, in hopes they will no longer be such a threat to us and to the region. And that makes perfect sense. When you can wrap your head around that, we might get somewhere.