The Iraq fiasco is but one example
There seems to be a great number of Americans who don’t know the difference between FREE ENTERPRISE and DEMOCRACY. To them, both words are intricately woven or even one of the same. I think too that this is one of the reasons that our foreign policy has been so erratic in the past. Those at the helm respond to the needs of the very rich and corporations and if it is expedient, they will tolerate a totally unacceptable regime and even assure it of its survival as long as they can have their interests protected. Again, profits are more important than countries, people or the concept of DEMOCRACY.
Our nation oftentimes finds itself in the wrong side of history and it is all owed to those who make policy and have the reigns of our government…Republicans and Democrats alike have fallen into this way of operating and the 
consequences have been disastrous. One good example of this was the eight years of the Bush administration. President Bush managed to turn all the empathy and solidarity with the American people from most of the world into resentment and hatred after the 9/11 attacks.
Egyptian dictator Mubarak
How did he manage to do that? Arrogance, egocentrism, bullying other nations and worst of all, listening to the very rich and the corporations so that Republicans gave them everything they asked for…and it made no difference if it hurt the people of a foreign nation…as long as it was good for the American corporation or the wealth of privileged individuals.
What has been happening in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East is a contradiction of the Bush foreign policy. The idea that only the democratic process renders a country that is stable and safe therefore in order for us to be safe here at home we must spread democracy into these unwilling countries, not withstanding opposition America was said to find it necessary to invade Iraq…that is once we have gotten the lies about WMDs out of the way and have to find another excuse.
The idea is simple: Invade the country and install a puppet government that will be friendly to American business interests – and I can’t think of a more powerful incentive 
than that of oil. Oil companies want to control the reserves and the extraction of these oil treasures which really belong to the people and not the oil companies.
Some of the collateral damage is obvious: we destroy their infrastructure in order to defeat their army and subjugate its people and then we turn around and spend billions of dollars to re-build. Mind you, those billions are not spent at home here in America where it is so badly needed. But the oil companies must have their protection and their interests enhanced.
The Bush policy didn’t go quite as well as he expected. The war dragged on and the people fought back. A civil war (that is the only thing you can call it) ensued and thousands of our braves lost their lives as well as our treasure so that Exxon-Shell, etc. could have unlimited control of the oil reserves and that would facilitate their price gouging in order to make even bigger profits.
But what is most disturbing is that America has pawned its future in order to benefit these corporations. The national debt is insurmountable and the Treasury Securities is held mostly by other nations…if that doesn’t make America weaker I don’t know what.
Adam Kushner tells it very eloquently:
“Here is a truism: American foreign policy has always been torn between interests and ideals. That dichotomy long predates the popular uprisings roiling Egypt and Tunisia. It animated the Cold War debates over whether we should support democratically elected socialists or Western-aligned autocrats. Policymakers usually settled those disputes by judging what would be most advantageous to the United States, but even when Washington made a noble choice, as when Americans helped push out Filipino kleptocrat Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, things mostly worked out for us in the end. The world is filled with relatively stable nations we once meddled in, still friendly enough to the United States. They do not continue, in perpetuity, to serve up diplomatic, social, economic, and military crises.
The Middle East is, and has always been, a special problem; Egypt is only the latest reminder. Successive presidents have tested both approaches there. The architects of realpolitik tried to balance powers, fabricate stability, and secure natural resources. These realists, alarmed by the unpredictability of democracy, have generally controlled American foreign policy. In the Middle East, they propped up authoritarian leaders, often tolerating economic stagnation and political repression—a story that ends in anti-Western sentiment and Islamism (a strain of which sparked the transnational jihad we are battling today).”
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