An Alternative Policy in the Middle East

Victor Davis Hanson has written about our Middle East foreign policy debacles for every President since Jimmy Carter. He implies that George W. Bush has been no worse than his predecessors and concludes that we should continue with our present policy of occupation and Americanization.
Because we have had such a dismal and inept series of military adventures in the Middle East, it would be more logical to conclude that the U.S. would be better off (and so would the people of the Middle East) if we would quit trying to run their affairs.
A more thoughtful set of policy principles for the U.S. might be:
1. As much as possible, let those in the Middle East settle their own affairs and quit taking sides.
2. We will only get involved in their affairs to prevent genocide, imperialism or invasions.
3. Our only real concern about the Middle East is oil. As long as the Middle East provides it, then we should not be involved in the internal affairs of those countries, nor should they be involved in ours. Export embargoes on oil by religious ruling parties would only be a temporary threat. The people of the Middle East depend on oil to pay for their importation of food and other necessities.
4. We will get directly involved when attacked. When the Taliban harbored the al-Qaida international outlaws, they made Afghanistan a target for our military forces. We had a reason, a duty and a mission to go in there and should have taken care of
that business before starting an unnecessary war in Iraq.
The above may sound self-interested. But it is realistic and does have pragmatic principles.