The middle eastern wars sucked and from a far left perspective were massive crimes, but from the perspective of the western alliance, say Germany, ultimately had little material impact (to be perfectly frank). Merkel was able to handle the political fallout from greatly increased Muslim refugee immigration which was really the only major (non-moral/empathetic for the Middle East, talking material here) impact on Germany.

I hate the neocons and they completely blew the post Cold War for us, but at the same time, compare that version of “global dominance” to, for instance, the ccp’s demand that discussions in Australian parliament should be subject to ccp control/censorship and that Australian domestic media should be subject to ccp control/censorship.

I would argue strongly that it is NOT true that fighting wars in places Germany really doesn’t care about is a more demanding form of global dominance/governance than demanding control over what Germany is allowed to discuss in parliament and publish in its news media.