Lessons to be learned

You should read Stephen Walt's latest column in Foreign Policy. He thinks that there are five lessons we can learn from our foreign policy experiences: 

The first lesson is that the United States lacks a detailed and sophisticated understanding of many societies, and especially those whose history, culture, social networks, and aspirations are radically different from our own.
A second lesson — and one that is constantly being forgotten — is that military power is a crude instrument that always produces unintended effects.
Third well-intentioned outside interference often reinforces the corruption that makes local governments unpopular and ineffective.
Fourth, politicians in foreign lands will tell us what we want to hear, whether it’s true or not.
The last lesson is actually a bit of good news: Our counterproductive interference in the greater Middle East is probably unnecessary.

And lastly:

Remember, we have a terrorism problem in part because the United States has been repeatedly interfering in the greater Middle East, and not always for the right reasons or with much skill or effectiveness.