"People with homes, jobs, food, are a lot less likely to blow...

"People with homes, jobs, food, are a lot less likely to blow themselves up or want to kill people. So, just maybe, this idea of turning countries into rubble in the interests of regime change is a very faulty strategy?"

Very good point. There is a movie called "Syriana", which deals with this question to a certain extent. Long time since I saw it but I remember thinking it was pretty good at the time. Worth watching if you haven't seen it.