Imagine if A country came and Killed a Million Americans

*shrugs*

The Middle East was always going to be unstable since the Ottomans collapsed. There's a reason why the European powers propped them throughout the 19th century, because they could understand that the House of Osman was keeping the Russians in check and was a force for stability. But then Wilson comes along with his oh-so beautiful democratic ideals.

Of course, people will claim that if only we had followed self-determination more heavily, none of this would have happened. But self-determination is like Marxism - it fails because human beings aren't satisfied with "enough" and will always want more. Look at Iran. Iran's about as natural a country as you could reasonably get, and yet they helped to prolong the Iran-Iraq war in order to grab territory that they felt properly belonged to them, even though not even the Shia Iraqis agreed with that.

Get rid of the over-arching empire/hegemony that creates stability forces people to get along, and the result is an interminable squabbling, especially once religion gets into play and you can't compromise with those heathen Persian/Alawite dogs.

Also, where did the United States "insert new regimes and dictators" in the Middle East? There is a difference, after all, between helping a regime that is already in place and inserting an entirely one. The former is Saudi Arabia, the latter is Iraq. And I'm sure that pretty much everyone can at least acknowledge that the former is doing relatively better than the latter. And don't freaking play Iran- Kermit Washington was damn good at portraying himself as the ingenius spy, but the reality is that Mossadeq fell because no one in Iran liked him, not because the CIA has mind control rays.