All of your points are great but have nothing to do with this: > first step towards democracy. More importantly, when countries are strong trade partners, the

All of your points are great but have nothing to do with this: > first step towards democracy. More importantly, when countries are strong trade partners, they are way less likely to fight. War would hurt both parties through loss of economic activity more than it would benefit either as aggressor. The United States has been the aggressor / meddler in too much of the world for too long. It's good to see when diplomacy works, since we've been taking the "last resort" of war WAY too often.