The invasion was a bad, bad, no-good idea, but to add some color to what you're observing, one of the biggest conversations within the US at the turn of the cen

The invasion was a bad, bad, no-good idea, but to add some color to what you're observing, one of the biggest conversations within the US at the turn of the century was whether we should enact foreign policy according to a moral mandate. It was a constant topic of punditry ("Should we be the world's police?") and off the top of my head I can say the movie Airforce One and the tv show Westwing both directly talked about it, and both suggested we should. Again: bear in mind that the invasion was a bad idea and some Americans at the time said so, but there was also some sense that non-involvement was selfish or immoral. There was much less understanding that the pain it would inflict could so far exceed the intended benefits. We have - I hope - now internalized as a country how wrong that viewpoint is.