From a transactional point of view, I think America is as powerful as it is because of it's interventions in the last century or so and I think you feel that in your pocket. You'd certainly be paying a whole lot more for your fuel right now (take it from a European, I know your prices have been jumping up but it's still dirt cheap over there by comparison). But, yeah, some of those interventions have descended into enormously expensive white elephants. They're only identifiable with hindsight though (and even then not reliably because you're still dealing with What Ifs).

From a moral point of view, I do think we have a responsibility to step in and lend support when we see a great injustice being done in the world. Sadly we rarely do step in on that basis and it's almost always the transactional argument that wins the day. There have been examples of moral intervention though. WW2 is the obvious stand out example but I think the conflicts that followed the break up of Yugoslavia also qualify.

You have to be real careful with the moral arguments, though, because they're subjective and well meaning interventions can easily head south in a hurry as the situation on the ground changes. E.g. I think the support the US gave to Israel following the Hamas attack is misguided in retrospect as the neighbouring Arab states haven't shown much interest to intervene on Palestine's behalf which was the fear - so we've observed two combative sides, one of which has a massive, high tech standing army and the other which has some second hand AKs and some hyperlites. We gave all the money to the side with the tanks who look increasingly like they're engaging in genocide, which doesn't leave us looking moral after all.
Not sure I agree with our oil prices being so much lower because of our conflict involvements in the middle east. Our own oil production ability plays a large role in keeping the prices down and our business involvement are big factors. Not that we haven't military involvement in the middle east for business reasons.

Yeah, I wish all conflicts where as clear cut as WWII. But even that involvement was opposed here for a long time.

As for Israel/Hamas, I don't think the US was wrong to get involved at first. Though I don't understand why Israel was asking for help after just like two days. Did they really only have a couple of days of munitions stores. But once it was clear that Israel was killing thousands of innocents with no end in sight the US should have backed off the support. I don't understand this blind support the US has for Israel. It's been like that as long as I can remember. If a lot of our involvement is transactional based, then wat does Israel bring to the table?? I'm sure there's a reason for our support, I just don't know what it is.

Moral arguments are hard to truly justify since we pick some and ignore others. It does seem to be base much more on what's best for us.

I'm not a fan of getting involved at all. That's not realistic though and things are more nuanced than that.

But who created the mess that became WW II in Europe? Or the one in Indo-China? The U.S. bears a lot of blame for war with Japan. I'm not sure that the Korean War wasn't a result of European soft-mouthing of global Communism. Who created the mess in the Middle East? Boer Wars? And on and on and on.

So much of it came from colonialism and then disrepect by Europeans. People here are sick of changing Europe's diapers any more.
I'm not a fan of getting involved either. I was alright with Kuwait because it was such a clear unprovoked invasion. Plus we went in, achieved the stated goal and got out But I wasn't for the Iraq/Afghanistan involvements.

The mess that became WWII started at the end of WWI. Germany was destitute and everyone wanted more from them. Then in the 30's a world wide depression made it even worse. Desperate people will grab for any possible life line. Hitler convinced them he was that life line. At least enough people that he was appointed chancellor. After that you know what happened.

Boer Wars?? Was the US involved in that? The middle east mess is an ongoing mess. I actually have no idea how far back it goes or what started it. I don't think the the US or Europe started it but both of our hands are dirty.

I don't think we've been changing Europe's diaper. But I do think most of the world expects the US to take on an unfair share of the worlds problems. Some how China manages to keep uninvolved or actually take advantage of conflicts. I believe they're getting some really cheap gas prices from Russia because of the war in Ukraine.

Short term there are benefits for turning a blind eye to world problems, I'm not sure there is a long term benefit. Besides I like having friends and helping people. lol