If I stand aside and take the oilman view then the best course of action would have been to stand right back and allow gaddafi to put down the uprising. This would have sent a message to the middle east that intervention would not come to support the proletariat and we would sit very nicely in support of regimes in Saudi, Oman and Libya. Thats not what happened. Due to the fact that we were facing a massacre in benghazi, make no mistake the regime would have killed tens if not hundreds of thousands the west felt obliged to intervene. We havent intervened in Zimbabwe mainly because of our history and vested interests there which would point to a colonial motive which we couldnt refute. We havent intervened in palestine due to the zionist influences within the white house. we havent intervened in Yemen but if you go there you'll soon realise that this is a unique society where everybody is armed and there are no innocents, Bahrain well I'm not sure whats going on there. Afghanastan has nothing to do with oil, Iraq I believe was a deliberate war based on oil but the only one and just because Cheney did it once doesnt mean that subsequent administrations follow the same motives.