One thing is for sure: If you want a solution to America’s foreign-policies woes, you’re not going to find it with Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, or any of the other presidential candidates. That’s because they are all, in varying degrees, interventionists. It is interventionism that is the root cause of America’s foreign-policy woes, including the ongoing threat of terrorism that has so many Americans absolutely frightened to death.

What is an interventionist? It’s a person who believes that it is the federal government’s role to intervene in the affairs of other nations through such things as bribery, assassinations, military coups, bombings, invasions, occupations, supporting foreign regimes, including dictatorships, with cash and weaponry, or supporting anti-regime groups within a nation with cash and weaponry.

The goal of U.S. interventionists is to install rulers around the world who pledge allegiance to the U.S. government and who will fall in line with the wishes and the dictates of the president, the Pentagon, and the CIA.

When a ruler fails to show the proper deference and loyalty to the world’s sole remaining superpower, he immediately subjects himself to the possibility of a U.S. regime-change operation, one that removes him from power and installs a pro-U.S. dictator in his stead.

Interventionism is the reason why so many people hate the United States. U.S. interventionism is up front and personal for many foreigners. Tens of thousands of people around the world have seen family members, loved ones, friends, or countrymen killed or maimed or had their homes and businesses destroyed by U.S. interventionism. When that happens, it’s difficult to suppress anger and rage.

That’s what the U.S. presidential candidates, the federal government’s assets in the mainstream press, and all too many Americans simply cannot bring themselves to understand. They are so filled with anger and fear over the various terrorist attacks in the United States — i.e., the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the U.S. embassies in East Africa, the USS Cole, the WTC and Pentagon in 2001, Ft. Hood, Detroit, San Bernardino, and elsewhere — that they are emotionally and psychologically unable to stand above the fray and figure out the cause of all this chaos and mayhem and recognize the solution.

They want revenge and they want to be “safe.” That’s all that matters to them. They want the Pentagon and the CIA to engage in more bombing, more killing, more maiming. That is, they want the U.S. national-security state to do more of what has motivated the terrorists to commit acts of terrorism against the United States. They are as filled with rage as the rage-filled terrorists who are seeking revenge for the death and destruction that U.S. interventionism has wreaked in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Soon after the 9/11 attacks, I wrote that the federal government’s so-called war on terrorism would end up lasting longer than the its decades-long war on drugs. That’s because U.S. officials were preparing to wreak death and destruction on people in the Middle East and Afghanistan in retaliation for the death and destruction that rage-filled people from the Middle East had wreaked on the United States on 9/11.

What angry Americans couldn’t bring themselves to see was that the 9/11 terrorists were themselves angry for the death and destruction that the U.S. government had wreaked in the Middle East prior to the 9/11 attacks, including the countless Iraqis killed in the Persian Gulf War, the hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iraqi children from the sanctions that the U.S. government enforced against Iraq, U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright’s public declaration that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were “worth it,” the stationing of U.S. troops near Islamic holy lands, the longtime support of Middle East dictatorships, and the unconditional support of the Israeli government.

Imagine the following scenario: For the past five years, the Syrian government has been bombing the United States, killing tens of thousands of Americans in the process. Let’s assume that all U.S. anti-aircraft defenses have been made inoperative. The reason for the bombing? Syrian officials are demanding that President Obama step down from office and be replaced by someone more to the liking of Syrian officials. As soon as Obama steps down and is replaced, the bombing of the United States will cease.

My hunch is that 99 percent of the American people would be very angry over all this bombing, death, and destruction. I’d also bet that at least some Americans would be so filled with rage that they would do anything to wreak revenge or to get Syrian officials to stop the bombings that are killing their family members, friends, neighbors, and fellow Americans.

What all too Americans are unable to do is to step in the shoes of the Syrian people and other people in the Middle East and see that those people are reacting in the same way that Americans would react if the situation were reversed.

Consider Syria because it is a perfect example of the utter inanity of interventionism. The U.S. government is bombing Syria and, in the process, killing countless innocent people.

Yet, how many Americans ask themselves the important question: Why is the U.S. government bombing Syria and killing all those innocent people? Instead, reflecting the mindset of deference to the authority of the national-security state, they just assume that there has got to be a good reason.

But if Americans were to ask that question, the response would be: regime change. The U.S. government is bombing Syria and killing countless people with the aim of ousting Syria’s ruler from power and replacing him with a U.S.-supported ruler. As soon as the Syrian ruler steps down and is replaced, the bombing will cease.

That answer would be sufficient for most Americans. Once again reflecting the deferential mindset that government officials have inculcated in them, they would simply say okay.

But notice something important here: Syria has never attacked the United States. It has never initiated terrorist attacks on the United States. There isn’t even an allegation that Syria’s ruler is hiding WMDs. In fact, Syria’s ruler — the one they’re trying to oust — has even served as one of the U.S. government’s rendition-torture partners during the post-9/11 war on terrorism.

So, why is it so important for the U.S. government to now oust Syria’s ruler from power and kill all those innocent people in the process? There are various theories but no one really knows for sure. It certainly can’t because the man is a brutal dictator because the U.S. government has long supported and partnered with brutal dictators, including the Syrian ruler himself.

None of this matters to the angry and fear-filled Americans who just want the president, the Pentagon, and the CIA to wreak even more death and destruction on Syria and the rest of the Middle East in revenge for the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino. In their anger and fear, they cannot see that what they are calling for will only produce more anger over there, which will manifest itself in more anti-American terrorism, which will produce more anger and fear among Americans, who will call for more revenge with more death and destruction over there. As I have repeatedly stated, U.S. interventionism is the greatest terrorist-producing machine in history.

Meanwhile, U.S. national-security state officials wield ever-increasing emergency, totalitarian powers, including the power to assassinate American citizens with impunity, or just round them up, incarcerate them in concentration camps or military dungeons, and torture them, all without trial by jury or due process of law. Those are the same types of emergency totalitarian powers wielded by Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, who U.S. national-security state officials installed into power many years ago in one of their many regime change operations.

Back then, it was all justified under the rubric of anti-communism and the Cold War. Today it’s all part of the “war on terrorism,” a perpetual war that angry and fear-filled Americans want the national-security state to keep waging to keep them “safe.”

After the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, interventionists maintained that U.S. troops are over there killing the terrorists before they can come over here and kill us. That notion obviously hasn’t worked out extremely well. In fact, it seems to me that today Americans are more scared of the terrorists than ever before.

As I wrote many years ago, the war on terrorism racket is so ingenious that regardless of what happens, the U.S. national-security state benefits from it. That is, if there were no more terrorist attacks, interventionists would say, “We’ve got to stay the course because it’s working.” But if there were more terrorist attacks, interventionists would say, “The danger is bigger than ever. We’ve got to stay the course until we kill them all.”

You can’t show me a more effective racket than that.

There is but one solution to the foreign policy/terrorism woes of the American people: non-interventionism. The U.S. government should just leave everyone in the Middle East (and, for that matter, the rest of the world) alone. Just leave them alone. Syria is not a colony of the United States or, for that matter, France, Germany, or England. The same holds true for Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Who is installed into power in that part of the world is none of the U.S. government’s business.

Just pull all the troops out and bring them home. Stop all support of dictatorships or other foreign regimes. Stop interfering with what goes on over there. Just leave them alone.

Non-interventionism is the cure — the only cure — for the foreign policy/terrorism woes that afflict the American people. Until Americans are ready to embrace non-interventionism, they should brace themselves for more of the same — a never-ending cycle of anger, rage, and revenge on both sides, along with ever-increasing destruction of liberty and prosperity at the hands of the U.S. government here at home.