It's was Soviet phobia that got us on the path to interventionism after WWII, especially in the oil rich Middle East. Religious extremism didn't begin in 1979. Fascist authoritarians are the enemy of freedom and liberty, regardless of which country they are from. How many Iranians/Iraqis were killed when we supported the brutal dictator in Iraq and his war against Iran? Was using chemical weapon against them terrorism or just a war crime that we ignored at the time? Hell, Saddam killed his own civilians in a chemical attack. Were were all those deaths counted in your charts?