lending maestro:
We did offer support to Saddam when he was fighting Iran. We also (with the British) lent the technical know how that allowed Japan to build a modern fleet (and help contain Russian aspirations in the Pacific), and they eventually used that know how against Pearl Harbor and Singapore. We were allied with the French during our Revolution, and a few years later, at conflict over the XYZ affair. In the '40's, we were allied with the Chinese, in the '50's we we at war with them, and in the '70's we were engaging them so that both of us could thumb our noses at the USSR. The Romans also lent their support to Arminius in his attempts to unify the German Tribes, and if you want the ultimate in historical alliance turning to enmity (and the ultimate in political triangulation), look no further than Alcibiades.
Just because we mave have a common interest with a nation at one time doesn't mean that interest will continue indefinately. What is important is whether or not they evolve to pose a risk.
Major S.
There is no gaurantee that we would have been able to capture Osama. He was able to evade the Soviets for years. Nations can be routinely humbled when they assume with all of their technology and might that they can find an insurgent leader. Look at Guzman (Shining Path - 12 years) and Subcommante Marcos (14 years and continuing). In both cases, the government was conducting a search on home turf, and controlled the information and communication infrastructure, and still their targets evaded capture.
In regards to your assertion that we should have stayed out of Iraq and allowed the Kurds to revolt and the Iranians to invade, this is the reason why Saddam was willing to play chicken with us (or so he and other senior leaders indicated after they were captured. He felt that the Iranians and Kurds needed to believe that he had a active WMD program, and for them to believe, he needed us to believe.
However, your scenario that has Iran invading and the Kurds revolting is not a good one. If the Kurds had gone into rebellion, and were having success, the Turks would have come across their border in force. If the Iranians had come across in the south, the Saudi's and Kuwaiti's would have freaked (the Iranians are Shia and ethnically Persian, and the Saudi's and Kuwaiti's are Sunni and and ethnically Arab - there is no love lost between the groups). Unchecked Iranian agression across the border into another state to it's west would have also garnered the attention of one other nation - Isreal. Iraq is the natural barrier between Iran and Isreal (Jordan is also in the way, but they would have a hard time stopping Iran). Isreal has been willing to sit out the developments in that part of the region (as opposed to the '80's and there flyby of Osirik), because they believe that we will control things in the Iraq Theatre of Operations.
All in all, this would be pretty much a nightmare scenario, and God forbid if Turk and Iranian forces stumbled upon each other and things got hot between Iran and one of our NATO allies.
In regards to Pakistan: All in all they have been very gracious to us. We need to respect their hospitality, and seek to operate their in a way that doesn't flaunt their hospitality (in their case, insure plausible deniability on some instances, and leadership in others).
T!m:
Yes we did use nuclear weapons against targets in Japan at the end of World War II. The difference is that we are a liberal democracy that has a constant turnover of power, regardless of who is elected in the fall, they guy that you do not like (and that much of the world doesn't seem to like) will be termed out, not because of war or internal strife or armed insurrection against him, but because that is how we do it over here. That is how it works in a democracy. Saddam was a one man show. We are much less likely to deal that card than your average unstable, irrational, mass mudering thug. Remember, he used Sarin on his OWN people. The last person to use poisin gas on his own peole was Hitler (remember Zyklon B?). In fact, one of the reasons that we are considered safer is that it has been a long time since two liberal democracies were at war with each other - almost 200 years.