I think it's the right time to announce Hearts of Iron, number whatever. Or a cold war equivalent.
East vs. West is due to release this year (or at least open beta in March, so probably release this year). It comes after HoI chronologically.
American wars are questionable, but remind me... when the last time USA tried to get a new state?
When they tried to install a puppet government in Iraq that would essentially let them exploit the resources of that country without providing any of the benefits that being a part of the US entails. It's pretty much like a colony.
No, historically the US has used subterfuge to encourage a civil war or coup to place Western-friendly dictators in power (instead of a democracy because the democracy would install non-Western-friendly leaders and the areas are too culturally/religiously/etc. diverse so greater central power is necessary to maintain control). The invasion of Iraq was to remove the guy we put in there, put in an actual democracy, and mostly to remove a potential threat to Israel.
There's nothing we really care about in the Middle East anymore. Resources? What, oil? We currently make more than we use, and we were pretty sure we could pull that off in the early 2000s anyway. Sure, we could pad on our geopolitical control of oil to further undermine OPEC, but that's a hassle that the American public are really not fond of.
So no, it wasn't about reaping the benefits of the resources like a colony, it was to remove a power that was hostile to Israel under the guise of stopping a mass-murderer who potentially had access to WMDs.
Also, we're really hesitant to pull the subterfuge-install trick any more, because now a lot of people know we did it in the mid-late 1900's and we caused waaaaaayyyy more problems than we supposedly fixed.