The Foreign Policy Oddity

My friend over at The World of Mike as well as many of my other friends have been strong Ron Paul supporters, and I myself agree with many of Dr. Paul's domestic policy views, like limited government, balanced budgets, constitutionalism, abolishment of the income tax and so on. However I have one problem and that is foreign policies. Why is it that everyone with great domestic policy is an isolationist? It has been proven time and again that this type of policy will come back to bite you. If you ignore the fact that people who are a danger to your country are growing in power then by the time you do something it is too late.
Many contest that these foreign powers are not a threat to our national security or economy, therefore we should not do anything about them; but if you don't do anything about them they will become a threat, and by then they are more powerful and harder to stop. Look at WWII, if we would have done something right away instead of ignoring Hitler's rise and eventual invasion of Poland millions of lives and dollars could have been spared. Look at 9-11, if we hadn't just let the Middle East deteriorate into a ramshackle of dictators and jihadists, that could have been prevented. And we must also be vigilant not only for our national security, but also for our economic security. These countries that get invaded can be great customers for our exports and if they get invaded their economies will be destroyed by the ensuing violence, if they have no money they can't spend any on our goods. Look at the nations of Africa, who could be great customers if we would help them become free, and I don't mean just throw money at them that thier bad governments will take and waste, I mean really deal with the problem.
Now, I'm not preaching all out war. A very important weapon in our arsenal is capitalism itself. I once had a teacher who said "if you want to stop a country from being communist don't put an embargo on them, sell them washing machines." That is to say, once people have goods and property, they want to be able to keep that property and not let the government take it, then they need laundry detergent and repair parts and so on. We can see this philosophy at work in China; where people are starting to earn money and buy houses, and once they buy those houses they want to keep the government from taking the house they have worked for, and now China has some semblance of property rights (yes they have a long, long way to go, but it is inch by inch getting better) because we are trading with them.
So I would just love to have a candidate with great domestic policy who has a grasp on the importance of being involved keeping other countries safe so we can stay safe.

Addendum:
The Iraq war

Regardless of whether it was right or wrong, we have gone into Iraq and given them hope, to leave and let them fall apart now would be terrible and cause even more problems for us. This is what happened in Afghanistan, we (CIA) went in and helped them oust the USSR and then we just left, and they collapsed and the power void was filled with despots and criminals who created the environment for the jihadists to blossom in which (among other blunders in the area) led to the 9-11 attacks. So regardless of right or wrong in entering Iraq we must stay and make sure they have a good, stable government to fulfill the promise of safety which we have made, if not they will fall apart and create more fertile ground for them jihadists to recruit from.