the authors of the project for a new american century - wolfowitz, cheney and the like - are essentially in charge this time. They want the US to have complete hegemony - and to be so strong militarily that no other nation can be a threat.

to say that Clinton gutted the military is misleading, since the traditional enemy - the Soviet Union collapsed and was no longer a threat. And even under Clinton the US military spending was more than the next 9 most powerful nations. Hardly a weakling.

as for syria - they are not likely to be talking about invading it in an election year. they would also not get much support since Syria isnt anywhere near as bad a dictatorship as Iraq was not to mention that US credibility is at an all time lowpoint.

strictly speaking according to their own doctrine - the real terrorist states - are Americas allies - Saudi Arabia (guess where most of the 9/11 hijackers came from?) - which has been exporting the
the wahabi radical form of islam. The bombers of the East African US embassies in the late 90's were either Saudi, or came from a region
where a wahabi schools were setup and spread anti-us and anti-west rhetoric.
Pakistan the other ally: pakistani secret police setup and supported the Taliban, as well as supported the raids into Kashmir, and the terrorist attacks in India. Pakistan and India almost went to nuclear war a couple of times and it barely made the news in the west.
Whenever the US complains about Pakistani lack of will in the war on terror - there is a spurt of activity and they capture some al qaeda operatives. But they are doing nothing to clean up the western regions near the afghan border - where supposedly osama and zawahiri are hiding, and nothing to close down the blatantly political antiwestern madrassas which indoctrinate 1000s of young men with hatred and preach a worldwide islamic revolution.