This is the future of the US........

[El Kabong]

Picking three well-known nice people to show how religion affects the US really isn't answering the question, is it? Especially as only one of them is even American.

MLK isn't a good example either. The US establishment turned against him and most of their support came from southern white religious folks. The southern churches didn't want anything to do with race reform.

But how does religion actually affect US policy, especially towards the rest of the world?

OK how's about evil non-religious people.

Josef Stalin - USSR
Mao ZeDung - China
Adolf Hitler - Germany
Pol Pot - Cambodia
Slobodan Milocevic - Yugoslavia
Saddam Hussein - Iraq
Robert Mugabe - Zimbabwe
Augusto Pinochet - Chile
Ceauşescu - Romania

There's a ton more I am sure....you don't HAVE to be religious to be a horrible leader

You "took over" Vietnam too. Iraq and Afghanistan have been similarly "taken over."

...Vietnam had support from China and the USSR as well as Kennedy botched putting in replacement leaders (and he was a Democrat).

The take over of Iraq and Afghanistan were possibly the greatest military successes of all time....talk about total domination.....now taking over and holding power are totally different things but the "Shock and Awe" campaign was a total success....the "Enduring Freedom" campaign was a total shame.....the surge has worked since then though and the slow down now is mainly political.