There's no way they would have achieved what they have without the firepower they got from us. Do you think our intervention improved the Middle East? Do you think more intervention would improve it?
You have no way of proving that. You're making the classic logical fallacy of assuming that if a proposition is true, then its converse is true. That is, if the proposition if A then B is true, then it must be the case that if not-A then not-B is also true. That is a fallacy. For example, the proposition if it's raining then the sidewalk is wet is true; however, the proposition if it's not raining then the sidewalk is not wet is not necessarily true because, for example, the sidewalk could also be wet from a hose or sprinkler. From the if A then B statement you can only draw the contrapositive: if not B then not A. Back to the example, from the first proposition you can draw as true the proposition that if the sidewalk is not wet then it is not raining.
For one thing, their ruthlessness is more likely the driver of their success; someone who is not willing to murder one's opponents is much less likely to overcome them as easily.
For another, there is a big difference between getting your hands on high tech American equipment and being able to use it at all, let alone effectively. The US army trains soldiers for years to use some of our equipment; I find it rather ludicrous to believe that half-literate barbarians could teach themselves to use that same equipment in a few months.
