Basically, Michael is asking how much we should care about goings-on in other lands; how much we should do about them; and how the first question relates to the second. It's one thing to be horrified by man's inhumanity to other (wo)men, but another to view it as an imperative to get involved. Doesn't the nation-state system offer valuable stability, which we weaken at our own peril?

The arduous efforts to democratize Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing if not injunctions to be less ambitious, meddlesome, and presumptuous. But how cautious should we be? Can the values agenda be pursued more prudently, or would the truly prudent course be to ditch that agenda altogether?

Michael's safe-for-democracy strategy is too passive, heartless, and unambitious for my taste. On the other hand, I think many of the related concerns can be assimilated into a more carefully calibrated liberal interventionism.

Here are some of the precepts that could guide a search for the right balance:

1. Pursue reform, redress, and relief rather than sweeping transformation. As we attempt to coax significant social, political, or policy change in other countries, the aim should be to modulate local power relationships rather than upend them. For one thing, it's usually impossible; for another, if it is possible, it can worsen matters rather than improve them (see Iraq). 
2. Sending in the cavalry usually isn't an option. Win-win diplomacy won't help with the tough cases, but a sizable military intervention won't be realistic either, in most cases. The real point is to apply the most pressure that you can. The best ideas for Darfur have been those that keep the heat on Khartoum without pretending it would be easy to go in and take charge of the situation.
3. Sovereignty matters. The idea of a paradigm shift by which the international system would be based on the rights of individuals a fantasy. It's also something of a straw man in the discourse. Kofi Annan's ill-fated UN reform push (heroic in my view) was premised on the need for strong sovereign states, which provide necessary structures of social order upon which individuals depend. On the other hand, sovereignty is not absolute and is hard to justify if it provides nothing but depredation and abuse.
4. Peace is a value too. The central fallacy of neoconservatism is that regime character trumps all -- evil leaders cannot be trusted to exercise any restraint. This is the approach that, by refusing to talk to North Korea, leaves an opening for Pyongyang to further its nuclear program. In fact, regimes that are reprehensible internally can (be induced to) play by certain rules internationally.
5. We can't just work with other democracies. Here I agree wholeheartedly with Michael. This is a corollary of the precept just above, applied to major powers rather than so-called rogues.
6. We don't have to hold our tongues about the internal shortcomings of other powers. And shouldn't. While the Cold War example of democracy sweeping across Eastern Europe is not a reliable template for political reform and progress, and the Chinese Communist Party can't be expected to abandon its concerns about stability, it's more than reasonable to argue that China will need reform and pluralism in order to absorb inevitable pressures for change.
7. The United States can't pursue the values agenda all on its own. Or any other agenda, for that matter. But especially in matters of moral authority and political legitimacy, the necessary legitimacy -- and international pressure -- can only be marshalled collectively.

To Michael, even this calibrated interventionism will probably seem like a recipe for overextension. To me, it's how we have to deal with a world that becomes more interdependent by the hour.