Diplomacy vs. Good and Bad Politics

At what point do you draw the line between diplomacy and politics?
What are good and bad politics?
Meanwhile, as always, the top 1% and the bottom line are joining forces to pull the rug out from under good politics while crushing progress from above...
I always thought bad politics was a mixture of doing nothing and doing stupid things...two roads Obama has unfortunately traveled all too frequently during his presidency...
However, the argument has been made, many times by me, that not doing anything and staying the hell out of other peoples' business is often times the best option. Let's think back to Iraq - we never had a problem with Hussein until we wanted to - until we felt that a nice juicy war washed down with black gold would make a tasty meal.
Let's say we did spring into action in Libya? Then what? Is it our people to govern? Is it ours to decide how to format their future?
No. We shouldn't go in there, we shouldn't send anyone over, waving our flag like a drunk redneck at a 4th of July BBQ.
What we should do is ALWAYS condemn the killing of innocent people. That's not choosing a side, that's just good politics. Isolationism is clearly not an option, but neither is being world police. It's not our place and to be frank, we don't have the fucking money or the strength. The more we stick our noses into the Middle East, the more we are regarded as complete dick strings. And with good reason. We are incapable of "helping" without making a total cluster fuck of things. So, the best thing to do?
Use diplomacy when it's usable...for example, Iran. Use good politics when diplomacy won't work, i.e. in Libya. Condemn the killings but don't go further than that. By condemning the violence, you show that you are pro-freedom, which is our whole shtick anyway. By staying the fuck away, you allow the people to deal with their own country and hey, you might actually find some time to deal with ours!