Personally I do value soft power, I specifically take issue with taking away agency from other people and throwing it at the feet of the United States and saying “this is your fault and your problem to fix”. It’s counter productive and that’s why we got rid of USAID. Enough Americans were annoyed about about these exact things. I disagree but sympathize.

I’m not actually sure that the juice is worth the squeeze though with respect to your first paragraph and I think you are stretching. The better argument instead is just the appeal to soft power or Conservative “we need to save the world” sensibilities aka Bush Jr. and AIDS for example.