You need to find out what the definition of an empire is.
Every country occupied by the United States in the last 100 years has kept their sovereignty and done far better than they would have if we had not occupied them.
Countries that build empires take over and run the countries that they occupy, establishing their own government in the occupied country. Rome, Great Britain, Spain, and others have tried the empire thing. It doesn't work.
We are trying to establish peace and democracy in a very economically important part of the world. When it is established, we will do what we have always done, leave them to run their own affairs in a superbly improved financial and social condition.
You have to be very delusional to think that we are trying to establish a US territory in the mid-east. It is so obvious what we are doing. And so amazing that you cannot see it.