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What happens when the United States government participates meaningfully in toppling foreign governments in the name of spreading democracy? That behavior usually results in unintended consequences and often produces disasters.
When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, initially to search for weapons of mass destruction that we now know the Bush administration knew did not exist there, and eventually for regime change, the U.S. succeeded in changing profoundly the Iraqi government. But in the process, we lost 4,500 American troops, suffered 45,000 substantial injuries, borrowed and spent and have not paid back more than $2 trillion. . .
