Stage one: For still-unbelievable strategic reasons, form an alliance with a looney dictator who openly oppresses the majority of his own population, up to and including helping him use chemical weapons.

Stage two: Imply to said dictator that you would be cool with him invading a nearby tiny petro-kingdom — which exists solely because of an arbitrary border drawn by outgoing imperialists — then turn around and fight him when the result is higher oil prices.

Stage three: Have the UN impose sanctions on the country of the now ex-friend dictator, justifying them by claiming that starving people through a 3rd party will get them to revolt against their government.

Stage four: Ignore all proof that weapons inspections are working for the most part, and constantly threaten to invade. Wait a few years.

Stage five: Upon suffering terrorist attacks that were carried out by non-state religious fundamentalists, implicitly blame said attacks on a relatively secular Stalinist regime — conveniently the one our ex-friend dictator runs. Clamor for war, using as justification possible WMDs (a charge inspections show to be a crock) & “he’s starving his people!” (despite that not being an acceptable reason for war, and also being partially our fault — see stage three).

Stage six: Invade & occupy country full of rightfully pissed-off people w/ 1/4th of the troops estimated necessary for such a task. Deliberately confuse democracy (read: majority-rule) w/ liberalism (read: 51% of the population cannot piss in the morning coffee of the other 49% despite majority — and doesn’t want to), proclaiming everything A-OK once a vote is conducted despite the majority wanting revenge rather than tolerance, the old ruling minority wanting their power back, & both wanting us to GTFO ASAP — and willing to use violence to express that sentiment.
Stage seven: Conduct a half-assed effort at promoting reconciliation among the groups, when getting out of their way would make more sense.

Stage eight: Consider abandoning reconciliation effort, but instead of preparing to withdraw, hatch up plan to form an open alliance with the new leadership (+ a 3rd group that probably would rather break away, for token purposes) while they….openly oppress and murder part of their own population. Yay!
Props…