I just saw this classic clip reposted - general Wesley Clarke recounting (in shock) how he became aware that the US "Defence" Department planned to "take out" 7 countries, those being
Iraq
Syria
Lebanon
Libya
Somalia
Sudan
Iran
A simple before and after view of those countries now and twenty years ago tells its own story
Iran last on the list and always the prize they didn't quite dare go for yet.
The signs are there that Trump might just be the one to finish the list
'The Plan' referred to there is, of course, the Project for a New American Century when Rumsfeld and his goons were at the DoD. And I understand the conversation reported was from 2001 when they'd recently come to power and were full of themselves with what they were going to achieve.
Obviously Iraq was the one on that list they went for first and it was such a disaster - for the people of Iraq, for the US, for regional stability, for the stability of global geopolitics - that the idea of enforcing global US hegemony through military might was recognised as an over ambitious dream and PNAC folded in 2006 (naturally claiming 'job done').
Sudan also had plentiful problems in the PNAC period, but I'm not sure how much the Darfur civil war/genocide can be pinned on the US. Al-Bashir started the period having mutual emnity with the US, but came to heal in the war on terror and the janjaweed and other militias were supported by Libya, another country on the tick list.
Somalia is a weird one to have on the list as by 2001 there was no functioning Somali state, the country having descended into warlordism. It's probably there because of the US's embarrassing failures there in the 90s.
With the end of the Bush administration in 2009 The Plan was probably dead, but that doesn't mean US geopolitical interests had changed and when opportunities arose for regime change in countries the US state dislikes Obama was happy to grab them.
So when the Benghazi revolution happened in Libya and Sarkozy & Cameron were jumping up and down saying something must be done the US was all
well okay then. The US was happy to bomb the Libyan rebels to victory against Ghaddafi without a thought for the consequences, which have been a disaster for the country and region.
When the uprising against Assad happened in Syria the US was happy to provide support to the rebels
When Netenyahu decided to invade Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah Biden has been happy to let him get on with it using US supplied weapons, making anyone else who might get involved back off with a carrier fleet or three.
But I'm not sure these post Bush actions are part of The Plan, rather business as usual post '45 US foreign policy promoting the US state's perceived strategic interests as the cost of uncountable lives and chaos.
Hawks in the US would love to go after Iran, but that's always been an awkward challenge for the US militarily and geographically. And it's complicated by the current world order with an assertively forward Russia, it's economy geared to war after their Ukrainian adventure (however that ends; badly for Ukraine presumably), being friendly with Iran and China in opposition to US aims of being global number one. Quite where all this will go with Trump's next presidency is anyone's guess.
