Eli5: how did America actually destabilize the Middle East in the Iraq war? What was done specifically that caused all of the chaos in the countries we were involved in?
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To further muddy the waters, a particular political movement in the US — Neoconservatism — was a strong driver of American invasion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
Some claim that one of the unspoken ambitions of neocons is to use interventionist foreign policy to build a new American empire like the British empire. Strong local powers would stand in the way, so anything that weakens or destabilizes a regional or local power is “good,” even if lots of people have to die. Before the US even invaded, I saw it argued in the press that prominent Neocons supported the idea of just breaking Iraqi power. They believed good things would flow to the US simply from that, and they may not have even planned in much greater detail, so strong was their belief that the destruction of a regional power alone was bound to have happy effects (for interventionist Americans, at least).
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