As I look back to after the Kuwait defense, the attack on Iraq and forward stopped making sense because US leadership didn't explain the rationale. Politicians didn't want to get caught up in the problematic history of dealing with Iraq and Iran, so the US charged in and pushed out Iraq under the flag of supporting an ally (the US was really serving Saudi Arabia and punishing Saddam). There was an expectation that Iraq's military over-investment would have kept them in economic check for some time.

After 9-11 it became obvious that there was a political and economic gold-rush opportunity under Cheney (who was the brains of the Bush admin). The US constructed Operation Iraqi Freedom to finally eliminate the uncontrollable and brutal Saddam family, while satisfying the needs of various parties (eg SA, Israel, Iran, Kuwait). Again the US population got a different narrative and there were no political consequences.

This trend of ignoring what the US populace needs to know, doing whatever benefits those that are in power, then constructing a fake narrative continues. The names are different, but the policy is non-existent. The difference in the Trump Administration is that the constructions challenge reality or simply don't exist. The political consequences have been the same. None[1].

Maybe it's always been this way.

[1] The primary driver of political consequence in the US seems to be economics, because that's a consequence that's measurable and cannot be rationalized as a patriotic good for some imagined future state of the world.