Seven countries in five years

Seven government and countries, all of which have already been the targets of extra-diplomatic actions and military US action in past years (see List of Military Interventions of the United States), were overtly targeted for invasion and overthrow by the Bush administration in late 2000. The countries were Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. This objective has been achieved in two, although resistance to foreign occupation of Iraq and Libya will continue for the foreseeable future.

General Wesley Clark, not the staunchest ally of human rights himself (authorizing the use of depleted uranium rounds and attacks on civilians in Yugoslavia, for example), was nonetheless moved for whatever reason to deplore this policy publicly. However, it was six years before he did so, in an interview with Democracy Now!, a conference at the Commonwealth Club of California, and elsewhere.