I am old enough to remember the Iraq War, the Americans spent a ton of time trying to convince the world that weapons of mass destruction were a big threat.
There was all sorts of media coverage and debate in the months (years?) leading up to the actual invasion, plus a bunch of summits and UN meetings. At the time - and unlike Afghanistan war that began 2 years earlier - there was lots of skepticism on American claims and evidence they provided for the weapons was never really clear, nor why it required such a large scale invasion. As a result, they couldn't get a UN mandate to invade, but went ahead anyways with a narrower coalition and invaded Iraq. Broadly was an unpopular move around the world.
The weapons of mass destruction "evidence" was famously found out to be false and the skeptics were correct. The Americans then got bogged down in cleaning up the mess they created, regime change, nation-building, freedom etc. ... but the plan went off the rails as there wasn't really much a clear plan or objective. They then spent a decade there doing things at great cost in lives and money.
IMO, that is one of the biggest differences between 2026 America and 2003 America. In 2003, they were at least trying to make a logical case for their arbitrary and unpopular actions, even if it they didn't actually have good evidence to back themselves up.
2026 America has nothing similar in approach - the reasons for why an attack was needed was never clear or consistently articulated, changed week by week, justified by demonstrably false claims (that also change daily). There's nowhere near the same level of effort to build a coalition, convince countries on why their actions are justified and put the whole thing into some sort of coherent strategy. "Showing people we can do whatever we want" isn't really a strategy.
Reminds me of this quote from Andor, a surprisingly relevant show for our turbulent times:
They have no shame, do they? They don't even bother to lie badly anymore. I suppose that's the final humiliation.
