The US did screw up in Iraq and Afghanistan, but at the beginning, not at the end. The screwup lay in the arrogance and hubris implicit in the belief that American intervention could solve the problems in those countries, and that it would be possible to "install democracy" and make it work.
The US does seem to have learned a bit from those mistakes, and they appear to be a bit more restrained about trying to solve other people's problems.
Criticisms of policy in places like Syria, Libya, and Gaza would be more credible if accompanied by some suggestion of what might have been a better policy... ideally a serious suggestion, not a facetious claim that three cruise missiles would have solved the problem, or something similar.
Knowing what is going on is one issue, having a viable plan for doing something about it is another.
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