From Crooked Timber

The fundamental fallacy implicitly accepted by nearly all comments above is that external powers intervening in a nation’s affairs can design the outcomes they wish to see. The only choice interveners have is the side that they back from among the genuine contenders. After that, if you succeed you get the kind of state that your proxies want, and if you lose you get the kind of state that your proxies’ adversaries want. If you stay out, you can’t influence which side wins. But you can’t invent a side (incidentally, have you noticed that Chalabi’s back on the news?), and you can’t really modify a side, because the only sanction you have is to move to one of the other sides that you’ve already decided are even less desirable.