Regime change on the cheap—by covert action, military coup, airpower, or short ground war—has tempted almost every American president since World War II. No wonder: It offers to solve a difficult foreign problem with little cost to Americans. We remember the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as prolonged, bloody, ultimately futile attempts to remake recalcitrant foreign countries as democracies. But President George W. Bush intended both wars to be brief and low-cost—regime change with a small footprint.