Just as a body will fight to eject any pathogen which threatens its survival, an empire will fight to eject anyone who threatens its survival. Whenever you see a person or government targeted by the full might of the empire, that's what you're looking at.

Like a shark, the empire must keep advancing or it will die. Any government or leader which stands in the way of its continual expansion around the globe is seen, correctly, as an existential threat. Not to the US as a nation, but to the empire which must keep advancing or die.

This is why you'll never see a US politician actually slamming the brakes on imperialism. If anyone gets anywhere near a position where they might do so, they will be targeted and eliminated. It's the one door you're forbidden to go through, because it threatens an entire empire.

They might let you advance a few mildly progressive domestic agendas, but they will never, ever let you anywhere near the possibility of ending western imperialism. In order to end the wars and move toward health, the empire will necessarily have to die.

And OF COURSE many of those who threaten the empire's survival won't be nice people; this isn't a Hollywood movie about Good Guys versus Bad Guys. But only the US-centralized empire is waging a nonstop war upon the world with the aim of perpetual unipolar planetary domination.