There is always a balance between your national self-interest and maintaining baseline principles in the international realm.
We've never had a problem throwing baseline support for democracies out the window when conducting "regime changes." The former prime minister of Iran would like a word with you if he were still alive, as would several South American heads of state.
Foreign policy is about nothing more than self-interest. We'll support a dictator who rapes babies and eats political dissidents alive if it facilitates our strategic goals. And that is as it should be.
No, that's not how it should be. We learned that on 9/11/2001.
