catastrophic success

That which is totally successful but also brings hugely negative, if unintended, consequences. Commonly associated with US President George Bush, who used the phrase in his 2004 assessment of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The policy has been a catastrophic success for the administration. The new regulations have been implemented so efficiently that they ended up destabilizing the entire market. The rebellion's ouster of the dictatorship may prove to be a catastrophic success. Without a plan for running the country, things are quickly spiraling out of control. The overnight surge in orders was exciting at first, but it turned into something of a catastrophic success. We simply didn't have the means of keeping up with those volumes, so we rushed to expand our operations. Now we're starting to lose money as that initial surge peters out.