Regime Change for Dummies

[teach1st]

Regime Change for Dummies
Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, May 14, 2018

In my last column, I argued that U.S. President Donald Trump’s rash decision to violate the Iran nuclear deal was the first step in a new round of regime change in the Middle East. If his goal was stopping an Iranian bomb and preventing a regional arms race, the existing agreement was working just fine, and he should have been trying to make it permanent instead of gutting it. If his goal was stopping Iran’s “regional activities,” the smart strategy would have been to keep the country from going nuclear while working with others to bring Iran to heel through pressure and additional diplomacy. Instead, Trump, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are hoping that violating the Iran deal will let them re-impose sanctions on Iran. They hope this pressure will topple the Islamic Republic, or lead Iran’s own hard-liners to restart its nuclear enrichment program and provide a pretext for the preventive war that Bolton has long advocated.

More sensible strategists might have first considered whether this goal even makes sense. What does history teach us? Did previous efforts at regime change (by the United States and by others) produce the expected benefits, or did they end up making things worse? Does regime change produce real benefits at relatively low cost, or is the price tag usually much higher than expected, while the benefits tend to be disappointing?

The answers, in fact, are pretty obvious, as can be seen from the following brief history of regime change. (Spoiler alert: It’s almost always a very bad idea.)

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[malthaussen]

1. If it seems to make no sense, change your assumptions.

Is "regime change" intended to increase stability in a region, or to disrupt it? What benefits might be accrued to certain interests if stability is disrupted?

As for the "price tag," the inverse of cui bono applies: who's paying for it? If the answer tends to exclude the same interests as the disruption favors, then it would seem we have a very good policy -- for those interests.

-- Mal