Regime Change - What America Has Wanted In Every War, But Now Dithers In Iran

The war against Germany with its panzers, blitzkriegs, storm troopers and hegemonic intentions was really about regime change, getting rid of the genocidal, expansionist maniac Hitler. It was the Nazis with their torchlight parades, Gestapo, concentration camps, and intimidating Anschluss across Europe that were the problem.  Not Germany the country, the historical entity, the national unit in the center of the continent but Adolph Hitler, monomaniacal dictator, international brute, and threat to world polity. 

The war in Korea, a sorry case of too little too late, was a war of which Clausewitz and Machiavelli would never have approved. It was a war of petty pace and hesitation, a war America should never got into, but if it had, it should have used all the force at its command to defeat the enemy. Regime change to get rid of the Communist government which like all Communist governments had vowed to bury us. 

General MacArthur wanted real regime change - to destroy the far more dangerous, territorial, and politically ambitious state, China.  Cross the Yalu River, he said, and get rid of the Red Menace once and for all.  We have the arms, the bombs, and a heroic, courageous, well-trained military.  Strike while the iron is hot. 

Yet President Truman hesitated then acted, removing MacArthur from command, and sending a message to China that a negotiated peace might be in the offing. 

Ever since the Russian Revolution in 1917, Soviet intentions have been clear.  Like Islam,  Communism was destined to become a world caliphate.  Winston Churchill warned of the menace immediately after the Soviets marched into Berlin at the close of WWII, and successive American presidents built up their forces during the Cold War.  Churchill, like MacArthur wanted regime change - rid the world of the Communist government and remove the hateful ideology behind it before it caused trouble. 

In Vietnam, the United States fought North Vietnam and its Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, a man like Hitler and Stalin who despite his claims of nationalism wanted to spread his ideology throughout Southeast Asia.  As a result of what the West saw as his regional ambitions, American strategists named it The Domino Theory.  Unless the regime in Hanoi was removed and Communism expunged from the politburo, it would spread to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and beyond. 

George W. Bush declared victory when the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Baghdad.  The United States assumed it had effected a regime change, and now Iraq would join the commonwealth of peaceful democratic nations.  No such luck.  Removal of Hussein simply removed the sworn enemy of far more radical Islamist movements. 

The Taliban in Afghanistan were a nefarious, radical Islamist, poppy-growing regime that threatened the region and like North Vietnam was intent on spreading its theocratic nationalism far and wide.  The regime must be overthrown and a peaceful, democratic one should replace it.  Again, no dice.  Regime change is not easy when the enemy has popular and international support, is well dug in and financed. 

The United States for decades has tried to topple the Communist Castro regime in Cuba.  Not only was it an ally of Russia and a depot for Soviet missiles aimed at the US, but is was ambitiously aggressive in spreading its noxious ideology through the region.  The Castros would not be content until Communism reigned throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America. It has been over sixty years and the Communists are still in power. 

Similarly, the US has tried mightily to rid the world of the Communist Kim family of North Korea, a permanent, persistent threat to America's staunch ally in the south and the rest of North Asia. There could be no accommodation with dictators, and the Kims must go, Korea unified in one peaceful, democratic nation. Again, fat chance.  The Kims have ruled North Korea with an iron had for decades and will continue to do so. 

When the opportunity arose to rid the region, America's backyard, Donald Trump acted and effected regime change in Venezuela.  Dictator Maduro was gone, the oil was ours, and the threat of aggressive socialism erased. 

Now we come to Iran where the American war started off with the clear intention of regime change, and within a few days of the first bombing the Ayatollah was killed, and the son of the former Iranian shah announced his willingness to return and to return his beloved country to a monarchist democracy.  Yet this particular regime was unlike the others the US had encountered.  

It was in principle led by its theocratic mullahs, but the real power and authority lay with the Republican Guards a force like the Viet Cong which were paramilitary, well-armed, and dispersed throughout the nation.  Regime change would involve getting rid of them, and that turned out to be impossible. 

So President Trump, faced with harsh reality and the knowledge that instituting regime change in Iran was not going to be easy if not impossible, stated that the war was not about regime change.  However, since all wars are about that, he could not come up with a viable objective.  What would constitute victory?  He had no answer. 

Yet he, his war room generals, the CIA, Israel and Mossad all knew that there was only one end to the conflict - the removal of the Islamic, expansionist, genocidal regime and replacing it with a secular government which willingly fit within the non-aggressive, democratic international union.  There was no room in the Middle East for a theocratic regime, especially a radical Islamic one which has vowed to establish by force of arms a Muslim caliphate. 

Now that the war has been engaged, the US cannot simply declare victory and leave.  Iran is still strong enough to do its will in the Strait of Hormuz and send missiles and drones across the region.  American bombing has not removed the regime, i.e., the IGRC, the Republican Guards, nor is it likely; so the US has turned to financial and economic sanctions to...what? Effect regime change?  

Punitive financial pressures against Russia in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine have had no effect whatsoever and both Russia and China, seeing the defeat and humiliation of the US in their geopolitical interest, continue to give arms and money to the mullahs and the Guards. 

Regime change was always the American objective in Iran, and everyone in Washington looked forward to have the Iranian Prince Pahlavi sitting in the imperial palace in Tehran; now America will have to keep up the pressure and see what happens. 

Clausewitz is turning over in his grave at such a dithering, confused, illogical strategy of war.  If there was no clear path to victory - regime change and total American occupation - then why begin the war in the first place?

The war goes on inconclusively, and meanwhile Iran's allies who need Persian oil and an ally in the Middle East keep providing it with the arms, financial resources, and materiel they need to keep the Americans at bay.  It is an unwinnable, not just because the US has no definition of victory, but because it has sorely misjudged Iran's resilience. 

Like the war in Ukraine we are in it for the long haul.