Regime change, pros and cons

Any observer of recent history will probably agree that, when it comes to changing an evil regime, there are only two hard and fast rules: hard and fast.

Unlike the old soldiers of Gen McArthur’s rhetoric, evil regimes never fade. They either die quickly or linger on.

Most evil regimes collapse in on themselves, but some need a nudge from outside. In the former case, the end usually comes instantly and unexpectedly.

Ceaușescu’s regime in Romania is a good example of this. One day crowds of admirers screamed themselves hoarse, sycophantically extolling the dictator’s virtues; the next day – and I do mean the very next – they danced with the same abandon around the mutilated bodies of Ceaușescu and his wife.

Similarly, few observers predicted that the Soviet Union would implode so instantly out of the blue. Yet it did, catching brigades of Sovietologists unawares. Neither did they foresee that the Soviet Union would come back as Putin’s Russia: same bitter pill, different wrapper.

Two other evil regimes, those of Venezuela and Iran, show signs of resilience in the face of public dissent, and these may be examples of a situation where outside help is necessary. What piques my interest today is specifically Iran, mainly because thousands of its protesters have been murdered by troops firing at unarmed crowds.

I don’t know Trump’s plans for Venezuela, and I’m not sure anyone including himself can boast a clearer vision of the immediate future. So far one thing is obvious: there has been no regime change in Venezuela, not yet at any rate.

All the key monsters of the regime are still in place, oppressing their population as brutally as Maduro ever did. Hence the spectacular removal of Maduro from his bedroom strikes me as just that, a spectacle, a grandstanding gesture. Though things can change quickly, at present the operation seems as woolly strategically as it was brilliant tactically.

What’s going on in Iran is different for any number of reasons, except one: the regime there may differ from Maduro’s in every detail, but is similar to it at its evil core. Thousands of protesters have been massacred in the past few days, and the ayatollahs give every indication that they are prepared to slaughter thousands more to stay in power.

Trump is making bellicose noises about ousting that regime by military action, and that may still be on the cards. The question I’d now like to pose is this: When is a foreign invasion aimed at ousting the current leaders of a country justified? Is it ever?

This is one question of geopolitics, among many, that doesn’t encourage a dogmatic answer. The absolutist ‘yes’ or ‘no’ have to give way to the relativist ‘that depends’.

Here I’d like to remind you yet again of my favourite Persian story. Back in the old days, the people danced in the streets celebrating the demise of their despotic ruler. Only one old woman stood outside, weeping silently.

“What’s the matter, Grandma,” asked one of the dancers, “Aren’t you happy the tyrant is dead?” “Young man,” answered the woman. “I’ve lived so long that I’ve seen many tyrants come and go. And you know what? Every new tyrant was worse than his predecessor.”

That situation definitely arose in the same country, now called Iran, in the late 1970s. I lived in the US at the time, and I still remember virulent attacks on the Shah in the ‘liberal’ press, which is to say the press. He was called tyrannical (just about true), undemocratic (definitely true), corrupt (doubly true).

Hence, clamour was thundering from every newspaper page that the Shah should be overthrown, and the US intelligence services heeded that sentiment. They busily worked behind the scenes to foment public unrest in Iran, and it was steadily reaching fervour pitch.

President Carter (whom the Houston oilmen I knew invariably called ‘the peanut farmer’) did his bit too. Oil imports from Iran were ended, and some $8 billion of Iranian assets in the US were frozen by Executive Order.

Finally, the pressure told. The Shah, whose regime was unsavoury but fundamentally pro-Western, fled and was replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini, whose regime was evil and fundamentally Islamist. That old woman of the ancient tale was vindicated.

The other day I wrote about a strong messianic element in the American psyche and, off and on, American foreign policy. The idea never quite goes away that American-style democracy, complete with a bicameral parliament and precedent-based law, could thrive in any society, no matter how tribal and congenitally hostile to the West.

Around the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and over the next few decades, that absurd notion was gradually translated into policy by the so-called neoconservatives, more appropriately called ‘non-conservatives’. It was at their instigation that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was undertaken, with disastrous consequences.

As I recall, a leading neocon agitator, to whom I happen to be related, wrote that, as he watched Iraqis queuing up at the voting booths, he had tears in his eyes. “So did I,” I wrote to him, “but for a different reason”.

It gives me no satisfaction to see that I was right: I’d rather have been wrong. Instead of the stable, if wicked, Saddam regime, the country and much of the Middle East were thrust into a blood-drenched chaos. One consequence of immediate concern to Europe was that it was quickly inundated with millions of refugees, who continue to sap the Continent’s resources and undermine its social and demographic fabric.

Unlike Saddam’s Iraq, however, the ayatollahs’ Iran presents a definite danger to Western, and specifically American, interests. For one thing, though the news of Iraq’s possessing WMDs was fake, Iran is definitely developing nuclear weapons. Should it acquire them, the entire geopolitical picture not only in the Middle East but in the whole world will change — and not for the better.

Then, quite apart from this and also from the oil-related issues, the country is a close ally of both Russia and China.

If the term ‘axis of evil’ ever had any meaning, it certainly does now. Iran is China’s agent in the Middle East, and the ayatollahs also do all they can to boost Putin’s war effort. As I write, thousands of Iran-made Shahed drones are killing Ukrainians and wiping out their towns.

The regime may become instrumental in ensuring China’s and Russia’s firm and irreversible grip on the region, and it would be tedious to list all the reasons such a development would be catastrophic for Europe and widely damaging to America.

So here we are: relativism all over. It was strategically wrong to attack Iraq in 2003, but it would be strategically justified to oust the ayatollahs in 2026. But doing so would require commitment to the long game, and on past evidence the US tends to be a sprinter, not a stayer, in such matters.

She ousted Saddam and his regime, but, realising that Iraq was in no hurry to become a version of Indiana, soon withdrew, leaving the region to its own devices and vices. That lesson should be learned. The US and NATO in general ought to commit to a prolonged physical presence in Iran – or not bother at all.

Going in half-cocked would misfire badly – and if that happens, the events in Iraq will look like child’s play by comparison. Several zeroes may well be added to the current number of victims, and, like in any entropy, the consequence will be unpredictable.

Before any such invasion is mooted, the leaders involved ought to ask themselves several questions, and only go ahead if the answer to each is a confident yes.

Is there a valid reason to invade? (Yes, would be my answer to this). Are we capable of doing so? (Yes.) Are we prepared to handle the long-term consequences of such an action? Commit ground forces for a long time? Take casualties? Successfully build a benign alternative regime?

You’ll notice that I’ve left these last questions open. I simply don’t know the answers our powers would offer. I hope they do.