Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change

Last week I attended a talk by Stephen Kinzer, former foreign correspondent for the New York Times and recent author of Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change at the World Affairs Council.  It's taken me a few days to write about because it unleashed a torrent of thoughts and questions.

His premise for the book is that President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq for the purpose of regime change was, rather than a strategic departure from normal US government foreign policy, merely a continuation of "business as usual".  He went on to cite 14 instances over the past century when the US government either overtly or covertly replaced (or attempted to replace) the existing ruler or government.  Much of this history was not new to me given my reading of Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire.  However, Mr Kinzer drew three main conclusions from these 14 regime changes which were new to me. 

First, they were all driven initially by business interests, which ultimately became cloaked in government interests.  Second, other countries have much longer collective memories than the US government and citizens.  Third, America wanted to install leaders who were sympathetic to the US and popular with their populace, but by definition this was almost always mutually exclusive so the US installed tyrants rather than promoted democracy.  Thus, the long term effects of installing unpopular tyrants ultimately led to governments even more hostile to US interests.

The story behind the regime change in Iran was particularly enlightening.  In 1953, Prime Minsiter Mossadegh, head of a democratic government, was removed from power in a plot orchestrated by British and U.S.intelligence agencies to protect their oil interests.  The operation was conducted following the Prime Minister's temerity to re-nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil company. The US and UK reinstated the Iranian monarchy, handing power back to the Shah whose rule became increasingly dictatorial and with strong support from the US and the UK crushed the opposition Shia clergy.  This resulted in Ayatollah Khomeini gaining tremendous popularity among the Iranian people which led to the Iranian revolution in 1979 and ultimately the current escalation of the nuclear crisis.

So given this history, imagine how hollow the exhortations that "freedom is on the march" from the US government sound to the people of Iran.  Rather depressingly, this evokes the President Truman quote "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know."

One final footnote.  Mr Kinzer deliberately does not address the regime changes of Germany and Japan which were not driven by economic interests and were truly far sighted and impressive acts of nation building.  I understand why he did this as he wanted to limit himself to acts of intervention where the US acted unilaterally without a broad coalition.  However, if we want to avoid falling foul of Truman's observation we should study both forms of intervention.

Comments

[Ben Casnocha]

Robin, I was going to go to this but had something else come up. I'm going to the World Affairs COuncil annual conference in a few weeks, they're paying for my room and board and conference fee.

[mtv200]

Quite good hey..It is thus..You are really great.

[mtv200流行音乐网站]

It is thus.The viewpoint is quite good.

[Nathan]

"the regime changes of Germany and Japan which were not driven by economic interests"

Opening and reviving these markets - and indeed, if you want to take a truly broad view, all of WW2 - were absolutely in the best economic interests of the Unites States.

[Mark Vane]

Hi, Added a new value add to my blog this weekend - a news widget from http://www.widgetmate.com/news I always wanted to show latest news for my keywords in my sidebar. It was very easy with this widget. Just a small copy paste and it was done. Great indeed.

[Ryan Mettee]

Great article. Very informative. I might suggest taking a look at John Assaraf's and Murray Smith's new book, "The Answer." It highlights cracking the entrepreneurial code - something you have experience with and are probably interested in. I'd highly suggest the read. http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?rta=blog

[Mernald]

Hi Robin,

After reading a few of your posts, it seems that you are very business minded. There is a new tool that is being developed called Conektinc that best matches entrepreneurs with investors. You should check it out! You can visit http://conektinc.com and enter your email address for updates to when Conektinc will launch. We hope that you can check it out and share it with your colleagues.

[Foercupdrovop]

As about Fantasy, Draft fantasy nfl, Advance fantasy final tactic, Final fantasy 3 walkthrough http://fantasy.goodnano-av.com/

[miller bennett]

Nice work! Why cant we just keep it simple and talk about the superbowl?

[Lance]

Wow..lots of educational stuff here. Better let my college nephew read this...

[Symphony in Grey: Early Morning, Thames]

I took a quick first read through this and was quite impressed with what you have pulled together. I'm looking forward to going back and reading through it again with a highlighter and pen to make remarks and take notes.

Great stuff!

[lily]

wow, great article. i will tell my roomates to read.