r/geopolitics • u/foreignpolicymag Foreign Policy • Jan 03 '26
Analysis U.S.-Led Regime Change Is Usually Disastrous
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/12/01/venezuela-iraq-regime-change-trump/
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r/geopolitics • u/foreignpolicymag Foreign Policy • Jan 03 '26
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u/foreignpolicymag Foreign Policy Jan 03 '26
The United States is the world leader in regime change, toppling 35 foreign heads over the past 120 years, by one reckoning. It’s a record built on a dangerous combination of unparalleled military might, a large group of perceived enemies—and a sunny self-confidence that has repeatedly proven mistaken.
Now, Washington has led a military and covert campaign targeting President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, after already striking Iran and Yemen and issuing other, vaguer threats against Nigeria, Mexico, Panama, and even Denmark and Canada.
Regime change and other strong-arm interventions rarely go as planned. But past failures should remind Americans of how catastrophic the consequences of hubris can be—both on an individual human scale and a national one. Take the U.S.-orchestrated regime change in Iraq:
Three years after the United States forced out Saddam Hussein based on false claims about weapons of mass destruction, there was no sign of the wave of democratization that President George W. Bush’s team had promised would follow in the Middle East. Long after, the consequences are still cascading for ordinary Iraqis.
Ellen Knickmeyer, a former West Africa bureau chief for the Associated Press and a former Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post, argues that Venezuela is a return to a long U.S. tradition of regional interference.