Somewhat to my surprise, in his piece on the practice of regime change at Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt is not completely unhinged. Here’s the meat of the article:
I could toss in America’s failed efforts to manage political transitions in places such as Yemen or Somalia as well, but you get the point. And lest you think I’ve just cherry-picked the biggest disasters, more comprehensive studies of the full universe of “foreign-imposed regime changes†have shown that it rarely produces the beneficial outcomes that its advocates predict. Given this sorry track record, you’d think outside powers would understand that “regime change†is a Pandora’s box that is best left firmly closed.
The reasons aren’t hard to understand.
First, toppling a foreign regime puts other regimes on notice, and they begin to take action to avoid a similar fate. It is not surprising that Iran and Syria both intervened to thwart U.S. efforts in Iraq, for example, because they knew they were next on the U.S. hit list if the Iraq adventure had succeeded. And it is equally unsurprising that North Korea sacrificed much to get nuclear weapons, or that Iran has seriously considered doing so, given that the United States has repeatedly called for their demise. The more the United States makes regime change a staple tool of its foreign policy, the more resistance it is likely to face.
Second, toppling a foreign government isn’t the end of the job — it’s when the hard work really starts. Removing an existing regime creates winners and losers, and the latter are usually willing to take up arms or do other unpleasant things to try to regain their former positions. Instead of a thriving and stable democracy, with political competition regulated by well-established and legitimate institutions and norms, the more likely result is a failed state and civil war.
Third, once installed in power, the new government is rarely the compliant tool that regime-changers expect. Hamid Karzai was hailed as the ideal leader for post-Taliban Afghanistan, but he proved to be a recalcitrant and uncooperative politician who refused to crack down on corruption or take the advice of the Americans on whom his government depended. Iraq’s post-Saddam leaders have hardly been reliable U.S. clients either, and some of them, such as former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, were more sympathetic to Iran from the start. Even when you help bring someone to power, they have to govern with their own interests and political survival in mind, and that often means doing things that Americans won’t like. This is especially true in the Middle East, where the United States is broadly disliked (and not without reason).
Compounding this problem is ignorance: Foreign powers that intervene to topple a local government rarely know enough about the society they are entering to make smart decisions about the new order that must now be created. They won’t know which local leaders are reliable or honest, or have sufficient cultural understanding to devise institutions that will be seen as legitimate by the local population. No matter how bad things were before the old regime was toppled, the situation is likely to be even worse once the old order has collapsed. Regime-changers always claim they will be greeted as liberators, but the more likely outcome is a population that is quickly disillusioned and soon becomes resentful and violent.
Lastly, no population likes taking orders from well-armed foreign occupiers, no matter how benevolent their original intentions might have been, and heavy-handed measures to deal with pockets of resistance will ignite nationalist passions and generate new sources of opposition. That’s been the story nearly everywhere the United States has intervened in recent years, and the U.S. experience is far from unique.
I wish he had been more explicit in enunciating the most important reason that regime change should be eschewed as a tactic: to replace a regime you need near-metaphysical certitude that the new regime is an improvement (at least in your terms) over the old. That’s the reason that regime change in Syria was is, was, and will be lunacy. The only viable alternatives are actually worse than Assad.
How much of the present chaos in the world is a consequence of regime change, successful or unsuccessful? Look at the hot spots: Syria, Afghanistan, Congo, Venezuela—there is regime change, attempted or effected in all of their pedigrees.
