Clandestine Regime Change

In a recent interview in Foreign Policy, John Bolton is quoted as saying of the US:

Once upon a time, we knew how to do clandestine regime change. We need to reacquire that capability.

I have a book suggestion for Mr. Bolton: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, by Tim Weiner. Perhaps then he could tell us when this golden age of clandestine regime change was.  I've made it up to about 1965, and so far, our clumsy attempts at regime change have not been all that clandestine or all that successful.  Eastern Europe? We spent millions of dollars and untold lives trying to overthrow Communist governments there, with no success. Cuba? Castro's still there, despite failed coup attempts like the Bay of Pigs and numerous assassination plans. Vietnam? That one didn't turn out so well, either.

Bolton is saying this in the context of what to do about a nuclear Iran. We tried clandestine regime change there, too; that's how the Shah was put in place. I suppose that one could be classified as a successful clandestine regime change, in some sense; the Shah was in power for quite a while. Of course, that plays no small part in why Iran is so opposed to us and why they might think that acquiring nuclear capability is a good idea.

As Legacy of Ashes demonstrates, Bolton's attitude is not a new one; it's been a part of American foreign policy since WWII. I would hope that eventually we will learn not only that it doesn't work to disrupt other countries' governments, but that it is wrong.

The Inverse Body Count

In Vietnam, the military and the Presidents kept insisting we were winning, and the measure of choice was the body count. Hence, every dead body was a Viet Cong. We were piling up impressive body counts, but we weren't winning the war. Body counts may impact "winning" or "losing" a war, but they don't define it.

Now in Iraq, the new metric seems to be the inverse. Fewer Iraqis are dying! We're winning the war! Of course, now many of the dead bodies don't count, because if we counted them, then we wouldn't be winning the war. So if a Shi'ite Iraqi is killed by another Shi'ite, that doesn't count; same thing for intra-Sunni fighting. Because after all, a civil war can only have two sides, right? Oh wait, I forgot, it's not a civil war; oops! Sectarian violence, that's the new term, so obviously, dead Iraqis should only count if they're killed by somebody from the other sect.

And Iraqis killed by car bombs don't count, either, because how are you going to tell who set off that car bomb?! Iraqis killed by Americans don't count, either, because we're the good guys just trying to keep the peace. See how easy it is to figure out that we're winning! Just count some of the dead Iraqis, and then things must be getting better!

Bush's Future

Six years from now, you're not going to see me hanging out in the lobby of the U.N.

Thank God.