The dilemmas of regime change

Regime change is in the news again. It finally did change in Syria last December and a Nobel peace prize winner is calling for it in Venezuela, but I am not sure I would bet on it for Iran or Russia just yet and the question of Iraq came up again with the death this month of former US Vice President Dick Cheney. In the meantime, the conclusions of the 2016 Chilcot report in the UK have been adopted as policy so that interventions like the one in Iraq will never happen again, as if regimes should be eternal.

Cheney opposed regime change in Iraq in 1991 and endorsed it in 2003. Which decision was worse? At the outset, there is no doubt that simply raising this question is stretching it in terms of international legality and the UN Charter, which emphasizes sovereignty and nonintervention. It is categorically illegal for states to invade other states, change their regimes or interfere in their politics. But it is never that simple, it happens, whether justified by humanitarian, security or crude imperial power motives.

After the Gulf War in 1991, partly in response to a call by then-US President George H.W. Bush to “put him aside,” Iraqis revolted against the Saddam regime, relying on US support. Saddam had attacked Iran, invaded Kuwait and was a ruthless dictator who massacred his people. Bush was, at the same time, talking of a new world order after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The uprising was mainly among the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north and the regime was about to lose control of 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The US then got cold feet and allowed Saddam to crush the uprisings, with grave humanitarian consequences.

Cheney strongly opposed regime change in 1991, warning that it would destabilize the region and involve the US in an occupation. He said that to have marched into Baghdad would have involved the US in a quagmire with no viable exit strategy. In addition, the US would lose the support of its partners in the coalition of the willing and it was at the same time illegal and in contradiction of the principles of Bush’s new world order based on global cooperation.

It is illegal for states to invade other states, change their regimes or interfere in their politics. But it is never that simple

Nadim Shehadi

Barely 12 years later, Cheney justified regime change in Iraq by claiming Saddam posed an imminent threat to global peace and that his ouster would stabilize the region and prevent future threats. Cheney also claimed that the Americans would “be greeted as liberators.” He later defended the war, saying it was the right thing to do even if it took a long time and had high costs.

In the US, the Iraq invasion is still seen as a mistake built on lies about weapons of mass destruction and connections with terror. This is almost a bipartisan consensus. President Joe Biden called it a mistake even though he had voted for it. President Donald Trump called it “the worst decision ever made.”

In the UK, the consensus is similar. The Chilcot report, resulting from an inquiry after the UK withdrew its troops in 2009, concluded that the 2003 decision to invade was wrong in its reliance on flawed intelligence, inadequate planning and exaggerated threats. The report resulted in a checklist that would prevent the repetition of a similar military intervention. The Chilcot checklist, which was adopted as policy by the Ministry of Defence in 2018, was again raised this year during discussions about policy toward Ukraine.

These lessons from the Iraq War influenced the decision not to intervene against the Assad regime in Syria a decade later. Obama’s “red line” in Syria was widely interpreted as a threat of military intervention if Assad used chemical weapons on civilians. When Assad crossed that line in 2013, Obama initially prepared for airstrikes — but ultimately pulled back, under pressure from public opposition, congressional reluctance and the fear of regime change in the shadow of Iraq. His greatest fear was probably that it would also help vindicate Bush. The message to Assad was that his rule was eternal, no matter what he did.

Lessons from the Iraq War influenced the decision not to intervene against the Assad regime in Syria a decade later

Nadim Shehadi

The Assad regime survived, with the West turning a blind eye to the destruction of cities, displacement of populations, starvation sieges and massacres. Assistance to the revolution was largely “nonlethal” in order to protect the regime. Syrians paid in blood, rubble and destitution due to the wrong lessons being learned from Iraq and the resulting phobia of regime change.

Eventually, the Syrian regime fell in December 2024. Regime change happened through international and regional consensus, which signaled to Assad that his time was up. Assad understood the message and quietly left the country. Had such a consensus existed in 1991, the Iraqi people would have been spared much suffering. Had it existed for Syria in 2013, the worst refugee crisis to hit Europe would have been avoided and much of Syria and its population would be in far better shape.

One could also argue the same about Iraq. In 1991, instead of helping the Iraqis, Saddam was saved and his people were punished by US sanctions, which further strengthened the regime’s grip. Saddam also saw it as a license to kill thousands of civilians using helicopter gunships and tanks to bombard residential areas.

There were mass executions, house-to-house raids, people being executed in hospitals and public squares, and young men rounded up or shot on sight. There were hardly 20 percent of the Marsh Arabs left in their historic lands after he took his revenge. While doing this, Saddam kept the world busy with WMD inspections. His actions were hardly unexpected with his history of massacres in Halabja and during the Anfal campaign in the 1980s.

The lessons of regime change from Iraq and Syria are many and belong to the twilight zone between legality, morality and the disastrous consequences of doing nothing. If there is a new era in the Middle East, its broad headline is the recovery from traumas caused by the era of Saddam and Assad. The world is certainly a better place without them.