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Trump should pay heed to his country's miserable history of regime change

Trump should pay heed to his country's miserable history of regime change

The Age6 hours ago

Depending on which day or hour or even minute you might have read Donald Trump's views on regime change for Iran, he's either for it, or against it.
What seems likely is that he is either ignorant of the history of the United States' attempts to force regime change on a cascade of countries since World War II – including Iran 72 years ago – or he doesn't care.
It's a miserable history.
Most attempts, from South America to Africa, South-East Asia and the Middle East, have ended in failure, civil war, misery for civilians, new enemies for the US or long-term 'unintended consequences' that have cost the US massive amounts of treasure and goodwill.
Thus, it was disconcerting when Trump, in a whirl of texting euphoria after his warplanes had dumped their payloads on Iran's nuclear facilities, began fooling around with the idea of overturning that country's admittedly odious and repressive regime.
'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change', but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!' Trump raved on his Truth Social media platform.
There was a lot of social media texting going around at the time.
Australia's former prime minister Scott Morrison merrily retweeted a triumphant Trump post congratulating America's airborne warriors and boasting 'there is not another military in the world that could have done this'.
Morrison, a man for whom judgment has often been a stranger, headed Trump's excited post with words of his own.

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