A History of the present. From Iraq in 2003 to Iran in 2025. The politics of ‘regime change’
If Netanyahu’s comments on Iran appear eerily familiar in 2026, it is because they are. The same Netanyahu, and Iran hawks in the US, pushed a similar argument in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraqis then, like Iranians now, the world was told, would welcome the removal of Saddam. The Middle East would be reshaped. The fall of dictators in Iraq and Iran may well have been welcomed. What came after certainly was not
Meaningful regime change, however (whatever that means in practical terms), is not the same as regime destruction. Regime change can only ever come from below, not as the whim of Bush or Trump.
In Iraq, where ultimately an incompetent US effort was made at nation-building, and Libya – where it was not – there followed periods of bloody chaos, which continues in Libya.
Peter Beaumont writing in The Guardian, 17th June 2025 was spot on about Netanyahu’s agenda
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/17/netanyahu-israel-iran-regime-change-destruction
A reminder that Britain’s largest ever march took place on 15th February 2003 when well over a million people marched against war with Iraq.
The marching and protesting needs to continue because international law gone and with what Tariq Ali refers to as the Wild West running amok pretty much anything could happen next. Trump declared war on Iran at 2.30am from his Mar A Lago nightclub. He got the approval of no one and was content that this was the case. Protest in the US might shake that a bit. We can hope.
At least Bush made a pretence of getting UN approval. Instead with Trump we have a Board of Peace with Tony Blair firmly in place on it.
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