The United States’ Hidden History Of Regime Change—Revisited

The truculent trio—Trump, Hegseth, and Rubio—do Venezuela.

By Barbara Koeppel, The Nation

Since the early 20th century, the United States has commandeered coups around the world, helping opposition figures and their mutinous militaries topple leaders whose policies they abhor. Why? These heads of state launched programs to redistribute land; strengthen labor unions, health and education systems; and nationalize industries. Washington insists they are “communist” or “socialist” and will threaten American dominance and corporate interests.

In the good old days, the hanky-panky was hidden, since the United States signed both the United Nations and Organization of American States charters, which stated that forced regime change was illegal.

But by the 1990s, US politicos scrapped the secrecy and told it like it was. For example, right-wing thinkers such as William Kristol and Robert Kagan, pilots of the Project for a New American Century, had no qualms writing a 1998 New York Times op-ed about the US and Iraq: They insisted that the US should overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime “to ensure America’s greatness.”

Since then, everything has been on the table. Along with Kristol and Kagan, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and Richard Perle joined the Bush II team. Finding no need to pussyfoot around, they insisted that the US should intervene wherever regimes rejected Washington’s road map.