Covert Regime Change: An Integral Part of US Foreign Policy

A little deeper peep into the history shows that a principal instrument of US foreign policy is covert regime change. Under this an action is taken by the US government to bring down the government of the target country.

The key to covert operations of course is that these are secret and deniable by the US government. Even when the evidence comes to light, the US government rejects the authenticity of the evidence and the mainstream media generally ignore the story because it contradicts the official narrative.

The editors of mainstream outlets don’t want to peddle in conspiracy theories, or are simply happy to be the mouthpieces for officialdom; they give the US government a very wide berth for actual regime change conspiracies.

Covert regime change by the US is shockingly a routine. One authoritative study by Boston University professor Lindsay O’Rourke counts 64 covert regime change operations by the US during the Cold War (1947 and 1989), and in fact the number was far larger because she chose to count repeated attempts within one country as a single extended episode.

US regime change operations have remained frequent, such as when President Barrack Obama tasked the CIA (Operation Timber Sycamore) with overthrowing Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. That covert operation remained secret until several years after the operation, and even then, was hardly covered by the mainstream media.

The great mantra of US foreign policy, and the activating principle of the CIA, is that a foreign leader is either with us or against us. Leaders who try to be neutral amongst the great powers are at dire risk of losing their positions, or even their lives, at US instigation, since the US does not accept neutrality.

Leaders seeking neutrality dating back to Patrice Lumumba (Zaire), Norodom Sihanouk (Cambodia), Viktor Yanukovych (Ukraine), and many others, have been toppled with the not so hidden hand of the US government.