Any person hoping that the Trump administration would depart from the long-standing foreign policy consensus of Washington D.C. should be sorely disappointed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s congressional testimony this week.
“I would tell you that we certainly recognize Iran’s continued destabilizing presence in the region, their payment of foreign fighters, their export of militia forces in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen,” Tillerson said to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
Tillerson apparently finds it problematic that Iranian forces are working to fight ISIS throughout the Middle East. The Trump administration funnels weapons to states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two countries known to support ISIS, while leading the public to believe that Iran is the grave threat in the region. This is reminiscent of the illogical Bush-era foreign policy that then-candidate Trump bashed frequently on the campaign trail last year.
Although Tillerson says that the Trump administration’s policy proposal on Iran is incomplete and the President hasn’t been briefed about it at the present time, his rhetoric indicates that it will be involve a great deal of nation-building and foreign intervention.
“We are taking action to respond to Iran’s hegemony. Additional sanctions… have been put in place against individuals and others… Our policy towards Iran is to push back on this hegemony, contain their ability to develop… nuclear weapons, and to work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government,” Tillerson said.
Tillerson’s promise of a “peaceful transition” is dubious considering the history of American foreign policy in Iran. The United States installed the Shah, a brutal dictator, in 1953 after orchestrating a successful clandestine coup d’etat to protect oil interests. The blowback from that intervention led to Islamic revolution that maintains its power to this very day.
American foreign policy could be charitably described as schizophrenic. Trump’s supporters hoped that he would follow an “America First” mandate, but he has fallen back into serving the military-industrial complex by meddling throughout the world. Trump’s official Iran policy, when it is officially unveiled, is likely to leave neoconservatives and other globalists very pleased.
Ugh. Here we go again.
Obama took out 8 regimes. You never made a peep.
Obama took out Gaddafi.
Ray Pellerin…ummm yes I absolutely did.
Clinton was for regime change long before Bush.
What’s your point? Clinton isnt president
Context unles you want to pretend history started in 2017.
And Reagan was for regime change before Clinton. Eg by funding the Contras in Nicaragua. So?
Let’s not get into anymore wars.. we are still in Afghanistan and it’s now the longest war in our history
And let us not forget the last two US attempts at regime change in the Middle East: (Iraq and Libya). How did those work out?
Let the Iranian people change their own regime
With Obama supporting the Iranian regime, it was not possible.
So what regime change in Iran did George W. Bush support?
The was a change of regime in Iran. The Iranian people freely chose it at the last election.
Like North Korea?
No, not like NK.
Who cares what they chose?! They are Muslims! They are anathema to the constitution of our country! Any of you who don’t understand this need to be EDUCATED re Islam and Muhammad and his foul so called religion.
Islam is a strange religion, but it IS a religion.
An Abrahamic religion, just like Judaism, Catholicism, and Christianity.
It comes from the same place (Egypt), tells the same story, makes the same claims, and shovels just as much bogus horse shit as the other three.
What’s anathema to the US Constitution is some low-level Jarhead who defends his religion over his country. To draw other lives into your schizophrenic fantasy is even worse.
Somebody needs a trip to Summer Camp….
Pull your heads out of your collective asses and LEARN! Islam has NO relation to ANY religion of the Western World. If you don’t understand that be prepared to be on your knees five times a day with your noses in the dirt listening to some unbathed asshole in a turban and soiled sheets telling you what to do.
That’s not true, that’s your ignorant opinion.
That’s FACT.
What’s ignorant, is still expecting people to believe all the Pro-Israeli ass kissing you’re not hiding very well.
Iran is not an exporter of terrorism. Saudi Arabia and Israel fit that bill.
Iran is Islamic. We don’t need to be concerned with Iran…we need to be concerned with the Islamic invasion of our own country.
The only regime change we need in Iran begins and ends in a mushroom cloud.
So you favour dropping nuclear weapons on Iran like the US did in Japan in 1945 with Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
This most likely fake news
Click on the links. This is real.
The Secretary of State did not use the term, “Regime Change,” you did. You take a complicated situation and pervert it. Iran is an ally of Russia. Is the U.S. to support ISIS because it opposes Iran? Much has to be unraveled to clear up the problems perpetuated by the foreign intervention of the people who came up with this idea known as “regime change.” Iran does not have to be first on the list but Tillerson was merely pointing out that Iran is on the list.
US attempts at regime change in the Middle East have a habit of going pear shaped. For example:
1) The CIA coup in Iran in the 1950s ultimately led to the 1970s revolution which installed America’s bite noire, Khomeini.
2) Its attempts to meddle in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion era by arming the Mujahideen ultimately led to Osama bin Laden & Al Qaeda AND the Taliban.
3) Regime change in Afghanistan post-9/11: a 16-year-old war with no end in sight (but a good likelihood the Taliban will ultimately return).
4) Regime change in Iraq–Throwing out Saddam has destabilised much of the Middle East. By toppling an avowed foe of Iran, it not only increased Iranian power in the regime, it tilted Iraq towards Iran. Plus to spawned ISIS, led to civil war in Syria, and spawned part of the outflow of refugees into Europe, spawning chaos there.
5) Regime change in Libya–Not only did this lead to chaos in Libya and new opportunities for ISIS, it also spawn another refugee flood into Europe plus it allow Libyan arms to be dispersed to terrorist groups in all sorts of places, affecting countries as far afield as Nigeria, Syria, and Mali.
Moral of the story: the US should stay out of the regime change business. It’s just not good at it,