Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama
“It is hard to overstate what a complete shambles American foreign policy has become since Donald Trump launched his war against Iran on February 28. Trump clearly believed that the initial decapitation strike would lead to the collapse of the Islamic regime and its replacement by a new leadership willing to work with the United States. He seems to have had Venezuela on his mind as a model, as he referred to it several times during the war’s first week. He and his associates failed to anticipate Iran’s capacity to strike back, as it launched rounds of missiles and drones at U.S. allies and bases in the region, disrupting Gulf economies and raising gasoline prices in the United States. What is particularly maddening about this is that anyone who has lived through the last quarter century of U.S. Middle East policy should have understood that war would produce multiple unintended and devastating consequences.” (03/12/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/how-not-to-do-regime-change