Source: Cato Institute
by Jon Hoffman
“For more than eight decades, Washington has rooted its regional strategy in the ‘myth of authoritarian stability’ — the belief that select autocratic states are the best guarantors of regional stability and US interests in the Middle East. … The United States has consistently sought to expand its authoritarian client network by acting against adversarial governments in the region with the objective of installing more compliant regimes. Since the end of World War II, Washington has pursued regime change in the Middle East on average once per decade. The governments residing within the US-led regional order also push the United States toward status quo policies to advance their own interests, echoing the same pro-authoritarian rationales used by Washington to justify continued American support. Freedom, therefore, was never the objective in Iran.” (04/15/26)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/it-has-never-been-about-freedom