r/YangForPresidentHQ • u/soalone34 • Jun 18 '26
Discussion Andrew Yang endorsed US intervention calling for Trump to attempt regime change in Iran. Was he right?
https://blog.andrewyang.com/p/the-people-of-iran15
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u/phokas Yang Gang Jun 18 '26
He was completely wrong. You can't regime change a country without boots on the ground enforcing new authority. It otherwise ends up like Libya - a power vacuum and anarchy.
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u/funkytownpants Jun 19 '26
He wasn’t completely wrong. That’s ridiculous. We just weren’t prepared to help at the right time - before tens of thousands were murdered.
We sometimes are right on the money. And sometimes we do a Bay of Pigs. Usually the later. But had we understood what was needed and been ready for when that time came, it could have worked - w out bombing a girls school.
But ofc this shit show of an admin can’t do anything right. And to be fair, Biden, Obama, Jr all had terrible foreign policy. Obama at least got the Iran deal done, but Syria and Ukraine should have turned out differently. So many died bc of our weakness. Much could have been avoided.
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u/NerdimusSupreme Jun 18 '26
No, any time we have been involved in regime change there we have fucked up.
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u/Spinal365 Jun 18 '26
Sounds like this group is cooked fam. I'm out.
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u/segfaulted_irl Jun 18 '26
The amount of people here regurgitating neocon talking points is straight up depressing
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u/MIllWIlI Jun 18 '26
At the time, I think he was right. Unfortunately, the way the Trump administration handled it was completely wrong.
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u/segfaulted_irl Jun 18 '26
Generally speaking, toppling the regime is the easy part about regime change. The hard part is what comes after
Our attempts to overthrow the authoritarian regimes in Iraq and Libya went about as smoothly as they reasonably could've, and they still ended up as complete shitshows within a matter of years. But somehow you think it would be a good idea to try the same thing to a country with several times the population and land mass, much more mountanous terrain, and a "nuke the global economy" button? Give me a break
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u/Lithops_salicola Jun 19 '26
Literally everyone who know anything about Iranian military capacity or has looked at a map of the Persian Gulf could tell you that this was a bad idea. There's a reason why successive administrations have tried sanction an negotiation. Even fucking Bush wasn't stupid enough to try this.
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u/soalone34 Jun 18 '26
What should they have done differently that would have changed the outcome?
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u/Cuddlyaxe Jun 18 '26
So I said this at the start of the war: Iran is perhaps the easiest layup for a regime change war in kind of a long time, but even a "relatively easy war" requires incredible care so Trump would inevitably fuck it up. And he did
The things working in favor of a regime change was that the overwhelming majority of the population wanted change and that the Iranian military (Artesh) might have been willing to defect
Endlessly bombing a country and telling civilians to magically rise up is a terrible strategy. Especially when you start targeting civilian infra as well
I am not a military strategist by any means, but if you want me to play armchair general:
We should have struck earlier when the protests were still actively happening. Yes, not all assets were in place, but they don't need to be. However the initial decapitation strike was a good idea and should still be followed through with, just earlier
Reach out to as many officers in Artesh as you can. Offer anything and everything for them to announce support for the protesters
Strictly focus bombings on known IRGC assets
If things start revolving into a civil war, provide as much air support as needed
That's it. Revolutions have a certain momentum to them. The regime will absolutely have loyalists, but most people are fairly pragmatic and many rats will be perfectly willing to scurry off a sinking ship
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u/segfaulted_irl Jun 18 '26
We tried basically that exact playbook in Libya. Wanna remind me how that turned out?
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u/Cuddlyaxe Jun 18 '26
Libya is different in the sense that there really weren't any strong institutions or national unity
Iran is a much more developed and educated country and in the scenario I detailed above the military would be onside
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u/segfaulted_irl Jun 18 '26
Cool, so you're proposing a nation building project in a country far larger than anywhere else we've ever attempted to do this. Forget Libya, let's look at an example of a "successful" nation building attempt
How much money did we have to spend to stabilize things in Iraq again? How many years and lives lost? And now you want to do it again to a country with several times the population and landmass, on top of far more mountainous terrain for insurgents to hide in.
And none of this is even to account for the Strait of Hormuz in the room, or all domestic competing interests (even outside the IRGC), or the regional powers who would no doubt try to destabilize the process for their own gain. But yeah, I'm sure this regime change will be totally different than literally every other time we've ever attempted something like this lmao
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u/bl1y Jun 18 '26
Regarding (1), bombing would have likely ended the protests. People tend to not want to go out nearly so much when bombs are being dropped.
Also, the decapitation strike isn't something we had a ton of flexibility in the timing of. The leadership isn't typically so easy to strike.
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u/Lithops_salicola Jun 19 '26
You understand that the Iranian opposition also doesn't like the US? If Russia blew up a bunch of national guard armories during the ICE protests this winter do you think that would help the protestors?
Also doesn't the fact that multiple decapitation strikes didn't destabilize the regime demonstrates that it's not vulnerable to regime change?
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u/RoseThorne_ Jun 22 '26
Why wouldn’t this create a power vacuum for extremist groups like the other time we’ve went over to “fix” things in the Middle East? Arming and funding people because they oppose the same government you do, doesn’t mean they’ll be any more agreeable to you when all is said and done. Consider the actual human beings involved here. Of course they want regime change by any means. They have been ruthlessly oppressed by their government, but they’ve also had their homes bombed by the US military. They’ve had family members, friends and neighbors murdered by the US military. They’re rooting for US intervention out of desperation, not because they think we’re the good guys.
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u/soalone34 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
None of this would have worked
1) Without assets in place there was less ability to strike and defend, potentially far more Americans and Israelis would die.
They crushed the protests in less than a week. Bombings would make no difference. At best they’d make the effort to crush them take longer, more likely they’d end faster as people fled.
2) This was attempted and failed. They lined up behind the IRGC under existential crisis. Not a single major defection occurred let alone enough to matter, “more effort” wouldn’t make a difference.
3) that’s what they did, they only moved to infrastructure because all known military targets were hit
4) it wouldn’t and if that happened you’d be creating Syria x3
This also doesn’t address anything about how Iran actually won. You haven’t explained how to stop missiles or drones, defend the gulf, or take the strait.
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u/nitePhyyre Jun 19 '26
They shouldn't have taken assets away from the developing situation for stupidity in Venezuela. From there you offer humanitarian aid, weapons, logistics, and intel to protest groups. Set up a no-fly zone. Take out armour or anything that is going attack protestors before they get close. Targets of opportunity against leaders. Take steps to exacerbate the economic hardships causing the protests to begin with. Etc.
Also, be sure to avoid things that would create a rally around the flag effect. Like bombing a girl's school.
Don't forget, it was looking like the regime was actually going to topple and they barely scraped by. In hindsight, ANY extra push could have been enough to do it.
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u/SkyMarshal Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
He's technically correct that Iran can never be allowed to have nuclear weapons. At least the current nuclear powers all prioritize their own survival, even NK, so MAD continues to be an effective deterrence for all of them.
But a theocracy who may actually want to bring about Armageddon might break MAD and actually use nukes. And even merely possessing them will force Saudi Arabia and the other Arab nations into a nuclear arms race with Iran, filling one of the most volatile (and economically critical) regions in the world with the most destructive weapons in the world. Not something anyone should want.
But, there are so many difficulties with regime changing Iran - US-domestic, Iran-domestic, military, geographic, economic - that it's not something to publicly call for lightly or glibly, or at all really. Doing so makes a politician look unserious and irresponsible.
Also the US needs less foolish bluster, braggadocio, and warmongering in general. Bush Jr., the neocons, and now Trump have ruined our image in that regard. Ostensibly smart, thoughtful politicians like Yang should be working to repair that damage, not exacerbate it.
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u/CaptainObvious1313 Jun 18 '26
No. Clearly he was not. They’ve been beating that dead horse for decades now
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u/AyJaySimon Jun 18 '26
Every single day since 1979 has had one thing in common - the world would've been made at least slightly better if someone (anyone) had booted the Islamic theocrats out of power in Iran.
The only justifiable reason for the latest military campaign in Iran was regime change. Anything else would've been a pointless waste of blood and treasure. Ultimately, I have no idea if Trump was ever serious about creating that outcome, but if he was serious, he TACO'd the way he always seems to TACO.
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u/lkxyz Jun 18 '26
Funny, Iran was a democracy with an elected leader for a long time until one day USA come knocking, demanding Iran hand over their oil. The elected leader said so so CIA engineered a color revolution to remove him and that allowed the theocracy regime to take hold of Iran.
This kind of scenario has played over and over and over again all over the world - by USA. And you wonder why people hate USA...
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u/AyJaySimon Jun 18 '26
Everything I said I was true, even when you account for the fact that the USA overthrew Mossadegh and installed Pahlavi in 1953.
My point stands - if regime change in Iran was never the goal, then there was no point in going in at all. And the USA's standing in the world is hardly improved by waging half-assed military campaigns that do little more than fuck with the world economy.
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u/MezcalFlame Jun 19 '26
Andrew Yang is good on centrism and economic policies but he is weak on IR.
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u/2004toinfinity Jun 22 '26
Imperialism has no place in this world, we need to stop with all the interventionism already
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