We tried regime change when the CIA overthrew the elected government of Iran in the 50s, replaced it with the Shah, who was an autocrat and hated by his own people, and then it boomeranged on us when the Shah was overthrown and we've been dealing with the consequences ever since. We approved the coup that overthrew President Diem of South Vietnam in 1963, which helped lead us into the Vietnam War disaster. Reagan tried to prop up the Lebanese government in 1982, and what we got out of it was a terrorist suicide attack that killed 241 Marines, after which conservative hero Reagan packed up and left the country to its fate. We invaded Iraq and did overthrow Hussein, and ended up bogged down in a war that cost nearly 5,000 American lives and tens of thousands of casualties and massive sums of money to no good effect, as Hussein was no longer a serious threat anyway. We overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan and ended up bogged down in an endless guerilla war that resulted with the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, so we got nothing out of fighting a two-decade long conflict. You would think at some point we might learn that "regime change" or propping up shaky or unpopular governments doesn't work, yet here we are again. This will end no better than any of these other attempts, imo, and any American lives lost in this conflict will be a crime against the men and women who are ordered to fight it.
