As for possible regime change, the first thing to remember is how miserable has been the U.S. record of regime change in the Middle East, when considering not only the change itself but subsequent events flowing from the change. A leading example is the offensive war that overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, an eight-year quagmire that caused thousands of American casualties and spawned a terrorist group that would take over large swaths of Syria as well as Iraq.

Another example is Libya, where U.S. backing of the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi — who earlier had willingly, through negotiation, surrendered all his unconventional weapons programs as well as ending involvement in international terrorism — resulted in disorder that spread instability to the surrounding region and left Libya without a single stable government, a situation that continues to this day.

One can add to that list Iran itself, where a U.S.-supported coup in 1953 left Iran in the hands of Shah Reza Pahlavi. [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] The shah’s rule ultimately proved to be weak as well as harsh, leading to the 1979 revolution that brought to power the Islamic Republic that governs Iran today.

The prospects for the current war in Iran, with or without U.S. involvement, to precipitate favorable regime change are dim. The Israeli assault has generated the usual rally-around-the-flag effect. Opposition voices inside Iran are distinguishing between the Iranian nation and the regime, with solidarity on behalf of the former taking immediate priority over discontent with the latter.

US involvement in the events of 1953 remains a more specific and frequently cited source of resentment. Regardless of how much memory there may or may not be of Mossadegh and his policies, for most Iranians the main takeaway from 1953 is that the United States interfered in the internal affairs of their country, not to help that country’s people, but instead for Washington’s own political and economic purposes.
. . . . . . . . . . .

It’s impossible to say what directions Iran would have taken if Britain and the United States had not pushed out Mossadegh. But it’s a safe bet that, with the Cold War having come and gone, we wouldn’t be talking today about what was the main worry in 1953: a communist Iran.

“The predominant American perception has impeded understanding of the bases for Iranian distrust of and even hostility toward the United States. The bases include the constantly evident American hostility toward Iran, accompanied by implicit and even explicit threats of military attack against Iran made credible by the U.S. military presence in Iran’s immediate neighborhood. They also include historical baggage that is the counterpart to Americans’ memory of the takeover of the embassy in Tehran and the ensuing hostage crisis. For Iranians, the salient historical events include the U.S.-supported coup to overthrow the Iranian prime minister in 1953 and the shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner by a U.S. warship in 1988, which most Iranians believe—mistakenly—to have been intentional rather than accidental. There are misperceptions in each direction here, and they are due in part to the general psychological mechanism of attributing someone else’s negative behavior to that person’s innately negative qualities rather than to the provocations of our own behavior. The American exceptionalist self-image and proclivity for demonization of adversaries accentuates this pattern in the case of perceptions of Iran.”

“An armed attack on Iran would be an immediate political gift to Iranian hard-liners, who are nourished by confrontation with the West, and with the United States in particular. Armed attack by a foreign power traditionally produces a rally-round-the-flag effect that benefits whatever regime is in power. Last year a spokesperson for the opposition Green Movement in Iran said the current regime “would really like for someone” to bomb the nuclear facilities because “this would then increase nationalism and the regime would gather everyone and all the political parties around itself.” Over the longer term, an attack would poison relations between the United States and generations of Iranians. It would become an even more prominent and lasting grievance than the U.S.-engineered overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953 or the accidental shooting down of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf in 1988. American war proponents who optimistically hope that an attack would somehow stir the Iranian political pot in a way that would undermine the current clerical regime are likely to be disappointed. Even if political change in Iran occurred, any new regime would be responsive to a populace that has more reason than ever to be hostile to the United States.”

“And I might add, finally, that an attack could also be expected to effect long term attitudes of almost all Iranians. Just as Iranians still today, more than half a century later, refer resentfully to the U.S. instigated coup that overthrew a populist Iranian Prime Minister in 1953, a military attack, which, of course, would be an even more open and violent act of hostility, would be a new source of long term resentment, helping to poison relations between Tehran and Washington for generations.”

“Furthermore, there is a tremendous reservoir of mistrust between Iran and the U.S. Iranian distrust relates to 1953 and the overthrow of Mossadegh. American distrust began in 1979 with the takeover of the US embassy. Tehran sees the encirclement of its own territory by the U.S. military; the U.S. sees Ahmadinejad and his rhetoric about the Holocaust and Israel, and it gives way too much weight to his role in the Iranian political system. Unfortunately, some political interests in both the U.S. and Iran have a stake in continuing tensions between the two.”