Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq Stephen Kinzer, author and award-winning foreign correspondent March 6, 2007   Israel Author and journalist Stephen Kinzer talks about his book, "Overthrow," which examines foreign governments the U.S. has toppled over the past century.

And based on the research for his book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, most of the time things don't turn out well for America. While the initial invasion is usually successful, he said, "the problem is what happens afterward."

"It's like releasing a wheel at the top of a hill," Kinzer told the audience at a Milken Institute Forum."You have no idea where it will bounce or end up."

Kinzer, a former correspondent for The New York Times, said the U.S. overthrow of foreign governments usually has three phases:

Phase I: The foreign government does something seen as harmful to American business based in that country, such as new taxes or regulations.

Phase II: The U.S. government perceives the action as anti-American and a threat to our security, and thus deserving of a military intervention or coup.

Phase III: The U.S. government then justifies the overthrow with arguments that play well with the American people, such as "we did it to liberate the poor, suffering citizens of that country from this horrible tyrant."

This pattern is evident from Cuba in 1898 to Iran in 1953 to Iraq today, Kinzer said.

He told the story of how Iran nationalized the oil industry after World War II. When Dwight Eisenhower became president, he was persuaded by arguments not that Iran was hurting American business interests, but that Iran was turning communist, and he agreed to back a coup. The plan succeeded, and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (the Shah of Iran) became Iran's leader for the next 26 years.

Kinzer's view is that our intervention led to repression of the Iranian people that resulted in the 1979 revolution, which installed today's anti-American Islamic regime. If we had let Iran follow its own course in the 1950s, we would, he believes, have a much friendlier government in Iran today.

"How different would the Middle East look today had we followed that course?" he asked.

Biography:

Kinzer served as The New York Times bureau chief in Turkey, Germany and Nicaragua, and was formerly the Latin America correspondent for the Boston Globe. He has reported from more than 50 countries on four continents. His previous books include All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror; Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds; Blood of Brothers; and Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala.

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