The latest US-Israeli bombings in Iran differ from last year’s, because one of the stated aims this time is regime change.

Engaged in the mass murder of civilians at home and fomenting violence abroad, the current Iranian regime has few friends internationally.

Many would be glad to see Iran undergo a far-reaching program of political reform. For many in the Iranian diaspora, regime change imposed from outside is better than none.

But the historical record of imposed regime change, particularly as undertaken by the United States, is patchy at best.

Things rarely go to plan, and the long-term consequences are often disastrous.

Some immediate examples spring to mind.

Still fresh in the public mind would be the shocking scenes of desperate Afghans trying to leave Kabul in 2021 as the United States conceded it could not permanently defeat the Taliban.

This admission came after two decades, thousands of deaths of US and allied troops and tens of thousands of Afghan deaths.

Many would also remember then-US President George W. Bush’s disastrous speech in May 2003 about America’s regime change efforts in Iraq, begun in March that year. Here, Bush addressed the press while standing in front of a huge banner that said “Mission Accomplished”; the implication was regime change had been achieved in just a few months.

In fact, what followed was another........

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