Regime change in current conditions requires maximum bloodshed, writes Daniel McAdams. It doesn’t matter whose blood; it can all be blamed on “the regime.”
Pravyi Sektor(Right Sector) far-right Ukrainian activists. Feb. 22, 2014. (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
The most disturbing lesson from the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine that has been well-learned by the various intelligence agencies in this business is that the application of extreme violence – especially aimed at law enforcement, other state authorities, and civilians – provides an effective template upon which to further the regime change narrative.
Everything can be blamed on “the regime” and thus serve the purpose of the operation.
We have seen this recently in Iran.
When I was on the ground observing the early “color revolutions” in the 1990s in Eastern Europe it was simply about getting warm bodies in the street to wave the correct flags and mouth the NED-approved slogans and to demand a new election, the most recent one having been “stolen.”
Protesters with OUN-B red and black flag among Euromaidan protesters in Kiev, December 2013. (Nessa Gnatoush, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Questioning legitimacy of elections was enough at that early stage. Even Western polls suggesting the election result matched the will of the people (as in the 2006 Belarus presidential election and subsequent “Denim Revolution” I monitored on the ground) did not dissuade the protesters.
But that was all fun and games compared to what came next.
Now it is about bodies and blood and particularly the most gruesome injuries.
This is difficult for any legitimate state authority to defend against, as any application of counter-force only feeds the narrative of a violent regime determined to quell “legitimate” desire for political pluralism.
For a successful regime change in the current conditions there must be maximum bloodshed. And it does not matter whose blood is shed, it can all be blamed on “the regime.”
The bots and fake social media accounts under control of intelligence agencies can take care of that part. Amplify atrocities, regardless whence they came.
Protesters clash with police in Kiev, Ukraine, February 2014. (Mstyslav Chernov, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Heavier bloodshed also feeds the ignorance and voyeurism of the intended Western and (especially) U.S. audiences. “Thar be dragons,” is the rallying cry. Everything beyond our borders is unsophisticated and bestial, while at the same time longing to be exactly as we are.
We saw this clearly in the well-orchestrated attacks against state law enforcement authorities in Ukraine/Maidan in 2014.
What would normally have sufficed to return society to order was shown to be woefully inadequate in the face of extremely violent agents on the ground including snipers on the rooftops and “wet works” specialists willing to murder law enforcement with their bare hands.
The more violence the better. The more gruesome the better.
Lenin understood it well: “The worse the better.” You must recruit the absolute lowest and most violent dregs of society to carry out the operation.
But then that has been the C.I.A. Operations Directorate modus operandi since its founding. Which is why President Harry Truman was desperate to strangle his own baby in the cradle.
Through some serendipity, the extreme violence of the C.I.A./MI6/Mossad attempted regime change operation we just witnessed in Iran was defeated by technology (likely imported from Iran’s allies) targeting the plan at its weakest point: communications and coordination.
Extreme acts of violence against state authorities and average citizens have no value unless coordinated for propaganda purposes.
Funeral procession for 3-year-old Iranian girl, Melina Asadi, shot and killed by anti-government rioters in province of Kermanshah, January 2026. (X, The Cradle, Screenshot)
No less than President Donald Trump himself reduced the entire operation to body counts. So, the regime-changers had the incentive to produce more bodies and their recruits on the ground were only too happy to comply.
But something happened: the shutdown of Elon Musk’s ill-advised gift of Starlink to the violent Israel-sponsored extremists was defeated somehow and you had a gang of violent killers with no directions from Langley or Tel Aviv on who to kill next.
“No less than President Trump himself reduced the entire operation to body counts. So, the regime-changers had the incentive to produce more bodies and their recruits on the ground were only too happy to comply.”
And it turns out that no matter what you think about that country six thousand miles away, it is not as easy as the neocons claim to overthrow the government and usher in at the point of a gun “democracy” D.C. style.
With rainbow parades and promises of an atheistic, multi-culti paradise a la – ironically – the ICE resisters in Minnesota or Seattle.
Overseas, the neocon Right becomes the most ideologically insane version of the Minnesota Left: “Iran needs to celebrate multi-culturalism, atheism, and pan-sexuality!”
O.K.
In the world of U.S. Middle East regime change hegemony there is no Right or Left. It’s all been contracted out to Tel Aviv, as our tech world has been contracted out to H1B visas.
Connect the dots and realize, as the Communists so well realized, what are the correlation of forces for and against you.
Husbanding the entirety of the U.S. global military empire to overthrow the main impediment of Israel’s “Greater Israel” goal to conquer the Middle East is in no way in accord with U.S. interests or future well-being. On the contrary.
The U.S. embrace of extreme violence – the “Israel model” – overseas can only harm America’s actual national interest.
Embracing the latest iteration of the “regime change” template not only betrays the U.S.’s supposed moral high-ground, it hastens the correlation of forces against dollar hegemony and against the survival of America’s own oligarch class.
Oppose this or get used to being poor, immoral, and dead.
Daniel McAdams is executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and co-producer/co-host of the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Daniel served as the foreign affairs, civil liberties, and defense/intel policy advisor to U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, MD (R-TX) from 2001 until Dr. Paul’s retirement at the end of 2012. From 1993-1999 he worked as a journalist based in Budapest, Hungary, and traveled through the former communist bloc as a human rights monitor and election observer.
This article is from the Ron Paul Institute.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
I went outside to see it was not snowing .
I decided to turn around instead
Upon reentry ,through the door , I said like asked ,
Its not snowing What , then , is that on your head ?
I thought I heard ,is that what you said ?
Upon reply , tis not , no way , at all , is what , or was , I , said .
Then I said , if that ain’t so .
Twice, now , I said like asked , this time once again .
Was the first reply the lie , or does this one ,now , make two , recount of , what you said ?
Have you lost track , you say , not ask , the way , you question tell , not ask .
If Mosad, MI6,US intel etc. were using the internet and Starlink for communications between the their agents to try for regine change why haven’t we been shown these messages? For their eyes/ears only?
No one has an answer or even that question asked anywhere else it seems. It is made to look as if that Starlink/Internet directing the protests was propaganda.
Israel and the United States are like a binary colonial star system, rapidly going super nova. The big Empire, and the little would-be one, morbidly entwined in a death spiral, will eventually be shaken off by the world – if they don’t destroy it. Gaza is the testing ground for whether a heat stricken planet’s refugees and dwindling resources can be addressed by corporations and oligarchs through genocide and ethnic cleansing, mass surveillance and ‘smart’ concentration camps. The burden of a hope earned is responsibility. And only a collective revolt by those who’ve had quite enough of global tyranny can weather it’s death throws.
The flag in the photo has nothing to do with Ukraine; it says Long live Belarus!
“Thar be dragons,” is the rallying cry. Everything beyond our borders is unsophisticated and bestial, while at the same time longing to be exactly as we are.” Daniel McAdams (FULL Context, above).
“And, it turns out,” what happens in Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela, the UNSC, Davos, “Greenland,” Minnesota is by design. The regime in power to use, abuse, abandon Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela, the UNSC, Davos, “Greenland,” Minnesota, comes easy for DJ “Occupier-N-Chief” Trump, NATO, BB “Israel’s “Gollum” Netanyahu per the US Congress’ complicity to “Kill, First. Think, Later.” Hence, “usher in at the point of a gun “democracy” D.C. style.” Daniel McAdams.
Awh, indeed, “Connect the Dots” & “the most disturbing lesson from the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine”, the Operation Iraqi Liberation, 2003-2011, the genocide, “from the river to the sea” 10.7.23-PRESENT, Biden’s-Harris’ War in Ukraine, the “Complicity” by “the regime’s” US Congress, lives large!!!. “It doesn’t matter whose blood; it can all be blamed on “the regime.” Daniel McAdams.
“Overseas,” “The Donald’s” doppelgänger, Jared Kushner & “Cheshire Cat”, Steve Witkoff, “becomes the most ideologically insane version”, a spitting image of the heartless, bloody, f/orange DJTrump-Vance-Rubio-Hegseth-Gabbard, Incorporated!!!
… What happened in Davos, “Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, showed slides of what he billed a ‘master plan’ for reconstruction, including maps of new settlements in the Gaza Strip, artist renderings of seafront hotels and apartments under the caption ‘New Gaza.’ Trump unveils ‘Board of Peace’ and ‘New Gaza’ plans at Davos” by Le Monde w/ AFP, Published today at 3:11 pm (Paris) hxxps://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/01/22/trump-unveils-board-of-peace-and-new-gaza-plans-at-davos_6749692_4.html
World. War In Gaza. The Nobel Peace Prize. The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: “Trump officials [NOT the US Government’s employees; but,“Freelance” Real Estate Developers] w/“ambitious plans for a “New Gaza”, unveiled during the ceremony at the World Economic Forum, with the US leader” [DJTrump] “describing the devastated Palestinian territory as “great real estate.”
Imo, to positively, legally, universally effect “The Changing Face of Regime Change;” “we” better call 1-800-911-VIPS.
WANTED: “A War of Liberation”. Imo, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for SANITY (VIPS) is beyond f/capable of mapping the model to annihilate “the regime” of The Divided States of Corporate America. Oh, Let “Thar VIPS be “our” generals, diplomats, statesmen & women. “Our” Board of Intelligence NOT a Board of Executioners. “Our” ROCK!
…. The ask: Please, VIPS, mainstream “our” daydream, together we can “Dump, Trump, Inc.!” TY!!! Onward & Upwards.
That’s right, there is no such thing as “right” and “left” only authoritarian, warmongering, genocidal factions of oligarchy arguing among themselves over the fine points and PR. The oligarchy call the shots. The unhinged emperor boasts about how he has accepted 100s of millions in contributions (bribes) much of it from foreign nationals. This should be viewed as a form of treason. Selling out US policy and interests to the highest bidders.
The current US regime just continue long-term US policy, ratcheting up the lawlessness. The only difference with the previous regime (also with dementia-addled, geriatric emperor) is that they are more ugly and crude about the abuse of power, lawlessness and mass murder.
Although the emperor has lost some public approval, there are still millions of ignorant, conditioned, Stockholm Syndrome inflicted masochists who continue to unconditionally support the lawless, unhinged emperor and his kakistocrat crew.
And most of the opponents of the regime think that supporting the D brand of authoritarian warmongers and kleptocrats will solve our problems. After all most US folk, no matter what their party preference, believe “those” countries have brutal regimes and autocracies, while America is a shining beacon of freedom and democracy and all that BS. It’s the “US administration” Not brutal and lawless US regime. “They” are bad, we are good, just a few bad apples. Meanwhile, the bribe-masters of oligarchy run the show behind the thin curtain, yet few notice.
So, we better get used to being poorer, less able to afford proper health care, having fewer rights, dying younger – that is unless you are part of the oligarch class.
Reading this I have the feeling that the words McAdams uses often have different shades of meaning than my normal understanding of them; makes his premises and conclusions hard to decipher into my comprehensions, followed by the uneasy feeling one of us has to be wrong in fundamental understanding of how the world works.
Debunking corporate news is always good, always fashionable, always salutary. Thanks.
It’s not a “Changing Face” it has always been two-faced!