Overthrow By Stephen Kinzer - Essay Example

As President Bush put it  “we are trying to lead the world”. America feels it their duty to intervene wherever they please if the political and economical will of that country defy American rule. Stephen Kinzer in the book “Overthrow” argues that America could have avoided most of these violent military confrontations spending billions of dollars and causing bloodshed and pain by more patient and effective use of diplomacy and its tools of persuasion.

            “Modern history makes it eminently clear that when the United States engages with oppressive and threatening regimes, using combinations of incentives, threats, punishments, and rewards, those regimes slowly becomes less dangerous” (p.320).

At the same time one look at the countries that the US militarily intervened in like, the Philippines, Afghanistan, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran, and Iraq the results were terribly wrong. In Iran for example in early 1951, the US at the request of the British, removed a fully functional democratic government only to install a dictator. And in Iraq several decades later they did exactly opposite. Both have not worked. Iran became a completely anti-american country with religious leaders as head of state that looks to oppose any American ideas at the world level. Iraq is still smoldering from the chaos of war with violent reactions every now and then.  The resentment against the US is ever increasing with strong Anti-US propaganda.  The author argues that in most of these cases diplomatic and political approaches would have been far more effective. More often than not, the think tank of the US gets impatient and jumps to the conclusion that a “regime change” is the only answer. What do they do?. They forcefully invade the country with their military might and advanced weaponry, remove the leader of that country and hand its power to someone who will dance to their tunes. If analyzed in-depth this ploy has not yielded the desired results in many cases. Most country's civilians grow deep resentment against the US that they over time distance themselves away from the US and move on their own national agenda. It's this resentment and hatred that culminates ultimately into 9/11 kinds of attacks.

            I feel that the US has to sit down and re-think its position. No question, that its military capabilities are unparalleled. But there is enough evidence from all this to suggest that overpowering a country or manipulating the politics of a country to remove an anti-american head of state and install a seemingly friendly leader has not yielded the results that the US wanted. Instead, it has created enemies all over the world. There are countries full of people who are very strong resent the Americans and the American way of life.  This has made the world considerably a less peaceful place.