Regime Change - Popular Use

Popular Use

The transition from one political regime to another, esp through concerted political or military action - most recently seen in the regime change undergone by Tunisia.

The term has been popularized by recent US Presidents. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush regularly used the term in reference to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Ronald Reagan had previously called for regime change in Libya, directing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to work towards that goal.

The term regime change is sometimes erroneously used to describe a change in the government of the day.

The term regime change can also be applied to bodies other than nation states.

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