From Iran to Belarus – regime-change on the way again?

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Monday’s announcement by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that both his country’s troops and Russia’s would form a joint regional group, comes at a time of increased tension amidst Russia’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine.

On Saturday morning, an explosion rocked the Kerch Bridge, linking Crimea to the Russian mainland, leaving four people dead. 48 hours later, on the same day as Lukashenko’s announcement, retaliatory Russian missile strikes would rain down on Kiev and the rest of Ukraine, the largest escalation of the conflict since Moscow launched its intervention in February of this year.

With these events coming only two weeks after explosions destroyed the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the increase in formal military ties between Belarus and Russia amidst current tensions will no doubt put Minsk in the sights of the regime change lobby yet again, a strategy with recent usage against the former Soviet Republic.

In August 2020, following Lukashenko’s Presidential Electoral victory over Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a CIA-orchestrated colour revolution would be launched against Belarus, a longtime target for regime change owing to it being Moscow’s sole European ally, its numerous state-owned industries –  and in what was perhaps the most pertinent factor at the time – Lukashenko’s refusal to implement the lockdown measures intended to implement the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset initiative.

Violent protests would sweep the eastern European nation in the aftermath of the election, before finally being quelled by Minsk after several months, a fate not shared by its southern neighbour Ukraine.

In November 2013, a similar regime change operation known as Euromaidan would be launched following then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to suspend an EU trade deal in order to pursue closer ties with Russia.

Unlike Belarus however, the violence in Ukraine would ultimately lead to the installation of a pro-Western government in early 2014, one that would then go on to wage an ethnic cleansing campaign against the predominantly ethnic Russian Donbass region in the east.

A situation that would lead to 14,000 deaths over the space of eight years until Moscow’s hand was finally forced in February of this year and a military intervention was launched, the world ultimately being brought to the brink of nuclear war as a result.

Indeed, just as the possibility of another regime change operation targeting Belarus now looks increasingly likely, another regime change operation targeting a Moscow ally is currently taking place.

On the 16th of September, less than 24 hours after Iran had joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – a group intended to foster political, economic and military development in Eurasia, including member-state Russia – violent protests would sweep the Islamic Republic, ostensibly in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year old Iranian woman who had passed away suddenly “following an interaction with police in Tehran”.

The sudden, violent nature of these protests, as well as their coordinated coverage by Western media outlets, bear all the trademarks of a colour revolution orchestrated by the CIA.

Indeed, this was effectively confirmed as such by the involvement of Masih Alinejad, a US agent previously photographed with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a long-time supporter of regime change in Iran.

Similar to Belarus, Iran has also been a long-time target of the regime-change lobby, following the overthrow of the Western-backed Shah Pahlavi in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Both countries have also increased ties with Russia amidst the war in Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin paying an official visit to Tehran in July, and with Belarus also seeking to join the SCO, the similarities may soon extend to Minsk experiencing a violent regime change attempt – intended to destabilise Russia’s borders - yet again.