According to the WSJ, the Obama White House has decided on a new phrase to distinguish its latest Middle East policy from old-style “regime change.”
Instead of pushing for immediate regime change—as it did to varying degrees in Egypt and now Libya—the U.S. is urging protesters from Bahrain to Morocco to work with existing rulers toward what some officials and diplomats are now calling “regime alteration.”
Good luck to Obama with that. But doesn’t “regime alteration” sound a bit harsh? I mean, if you were the ruler of Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, would you want your regime “altered”? I’m thinking of my cat here. There must be other, even more diplomatic euphemisms the White House could employ that would make reform go down more easily, and kf readers are just the ones to come up with them. Here are some of the obvious candidates. The comments section is open for other, better alternatives.
Regime adjustment
Regime reorientation
Regime relaunch!
Regime reimagining
Regime augmentation*
Regime enhancement
Regime makeover
Regime rehab!
Regime transcendence
Regime self-realization
Regime de-reification
Regime rejiggering
Regime +
Regime renewal
Regime remix
Regime rightsizing
Regime detox
Regime, Platinum Edition
Regime: The Director’s Cut
Update: Already good suggestions in the comments, e.g. “regime pivot,” “regime reboot,” “re-regime.” The latter could become a sophisticated foreign policy verb, as in, “We had to re-regime Bahrain last week. Riots got out of hand.”
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* — From alert twitterer @ExJon