There may, in this new digital world of symbolic gestures and futilities, be no imposed regime that fits every bill.
In the west it is easy to pillory Russia for rejecting internationally imposed regime change by saying Vladimir Putin fears a "colour revolution" in Russia (even though there is no such prospect).
The Kremlin would like him to stay — and, particularly after watching the catastrophic overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi, in Libya, certainly prefers that outcome to anything that resembles externally imposed regime change — but he could just as easily be sacrificed.
The regional organization — comprising China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — took a strong position against externally imposed regime change in the Middle East, admitted Afghanistan as a new observer and announced steps to broaden its agenda into the next decade.
That's why the MPs' letter can solemnly claim that a legally imposed regime of regulation – the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was really a front job for the industry, not a regulator – would be a return to the kind of press licensing abolished in 1695, though the punitive stamp duty on newspapers ( a "tax on knowledge": ho, ho) was actually only lifted in 1855.
This imposed regime change in Syria could lead to the devastation of the country.
Over the years Washington imposed regime change or dismembered territories in countries posing no threat to America, such as Haiti, Grenada, Panama, Serbia, Iraq, and Libya.
And the latter group is mostly, though not entirely, made up of countries which get bombed by the U.S. In recent decades Washington has imposed regime change on a succession of nations.
It is a shame that the US has fallen back into the bad habit of seeking to impose regimes (Iraq, Palestine).
The UAE's foreign secretary, Anwar Gargash, insisted the anti-Qatar alliance is not seeking to impose regime change.
Mark Curtis: By imposing regime change in Iraq, Blair is not so much following the US as continuing a national tradition.
