regime change

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Source required for "widely believed": who?”) Widely believed to have been coined by U.S. President Bill Clinton and popularized by his Presidential successor George W. Bush in reference to the regime of Saddam Hussein. Use of the term dates back to 1925.

regime change (countable and uncountable, plural regime changes)

1. (politics) The overthrow of a government that is considered an illegitimate regime by means of external force (especially military might), and its replacement with a new government according to the concept of political legitimacy promoted by that force.

• (in American strategic language): rollback

• containment
• détente