Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[Dayuhan]

Are you sure that it's 'seldom' that the US can change the way some of its allies are governed? Or isn't it so that this is next to never attempted?

It's seldom attempted because Americans have finally figured out that it doesn't work. Might get a cosmetic shuffling of faces, a few paper "reforms" that are not enforced or taken seriously... but not meaningful change in governance. These countries are governed the way they are for a reason: the people that run them want them run that way and see substantive change as a threat to their own power.

Let's consider the latest (known to me) example of an 'intervention' (of sort) in one of countries in question: removal of famous Prince Bandar from his post as Chief of Saudi Intel.

Let's not pretend that Bandar's removal was solely or even primarily due to US pressure. Bandar had made a pile of enemies in his own tent and a lot of people in Riyadh wanted him out. When Syria didn't go as he wished, and when it became clear that he no longer had the capacity to get the US to do the Saudi dirty work for them, his days were numbered.

Frustrated by Obama's indecision on Syria, Bandar became a vocal propagator of the idea 'Saudis are going to do all it on their own'.

What indecision? Obama made the decision to stay out and stuck to that decision, at least until now, when indecisiveness really is creeping in. He may not have made the decision that you (or Bandar) wanted, but that's not indecision.

If it's 'so easy' to kick out an important and highly influential minister, why to hell should there be a problem to force them to do many other things too? Except it is so that there is _no_ interest to force them to change anything, because that would jeopardise own interests?

It was only "easy" because powerful people in Riyadh also wanted it done. If you think the US can compel any fundamental change in the way the Saudis govern, think again. What leverage does the US have that could force such a change?

For example because dictatorships are easier to control than pluralist societies...?

Possibly so, but the US doesn't have a great track record at controlling either. Certainly the US does not control or even significantly influence the Saudis and the other Gulf monarchies. They do what they want. Look what happened when the US tried to pressure Bahrain to respond to their Arab Spring demonstrations with accommodation and reform. That's a good example of how much influence the US has when serious matters of governance are on the line.

Of course, there are better - or, should I say, 'more humane' - examples from the past too, like imposing a parliament upon the emir of Kuwait in exchange for liberating his sheikdom, back in 1990. Why is it so that nobody recalls that?

Possibly because that kind of leverage doesn't exist without a foreign occupier... and has the pattern of governance in Kuwait really changed that much?

Then you'll have to offer 'them' - all those presently more than happy to join the ISIS - more attractive alternatives than the ISIS could.

Who's "you" in that picture? The US hasn't the right, obligation, or capacity to offer alternative forms of governance to nations in the Middle East. They have to build those for themselves.