To the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out that the CIA did indeed depose democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq back in 1953. The proximate cause of this action was Mossaddeq’s nationalization of the country’s oil assets, which infuriated the U.S. and Britain. For a few years it worked. Our puppet Shah served our interests well, until he was taken out be the Ayatollah and Iran lurched back into the 13th century. Is it too long a stretch to believe that things might have worked out a tad different, and in our own long term best interests, had we left the Iranians to decide their own fate at that time? It may be hard to believe, but there was a time when Middle Eastern Countries had a pretty favorable impression of this country. It is no coincidence that that time coincided with a period in which we made no attempt to impose our will on them.
You would think that after a while, we might learn a little lesson from our multiple failed attempts to intervene in other country’s affairs. We really don’t do imperialism very well. The Romans and the British were each so much better in their own peculiar ways.
Credit where it’s due, Obama is earning a solid B, perhaps even a B+, on issues like this. It’s not good that he’s still feeding the Egyptian generals, but that’s merely a preservation of the status quo. It is good that he appears to be reluctant to intervene overtly or covertly in Egypt or in Syria. Syria, especially, is a place we should avoid. When the rebels win, we will likely see the present secular tyranny be replaced by one of the religious variety. There can be no dispute about which is worse, and there’s no reason in the world we should facilitate the transition.
I suppose there is a counterexample somewhere, a place where American Imperialism actually planted the seeds of blissful democracy, but none occur to me offhand. In fact, we appear to have done best where we have lost outright. Vietnam isn’t perfect, but it’s no threat to us
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