After the CIA overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader, U.S. policymakers helped themselves to Iranian oil at discounted prices and smugly congratulated themselves. But the blowback was a bitch. Their puppet ruler, the Shah, was soon overthrown by revolutionaries who despised and resented the United States. Sanctions intended to soften the Islamic Republic had the opposite effect, hardening its resolve and prompting it to wage proxy wars against the U.S. and Israel throughout the Middle East. Fifty years later, the Middle East is a hot mess, Iran is its dominant regional power, and the United States has lost. So why is the U.S. pursuing similar policies against oil-rich, socialist-majority Venezuela?
Good to the Last Drop
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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1) Re “… the Shah, was soon overthrown by revolutionaries who despised and resented the United States.” That should be ” … the Shah, was eventually overthrown … ” the US puppet having brutalized the Iranian populace for 26 years.
2) Re “Sanctions intended to soften the Islamic Republic had the opposite effect, … ” but the sanctions, active to this day, still added to the death toll of US and EU sanctions revealed by the UK medical journal The Lancet ( https://tinyurl.com/44ax5v9v ). Data from 1971-2021, extrapolated through the 2021-present era of hyper-frenzied, if consistently counter-productive sanctions, gives the 55-year global death toll of 31 million.