Wait, didn't America wage a war to install a pro-American government in Iraq? Are they somehow pro-American and pro-Iran at the same time, or did they switch alliances while nobody in the west was paying attention?
The initial government was pro-American, but the consequence of pushing a country to have democratic elections is that they sometimes elect people that you don't like.
When you want a country to be free and democratic, you can't also tell them who to elect. You have to choose one or the other. The United States has often chosen the latter while pretending to want the former, but at least with Iraq they seem to be mostly hands off (in recent years).
> The initial government was pro-American, but the consequence of pushing a country to have democratic elections is that they sometimes elect people that you don't like.
I don't the right prior here is "elections = real democracy", for cases like Iraq. The US has long history of installing "democratic" governments that are not actually democratic, but rather military states who violently suppress the people, but support US interests. The list of countries where this has borne out is long, but if you are interested, an easy place to start would be Cold War era South America (Guatemala and El Salvador being two straightforward examples).
Ironically whole thing started with CIA staged double coup(first one did not work apparently) in Iran during 1953(declassified recently). It was so successful that they copy-pasted it to LATAM and elsewhere. [1]
Interesting fact: Kermit Roosevelt Jr. a grandson of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, played the lead role in the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran, in August 1953. [2]
After World War I the British redrew the map of the middle east pretty arbitrarily after defeating the Ottoman Turks founding modern Iraq. It wasn't really guaranteed in the first place to include people who like each other.
I'm totally in agreement with you, and yet I'm still saddened that people fall prey to this trick which they have in their power to fix, by learning to forgive and live together in harmony and piece. The tragedy is how hard it is for people to come together and collaborate in good faith. And when that truth is exploited it's even more sad.
The Khmer Rouge is an interesting example, as it was a left-wing totalitarian government that the USA supported[0], albeit often at arms length. It was part of the geopolitics at the time, as the USA was aligned with the PRC and the Khmer Rouge against the Soviet bloc. A lot of it was also a petty vendetta against Vietnam, as arming the Khmer Rouge was a way to get back at Vietnamese Communists for winning the Vietnam War.
From the Wikipedia article on the Pinochet regime [1]:
> The regime was characterized by the systematic suppression of political parties and the persecution of dissidents to an extent unprecedented in the history of Chile. Overall, the regime left over 3,000 dead or missing, tortured tens of thousands of prisoners, and drove an estimated 200,000 Chileans into exile.
From the Wikipedia article on Carlos Castillo Armas [2]:
> Upon taking power Castillo Armas, worried that he lacked popular support, attempted to eliminate all opposition. He quickly arrested many thousands of opposition leaders, branding them communists. Detention camps were built to hold the prisoners when the jails exceeded their capacity. Historians have estimated that more than 3,000 people were arrested following the coup, and that approximately 1,000 agricultural workers were killed by Castillo Armas's troops in the province of Tiquisate. Acting on the advice of Dulles, Castillo Armas also detained a number of citizens trying to flee the country. He also created a National Committee of Defense Against Communism (CDNCC), with sweeping powers of arrest, detention, and deportation. Over the next few years, the committee investigated nearly 70,000 people. Many were imprisoned, executed, or "disappeared", frequently without trial.
IRGC and Russian bombing had driven out most of the Sunni's from Southern Syria towards north Syria, close to Turkish borders. and Iran is repopulating the land with Shias from allover from Afghanistan to Lebanon.
IRGC has sort of created a contiguous Shia controlled land mass from Iran, Iraq, Syria to Lebanon. Some geopolitical observers I follow, expect the next will be in Afghanistan, with Afghani Shias against Pakistan controlled Sunni Talibans, as soon as US withdraws from Afghanistan.
- to the people, it means a government that is less corrupt and more accountable to do the people's work; a semi-meritocracy.
- in diplomatic circles, it means whatever Americans and their rich owner-class want. There aren't very many democratic countries allowed; they're usually small and don't have a resource curse.
Iraq is an example of country with government that "Americans and their rich owner-class" definitely didn't want. It's democratic in the actual sense of the word:
-- It's a government that got majority of the vote.
This has little to do with corruption/accountability, iraqis tend to vote along sectarian lines. There are more shia, they are better organized, they win.
On the ground it might be more helpful to think of Pro-Saudi vs. Pro-Iran rather than involving America directly - those two political hegemonies are much more relevant to locals.
The initial goal was set by the policy makers who understand "unknown unknown" very well, along with most mainstream media journalists who share the same ideology/beliefs/cult. However knowing "unknown unknown" prohibit them from knowing "unknown unknown unknown". So the the final result doesn't align with initial intentions.
The same mistake is repeated again and again, even today.
When you want a country to be free and democratic, you can't also tell them who to elect. You have to choose one or the other. The United States has often chosen the latter while pretending to want the former, but at least with Iraq they seem to be mostly hands off (in recent years).