| " you do conveniently leave out that it was the US toppling the Shah of Iran that resulted in a religious wave taking over the whole region. A" The USA supported the Shah, and that's not 'what caused something else'. Topping Mossadegh was not exactly a democratic move, but the Shah was, and still would be, better than any alternative. The US supports worse people in Kuwait and Qatar - and at least from a geo/p perspective, it works. Afghanistan is 100% the 'fault' of Communists. By the 1960's they were a poor backwards country, but not overrun with insanity. This '100's of years of occupation' is rubbish. The British left a long time ago. Young Communists failed in their democratic efforts but were stopped. They tried to overthrow government and failed, and then invited the Soviets in. American intervention during the 1970's was decisive, yes, but very limited. They didn't 'train' zillions of soldiers. It was a few soldiers and a few stinger missiles. So after mass political chaos, yes, 'thugs' took over, like anywhere else. As we can see from US 2003 intervention, which didn't result in an ongoing functioning state, what power on earth is going to change that equation? Afghanistan was a bit more like the other 'stans' around it until the Global Communist Insurrections of the 20th century. The same thing in Chile. A fairy radical communist took over, was popular at the start, introduced some arguably needed reforms but then went way, way overboard. With only 30% of the vote he tried to overule parliament and the judiciary, crashed the economy and was well on his way to being a dictator. Western forces intervened and supported the 'other side' aka Pinochet, who was 'bad'. But on the whole probably not as bad as the alternative. Given the choice between Allende (Stalin-ish) and Pinochet (Putin-ish) the later was probably preferable, and 50 years later it's working out really well. Arguably the same can even be said about the Shah vs. Mossadegh. US supported not exactly the nicest people in both S. Korea and in S. Vietnam. We know how S. Korea worked out, and we know how S. Vietnam worked out: thousands executed, 100's of thousands in concentration camps many of whom died. Ruthless (albeit peaceful) authoritarianism to this day. And with Egypt. US props up the secular Army, which keeps mostly 'hands off' with politics but is the ultimate power there, and that means Egypt is at least 'coherent' and not fully at war with Israel etc.. This assessment of a 'single country stirring the shitstorms' is glib. The world would be a complete shitstorm - or - have been taken over by absolutely ruthless players, were not for US/West, now include S. Korea and Japan in there. It's not all 'hunky dory' obviously, but in 50 years, Saudi Women will have many more rights and it won't come at the cost of total regional war between Israel/Egypt, Saudi/Iran etc. etc.. |
A narrow rent-seeking elite in a desperately poor country isn't a model for stability which pre-communist take over Afghanistan was.
Just as you can't hand wave at everything with the "it was the US", you shouldn't hand wave at everything as it was the communists fault.