• gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    but maybe the thing to do is to find some sympathetic group, arm them, and let them take the heat

    Hmm. I wonder if anyone has tried that yet?

    Sympathetic guys armed by the US to fuck with Iran include Saddam Hussein, ISIS and Israel.

    • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      I don’t think it’s technically correct to say that the US armed ISIS; ISIS seized weapons that the US provided to Iraq.

      Israel does a pretty good job of opposing Iran, and we can be confident that weapons provided to Israel aren’t going to be used against the US. I think it’s likely that the Houthis are acting up now not because they’re provoked by Israel but because Israel is preoccupied with something else.

      As for Saddam Hussein… He did a very good job of opposing Iran. The threat of eight years of war and hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers dead would be a very effective stick if we still had access to it. It’s ironic that the weak, pro-Iran government that is the result of US intervention in Iraq seems like it’s worse for US interests than Saddam was.

      • JustZ@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        A lot of the people that now sympathize with ISIS are people that the US and other Western countries propped up in various ways to help fight the Soviets.

        The Houthis were friendly with the Soviets. The Soviets were friendly with the imamate.

      • bartolomeo@suppo.fi
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        5 months ago

        It’s ironic that the weak, pro-Iran government that is the result of US intervention in Iraq seems like it’s worse for US interests than Saddam was.

        Nailed it! (Aside from thinking it’s ironic)

      • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        a very effective stick if we still had access to it

        We? Who is ‘we’?