Ever since St. Raygun, RW politicians have had their sights on the Middle East.

[wnylib]

It's like a modern throw back to the Crusades. Even the stated motives for ME fighting and the unstated ones are the same -- opportunities for glory and personal gain sold to the public as a righteous cause.

Not that the other side was totally innocent. Middle East nations were determined to conquer the world beyond their region and encroached on Europe from both the east (Balkans) and west (Spain and France).

Will these tensions never end?

One way to knock the wind out of the sails of both sides today would be to rely more and more on solar and renewable energy, making oil based wealth less valuable. There still would be products and machinery that rely on petroleum, but the demand for and wealth from oil would decrease. So would the finances of oligarchs who are so invested in oil.

[czarjak]

1. Reagan/Falwell

The Union from Hell. The Moral Majority was neither!
But, in the name of Jesus is a rather broad brush!

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

2. Hostility with Iran goes back before that.

When Eisenhower basically handed over power to the Dulles brothers, because being President got in the way of his golf game, CIA Director Allan Dulles worked with the British to overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had threatened to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now BP). That was in 1953. In the aftermath, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi firmed up his grip on the country using repression. A secret police, Sazeman-e Ettela'at va Amniyat-e Keshvar (SAVAK), was organized by the CIA to keep repression going. The Shah was correctly seen by most of the world as a propped-up puppet to the British and Americans, and the simmering hostility led to the Shah's overthrow by folks who then created the Islamic Republic and all that came with it.

British interference, as well as Russia's, in Iran/Persia goes back to the "Great Game" of the 18th and 19th centuries.

"U.S. interests abroad" is another way of saying "corporate interests." We're still told to go die for oil interests, as well as the interests of oligarchs and corporations salivating over rare earth minerals that may or may not be there. In all the time since Mosaddegh's overthrow nothing much has changed except the weapons technology.

[wnylib]

5. Yes. I know about the overthrow of Mossadegh

and installation of the Shah. So you're right that US involvement in the ME does go back farther than Reagan.

Even earlier was the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and European assignment of boundaries and protectorates before my lifetime.

I guess I was thinking of events that I remember. I was too young to personally recall the installation of the Shah in Iran although I remember well the revolution that deposed him.

[Xolodno]

3. Actually, Reagan was more keen to pulling out of the Mid-East.

When the Marines barracks were hit in Lebanon by a suicide driving bomber in Lebanon, he ordered them out. Only thing done really was giving Saddam aide as he started a war with Iran. But the problems go back even further and I don't have time to go through the laundry list of everything leaders and agencies in a number of governments did. This shit-berg was a long time in the making.

[wnylib]

4. Didn't Reagan bomb Khadafi's compound, killing one of his children?

[hardluck]

7. Yes, in retaliation for the bombing of a night club in West Berlin popular with American soldiers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Berlin_discotheque_bombing

[wnylib]

8. If I remember right, Reagan/Bush also made a deal

with Iran during the 1980 election not to release US hostages until after the election in order to enhance the chances of defeating Carter.

[hardluck]

9. Ok. Not sure the relevance to my answer

Was just providing the reason for the bombing. Do with it what you may....

[wnylib]

10. I was just recalling the Reagan involvement in ME events.

[tritsofme]

6. True in some ways, Gerald Ford is the last president to not order a military operation in the middle east.