By Lana M. WaheedAs the stakes are raised in the current locking of horns between the U.S. and Iran, a narrative that is often left off the presses is how American interference is the catalyst that brought us to this point. Recently, we saw multiple decades of American military interference in Iraq culminate in an embassy attack a few days ago.
Additionally, over the past few years we’ve seen the correlation between the American military free-for-alls and the destabilization happening in many of the countries included in President Trump’s “Muslim ban.”
Coming back to the U.S. Embassy attack in Baghdad (which Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, blamed on militias funded by Iran), we consequently saw the United States admit to the assassination of a prominent Iranian general in Iraq, General Qasem Soleimani, resulting in global outrage. For the brashness it took to eliminate an Iranian general on foreign land, the government of Iran promised swift and brutal retaliation.
In the following Twitter thread, courtesy of Arash Daneshzadeh, we are taken all the way back to the 50’s. Painting a vivid picture of how the United States’ foreign policy has always leaned heavily on interfering in the political affairs of sovereign nations to serve its own interests, Arash contextualizes this narrative in the framework of U.S.-Iran relations:
