1921: the USA and Britain create Iraq to placate Faisal ibn Husayn
1921: the USA and Britain work behind the scenes in the coup that brought Reza Shah to power in Iran.
1944: U.S. State Department declares Middle Eastern oil as a prodigious source of strategic power and wealth.
1949: CIA backs a military coup overthrowing the elected government of Syria and establishes a military dictatorship under Colonel Za'im.
1952: The US helps install Camille Chamoun President of Lebanon.
1953: The CIA organizes Operation Ajax in Iran over throwing another legally elected government. The Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi , is put on the throne, ruling as an absolute monarch for the next 26 years--torturing, killing and imprisoning his political opponents.
1957: After anti-government rioting breaks out in Jordan, in order to keep Jordan friendly the CIA begins making secret payments of millions of dollars a year to King Hussein.
1958: Anti-U.S. rioting in Lebanon leads the U.S. to dispatch 70 naval vessels, hundreds of aircraft and 14,000 Marines to Lebanon to preserve the Chamoun government.
1958: The CIA plots, without success, to overthrow Egypt's Nasser.
1960: U.S. works covertly in Iraq with Kurdish rebels in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Iraq's leader, Abdul Karim Qassim.
1963: U.S. supports a coup by the Ba'ath party soon to be headed by Saddam Hussein to overthrow the Qassim regime, by giving the Ba'ath names of communists to murder.
1966: U.S. sells jet bombers to Israel, breaking with 1956 decision not to do so.
1973: U.S. supports Kurdish rebels in Iraq in order to strengthen Iran and weaken the then pro-Soviet Iraqi regime. When Iran and Iraq cut a deal, the U.S. withdraws support, denies the Kurds refuge in Iran, and stands by while the Iraqi government kills many Kurdish people.
1979: U.S. supports paramilitary forces to undermine the government of South Yemen.
1978: As the Iranian revolution begins against the hated Shah, the U.S. continues to support him without reservation and urges him to act forcefully against the masses. In August 1978, some 400 Iranians are burned to death in the Rex Theater in Abadan after police chain and lock the exit doors. On September 8th anti-Shah demonstrators are massacred at Teheran's Jaleh Square.
1979: U.S. President Jimmy Carter designates the Persian Gulf a vital U.S. interest and declares the U.S. will go to war to ensure the flow of oil.
1979: U.S. begins arming and organizing Islamic fundamentalist Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
1980's: The CIA funnels money and weapons to the Taliban through the Pakistani government. Some of those very weapons were used against United States forces during Operation Enduring Freedom.
1980: As the Carter administration negotiates with Iran to surrender the U.S. hostages. Supporters of presidential candidate Ronald Reagan cut a secret deal with the Islamic Republic: promising that the Reagan administration will allow Israel to ship arms to Iran if Iran continues to hold the hostages during the coming presidential campaign to cripple Carter's campaign for re-election. Believe it or not Israel did support Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.
1981: The Reagan administration secretly encourages Israel and other allies, such as South Korea and Turkey, to ship hundreds of millions of U.S.-made arms to Iran despite a ban on the shipment of U.S.-made weapons.
1983: U.S. sends troops to Lebanon as part of a multinational "peace-keeping" operation but in reality to protect U.S. interests, including Israel's occupation forces. U.S. troops are withdrawn after a suicide bomber destroys a U.S. Marine barracks.
1983: CIA helps murder Gen. Ahmed Dlimi a prominent Moroccan Army commander who seeks to overthrow the pro-U.S. Moroccan monarchy.
1985: The U.S. secretly ships weapons to Iran. The weapons are exchanged for U.S. hostages in Lebanon. The secret plot collapses when it is publicly revealed on November 3rd 1986, by the Lebanese magazine, Al-Shiraa.
1991: The United States deployed over 500,000 troops to the Middle East in order to conduct Operation Desert Storm. The U.S. presence on the Prince Sultan Air Base was a contributor to the attacks on September 11th 2001.
1991: Shi'ites in the south and Kurds in the north rise up against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The U.S. denies the rebels access to captured Iraqi weapons and allows Iraqi helicopters to attack them.
2001: After the Terrorist attacks Of September 11, 2001 the United States invades Afghanistan further destabilizing the country in an attempt to capture one man, Osama Bin Laden.
2003: The Bush Doctrine of preventive war based the potential or perceived threat to the security of the United States is used as the catalyst for the invasion of Iraq. Yet another American puppet leader is installed in the Middle East. By the way, where are those WMD?
2011: The United States assists NATO in the over throwing of Muammar Gaddafi. NATO and the United States should not be in the business of dethroning tyrants. If they are in the business of deposing despots lets go after all of them. Why stop with oil producing countries.
I was looking at a map of the Greek Empire. What really caught my eye is how in the last 14 years the United States has transformed the modern map of North Africa, the Middle East and Western Asia into a quasi Greek map. The Greeks controlled or heavily influenced North Africa, The Middle East and Western Asia up to the modern Pakistan-India boarder. The only missing pieces of the American "Greek Empire" are Iran and Syria.
Iran is on deck. We are just waiting for Israel to toss out the first pitch in the form of a Bunker Buster Bomb.
RELATED POST: The worst American foreign policy blunders of the last 100 years
