(Pictured: America's reward to the people of Iran, the autocratic and brutal Shah.)
Er, huh?
During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: "What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?" . . .The idea that the United States has been "too nice" in our foreign policy and that all we need to do to right the ship is start slapping people around is one of the more bizarre and objectively silly right wing myths.
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