Any student of history would be skeptical. The US record after interference in a country is abysmal. Relatively recent failures: Iraq, Afghanistan. Less recent failures: Nicaragua and throughout Central America.
Iraq was a textbook example of why you don't dismantle the entire administrative state.
I don't think either is relevant here. Other central american shenanigans are the better reference points IMO.
No strongman in charge, sorta-kinda democratic government (more democratic than almost anywhere else in the Arab world), violence has subsided, the country didn't disintegrate into pieces unlike Yugoslavia, the economy has grown moderately, and they haven't become an Iranian puppet regime.
Frankly, by the standards of the Near and Middle East, this is very much not an abysmal failure.
The insurgency that preceded this was very bad, though. No denying that. But some other modern nations have such insurgencies in their recent history, such as Ireland, and that didn't stop them from developing towards prosperity.
Why would you think Iraq would find it easy to stabilize itself post Hussein, such that you'd declare their future void already. Iraq is not yet a failure and is dramatically more stable than it was under Hussein (dictatorships bring hyper instability universally, which is why they have to constantly murder & terrify everybody to try to keep the system from instantly imploding due to the perpetual instability inherent in dictatorship).
Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Kuwait, and most of Eastern Europe (which the US was extremely deep in interfering with for decades in competition with the USSR). You can also add Colombia to that list, it is a successful outcome thus far of US interference.
I like the part where people pretend the vast interference in positive outcomes don't count. The US positively, endlessly interfered in Europe for the past century. That interference has overwhelmingly turned out well.
Why shouldn't Russia or China just do the same and interfere with the leadership of countries they don't like.
Also it is impossible to argue the cost of the war in Iraq was worth the benefit, even if we agree Iraq is in a better place now then it was under Hussein.
The government of nations is anarchy and in anarchy the only rule is that “might makes right”. Some seem to have a view that there is a world government and that there are “rules” when in reality there are none.
There are international agreements, consequences, and parties that may or may not choose to enforce those consequences.
E.g. the entire UN Security Council was predicated on the idea that no other country could/would force a nuclear power to do anything it didn't want to
But the Iraquis didn’t pay the military monetary cost (arguably they paid a different cost, but it’s very hard to balance that against living under a dictator, and I said that from experience), and I’m sure US’ imperialist shenanigans could recoup the monetary cost. Seeing as US doesn’t have compulsory conscription, that takes away part of the reprehensibility of the human cost of US’ personnel caused by its interventionist policy. Which, to my eyes, leaves the thing as a net positive.
One thing can be said with certainty about countries like Venezuela and Cuba: they are broken and they cause untold pain to their citizens. The moral imperative to fix them is there, even if one can certainly discuss how and maybe quibble a little about the monetary cost.
What an absurd thing to say. The US doesn't only overthrow dictatorships - it supports them too, as it suits its self-interest. Why not include the US interference when it SUPPORTED Hussein and later changed its mind - still think "interference turns out well" after backing a genocidal monster, supporting his invasion of a neighbour, invading twice and related deaths of 400 000 people?
Countries stabilise over time, that's what their people make happen. You ignore Indonesia, Iran, El Salvador, Nicaragua and dozens of disaster of US imperialism but give credit to the US when their populations rebuild them.
The US has done some positive things but they're the convenient accidents you've cherry picked to make your point.
Are we counting the financial support that Wall Street and the budding CIA boys at Sullivan & Cromwell gave Hitler to harass the Soviet Union, which ultimately had to take care of the problem they created, in the "turning out well" column here?
Also saved millions of people from starvation in the early 20s by ending a devasting famine while the Soviets were busy blowing up their economy.
It's not exactly obvious that the Bolshevik regime would have survived the famine of 1921–1922 had Hoover et al. not bailed them out...
It's hard to argue that was to buy time, especially given they had spent more effort conquering their neighbors and helping the Nazis than building defenses against the them. They just wanted a larger chunk of Europe and Western Asia.
Their attempt failed because Stalin got greedy with what chunk of Europe he wanted and their poor performance against Finland convinced the Nazis to double cross them and invade.
Perhaps this was one of the self-serving Soviet narratives, like the nonsense of having to side with the Nazis and invalid Poland because the Allies refused them - as opposed to actively double dealing and choosing the Axis because they offered the best deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_tal...
Are you referring to this?
Regarding the counterproposal, Hitler remarked to his top military chiefs that Stalin "demands more and more", "he's a cold-blooded blackmailer" and "a German victory has become unbearable for Russia" so that "she must be brought to her knees as soon as possible."[12] Hitler had already decided to invade the Soviet Union in July 1940,[13] but this apparently accelerated the process.
It all goes back to what Zhukov said, "we rescued Europe from fascism, and they will never forgive us for it."
And of course the Allies' own self-serving behavior and cutting deals with Hitler, or leaving the internal dissident generals within the Wehrmacht to twist in the wind, is always to be completely ignored, the fruits of four decades of history textbooks published by Ghislaine Maxwell's capitalist spook father.
is that why modern Russia bankrolling every fascist party under the sun?
https://nypost.com/2022/03/09/video-russian-troops-brandishi...
Yeah, they "rescued" it alright. Like they rescued, err stolen, Moldova from Romania and they kept it for more than 40 years. Heck, they're still messing with it. Then at the end of the war they robbed and raped civilians from the countries they "liberated".
Then?
Germany would have quite literally run out of oil (and other materials and even grain) a few months after conquering Poland. Most was imported was imported from the Americas before the war.
The French and British could have pretty much waited Germany out had Stalin decided not to bankroll the Nazis invasions of Norway and France. The allies were quite seriously considering bombing Soviet oil fields in Azerbaijan before France fell.
Presumably Stalin was hoping to prop-up Germany just long enough for them to get stuck in a protracted war in France so that he could swop in and "liberate" Europe. Unfortunately for millions it turned out to be a slight miscalculation...
Re. Iraq, interestingly the US invasion has vastly increased Iran's influence in the country because the majority is Shia while Saddam was from a Sunni tribe.
Which is somehow inherently wrong due to what reason exactly?
But yes, the South Korean regime in the 50s (and the RoC one in Taiwan to a lesser extent) was extremely brutal and oppressive and hardly much worse than the one in the north.
There is such thing as a post-Vietnam America, and its record is pretty bad.
Park Chung Hee took a country that could not be a functional democracy, provided leadership and put it onto the path of economic success. Iirc, the reduction in poverty through that period is the fastest in human history (when you consider that China, that is an incredible statement).
I think people (still) assume both that democracy is superior economically for every situation and that people who don't have any food care about being unable to vote...neither of these things is obviously true. Indeed, in the latter case, we now have a good test case of poor countries adopting democracy early and they have generally not been successful as power rotates between various quasi-dictators who give massive handouts to the poor to retain power (without doing anything actually useful).
1945 to ~1947 were very rough in Germany even in the allied occupation zones (and that was at least partially an outcome of a conscious decision by the allies to not allow German industry to recover)
Grenada is something of a joke in this context - the entire thing came about because the communist government fell apart and started fighting internally, so it's pretty likely the regime would have shortly collapsed with or without the invasion