Iran
In a typically pugnacious speech after January's protests, he blamed U.S. President Donald Trump for the unrest, saying: "We consider the U.S. president criminal for the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted on the Iranian nation."
That's not actually crazy talk.
The US has had Iran under sanctions for decades.
Social psychology tells us that when you have a running feud, both sides feel the other side started it. In such cases, it's not helpful to try to figure who is supposedly at fault.
I do not know why the US had a puppet Shah in Iran. He was installed in 1941, when my mother was still a child.
As best I can tell, his reign ended 16 January 1979. I was thirteen years old and still being molested by my older brother. I was paying no attention to Iranian politics.
A man I would not become Internet acquainted with for some decades had recently turned thirty and was let out of prison suddenly and unexpectedly. If he's alive, he's now 77 years old.
For people like him, the US running a puppet government controlling their country is not ancient history. It's living memory and they still bear the deep personal scars involved in "kicking the fuckers out" as he once said to me.
If you want peace in the Middle East, pretending the US is some neutral third party in a position to broker peace is you being a retarded asshole. Rest assured, that's not remotely how people in the Middle East see it.
Saudi Arabia is the "friend" of the US because they have oil wealth and the US is the biggest buyer by far. We are their best customer.
Iran doesn't want the US telling it what to do and enforcing those edicts with bombs. Israel seems to be everyone's bitch and not in a position to stand up to the US and say to the US government go home and butt out.
I don't know what the solution is for brokering peace. I do know expecting Iran to politely agree to be our bitch isn't the answer.
The US CHOOSES to be oil dependent in the EXTREME and to feel entitled to meddle in the internal doings of other countries because we need their oil.
It CHOOSES to continue it's car-centric design patterns and energy hungry policies.
I'm American and I've lived without a car for well over a decade. I wanted to be an urban planner.
I'm pro passive solar design (no, that's not solar electric, morons of planet Earth pissing on me in online forums -- look it up, idiots) and pro pedestrian-friendly design.
The Netherlands was once as car-centric as the US. They CHOSE to change that.
It merely takes the will to do so.
We don't have THAT. We would rather have an excuse for bombing people and finding ways to claim they are somehow the bad guy.
It's horse shit and the entire planet knows it. But it's ALSO horse shit that Donald Trump RIGGED the election, openly admits it and all of America stands idly by and can't be armed to kick the fucker out.
He wasn't rightfully elected. And he's damaging this country and the world left, right and center. And we allow it.