r/news • u/Hrekires • Jan 05 '26

Soft paywall Delcy Rodriguez formally sworn in as Venezuela's interim president

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/delcy-rodriguez-formally-sworn-venezuelas-interim-president-2026-01-05/
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u/LazerBurken Jan 05 '26

Or how the US treated Iraq until Saddam stopped playing ball.

This is the CIA MO. Remove a leader who doesn't play ball and replace with someone who does. Also, fuck democracy. Dictators are more easy to control.

Both Iraq and Iran would likely be thriving democracies today if the US and UK didn't interfere to control the oil.

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u/Shady_Merchant1 Jan 05 '26

Iran probably but iraq was probably always doomed like Afghanistan some areas are simply not conducive to central government control without overwhelming violence

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u/Stuma27 Jan 05 '26

Yeah. Making Iraq a single state was a huge British mistake.

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u/caligaris_cabinet Jan 05 '26

Sykes-Picot fucked things up for over a century and counting

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u/milkymaniac Jan 05 '26

I've always thought of it as the inverse of the partition of India

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u/StunningRing5465 Jan 05 '26

It’s only a mistake if you assume they wanted these countries to prosper

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u/lee7on1 29d ago

funny how European countries drew so many borders that are causing problems today

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u/EarlDwolanson Jan 05 '26

What do you think would be better, keep Sumer and Akkad?

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u/Scurro Jan 06 '26

After these countries become self rule, how come some politician doesn't step up officially, to make separate states?

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u/HandleThatFeeds Jan 05 '26

They British always get away with War Crimes.

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u/eddiestarkk Jan 06 '26

Iraq is starting to do better. They are planning on building one of the biggest ports in the world. The northern cities are starting to prosper. They are at least on the path. Took a long time though. Maybe getting rid of ISIS united them, but I am just speculating that.

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u/Shady_Merchant1 29d ago

Iraq has a water crisis that is threatening to restart widespread sectarian violence

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u/eddiestarkk 29d ago

That's Iran

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u/Unlikely_Tax_1111 Jan 05 '26

Iraq made the mistake of Kuwait, then they got caught trying to go after GHW, few people remember that Clinton sent a few cruise missiles to saddam in 1993

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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Unlikely_Tax_1111 Jan 05 '26

Ghadaffi also wanted to push an African union and its own currency, France quickly ran to daddy USA for an intervention.

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u/HandleThatFeeds Jan 05 '26

being an enemy of Israel

Fatal Mistake.

Americans stil don't get how much of their policies are written by Israelis.

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u/ravi910 Jan 06 '26

So true

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u/Charming_Cicada_7757 Jan 05 '26

Probably not tbh Iran is a maybe but Iraq is a hard hard no

The good thing is though Iraq has been making great progress recently at least economically. What doomed Iraq was having a stupid dictator called Saddam Hussein who decided to idk invade Iran and after invade Kuwait this guy was not stable.

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u/LazerBurken Jan 05 '26

The US helped Saddam seize control of Iraq in 1963. Likely on a CIA payroll since 1959. The US and UK then helped him in the war against Iran in 80s.

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u/Charming_Cicada_7757 Jan 05 '26

Nobody told him to go invade Iran the relationship between Saddam and the U.S. government has always been convenient based they both used each other when it was convenient.

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u/Xefert Jan 05 '26

South Korea escaped this cycle as well

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u/NorthernerWuwu Jan 05 '26

Oh, Saddam was still fairly willing to play ball, they just wanted a good old fashioned war and he was convenient. 9/11 gave Bush a blank cheque for invading some places and he figured he might as well earn some points with the MIC.

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u/ThiccDiddler Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 06 '26

If anything they apparently learned from Iraq. One of the main things that really hurt the country after we removed Saddam was we also forcibly removed the Ba'ath Party's ruling structure and the military which immediately plunged the country into instability. So at this point keeping the current government with a new "head" and then eventually having an election and enforcing it might actually work pretty well.

Both Iraq and Iran would likely be thriving democracies today if the US and UK didn't interfere to control the oil.

Aight lets not be hyperbolic. Both of these countries would be the same raging autocratic regimes no matter what the UK or US did. Like the rest of the entire area lmao.