The past isn’t even the past. It just keeps coming back to haunt us
You are being robbed at the pump once again in another illegal war over oil, a commodity that we are now self-sufficient in, and slowly weaning ourselves off dependence on. All for the benefit of another U.S. president bent on oil dependence — it’s like an addiction. As of this writing, the price of oil has risen in the last three months from $60 a barrel to more than $95 and seems to be headed higher. It is important to understand how our clandestine foreign policies over decades are tied to Iran and the Persian Gulf.
These policies have not only robbed the Persian people of a democratic republic but also Americans of the benefits of free college education and resulted in escalating real estate prices.
Let me start at the beginning
After World War II, there was an attempted assassination of the Shah of Iran, who had protected the oil interests of the British. The war brought the beginning of the end to the British colonial empire worldwide. This gave rise to the election of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who knew that the British had never paid Iran adequately for the oil it extracted. When he sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now part of BP), they refused and Mosaddegh nationalized the Iranian oil and kicked the British out.
It has now been well documented that the UK’s MI6 and the USA’s CIA conspired to overthrow Mosaddegh in a coup d’etat and return Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran.
According to the CIA’s declassified documents and records, “On 19 August 1953, some of the most feared mobsters in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-shah riots. Other men paid by the CIA were brought into Tehran in buses and trucks and took over the streets of the city.”
The Shah took over control of Iran and suppressed any attempt to democratize the country for the next quarter-century. In 1979, there was a student uprising that overthrew the Shah, who fled to the US, and they captured 66 Americans in the Tehran embassy.
President Jimmy Carter’s actions toward Iran were dominated by the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, leading him to impose severe economic sanctions, including freezing Iranian assets and halting oil imports, breaking diplomatic relations, and authorizing a failed military rescue mission (Operation Eagle Claw) to free 444 American hostages held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. These efforts to pressure Iran into releasing the hostages ultimately failed during his presidency, with the hostages freed on the day he left office. Some always wondered, “Why?”
This was the year Ronald Reagan ran for president, and the Iranian hostages dominated the news for the entire campaign. Carter had struck a deal with the Iranian moderates, but the conservative Islamic fundamentalists were in talks with Bill Casey, a former OSS and CIA officer who was working for the Reagan campaign.
In what became known as the “October Surprise,” the Reagan campaign promised the Islamic Shia a “much better deal” under Reagan if they just didn’t let the hostages go until after the election. And that’s what happened.
In the end, the hostages were released the day after Reagan was inaugurated, and so started the arms for hostages deal, which empowered Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic clerics, stopping any democratic reforms and giving rise to a theocratic state. This became exposed years later as the Iran/Contra scandal that ended up with the U.S. trading weapons to Iran, guns and ammunition to the American-backed Contras in Nicaragua, and in the process dumping tons of cocaine and crack onto the streets of South-Central LA with automatic weapons to launder the money. All of this was both illegal and treasonous — only a few members of his cabinet were ever convicted but were later pardoned by President George H. Bush, who followed Reagan into office.
At the same time, Reagan began his “trickle down” economic policies that cut taxes on the rich, gutted public education, the welfare structure, defunded the arts, and raised the price of oil, gas, and ultimately the prices of real estate– because the petrodollar determines the price of almost everything in America. He dumped Carter’s energy policies for solar and wind energy independence by the year 2000. And attacked American unions and opened the gate to ship American jobs overseas.
Just watch now as there’s a direct correlation between the price at the pump and everything else you consume. We are still oil dependent. And the current regime only wants to drill, baby drill, defund solar, gut the EPA, and ditch windmills because they kill birds. As if he really cares about birds or nature.
Now here’s the insane part — the Orange Felon, who promised to bring down inflation, is going to crash the value of the dollar, raising the cost of living and after spending billions on a war that he claimed he’d never do (because he’s the “peace president”) is going to announce that HE HAS WON THE WAR that no one supported. This is as we enter into the next Trump-instigated recession.
Remember what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic; this recession may just be worse!
And the Orange Felon will declare it all a Great Success on Truth Social, and Fox News will applaud.
Oh isn’t it just fine to watch America become Great Again?
Foot note: The United States is the world’s largest oil producer, consistently leading with production over 20 million barrels per day, followed by Russia and Saudi Arabia, though figures vary slightly by source and specific month/year. The U.S. production surge is largely due to advances in unconventional tight oil, making it a top producer, consumer, and major importer of oil despite its high output.