Since when has the US been involved with the MidEast

[NYCButterfinger]

I know that America been in the Middle East since 2001, with 9/11, but has the US been involved in the Middle East in the 1990s, 80's, and before that?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. Potstam? Lebenon 1948?

The Barbary Pirates?

[brush]

2. Well, there is our surrogate state Israel, which has gone rogue now.

[Glorfindel]

3. Ronald Reagan's Great, Heroic, and Spectacularly Successful Invasion of Lebanon?

That's about as involved as it gets:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/02/07/when-reagan-cut-and-run/

[TM99]

4. This is sarcasm right?

The 20th century is replete with examples of US involvement either directly or indirectly in the Middle East from the assassination of the Shah of Iran in the 1950's to Marines in Lebanon in the 1980's to the first Gulf War and No Fly Zones in the 1990's.

We created Al Qaeda by funding the Mujahideen Jihad during the Soviet/Afghanistan war. We created ISIL by our invasion of Iraq. The blow-back from blow-blacks is so bad we are losing track of how, when, & where the next blow-back will occur.

[Codeine]

6. We didn't assassinate the Shah,

we installed him. He was our guy.

[TM99]

7. Sorry, you are correct.

Typing fast on a tablet.

We were behind the coup that installed the Shah that directly led to his overthrow by Islamic extremists in the 1970's.

Thank you for catching that.

[Codeine]

5. It got really ramped up with Operation Ajax

which overthrew Mossadeq in 1950ish. We did that one in concert with the Brits, but then we were off and running on our own.

[Recursion]

8. The Barbary Wars were 1801-1805 (nt)

[upaloopa]

9. Right. I was going to say that. We also were at war with France because France was paying the Bey

of Algiers to take our merchant ships and sailors into slavery.

[enough]

10. Please, if this is not sarcasm, get educated.

One link:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6308.htm

U.S. Intervention In The Middle East

1918-1945:
BREAKING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST:
THE FIGHT FOR INFLUENCE & OIL

1920-28: U.S. pressures Britain, then the dominant Middle East power, into signing a "Red Line Agreement" providing that Middle Eastern oil will not be developed by any single power without the participation of the others. Standard Oil and Mobil obtain shares of the Iraq Petroleum Company.

1932-34: Oil is discovered in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and U.S. oil companies obtain concessions.

1944: U.S. State Department memo refers to Middle Eastern oil as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history." During U.S.-British negotiations over the control of Middle Eastern oil, President Roosevelt sketches out a map of the Middle East and tells the British Ambassador, "Persian oil is yours. We share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait. As for Saudi Arabian oil, it's ours." On August 8, 1944, the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement is signed, splitting Middle Eastern oil between the U.S. and Britain.

Between 1948 and 1960, Western capital earns $12.8 billion in profits from the production, refining and sale of Middle Eastern oil, on fixed investments totaling $1.3 billion.

1945-1955:
REPLACING RIVALS AND WAGING WAR
ON NATIONAL LIBERATION

1946: President Harry Truman threatens to drop a "super-bomb" on the Soviet Union if it does not withdraw from Kurdestan and Azerbaijan in northern Iran.

November 1947: The U.S. helps push through a UN resolution partitioning Palestine into a Zionist state and an Arab state, giving the Zionist authorities control of 54% of the land. At that time Jewish settlers were about 1/3 of the population.

May 14, 1948: War breaks out between newly proclaimed state of Israel, and Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria, who had moved troops into Palestine to oppose the partition of Palestine. Israeli attacks force some 800,000 Palestinians--two-thirds of the population--to flee into exile in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank. Israel seizes 77 percent of historic Palestine. The U.S. quickly recognizes Israel.

March 29, 1949: CIA backs a military coup overthrowing the elected government of Syria and establishes a military dictatorship under Colonel Za'im.

snip> MUCH MORE

It goes on and on non-stop from there.

[thucythucy]

12. Thank you for this.

It always bothers me when American media (for instance, just recently, Time magazine) begin their "analysis" of some Middle Eastern development with a date that precludes any thought about American complicity in the problems we face today. In the case of Time, it began its "analysis" of American-Iranian relations with the take over of the US embassy in 1979--as if the US had been entirely uninvolved with the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government in the 1950s, and had not supported the Shah's brutal and anti-democratic regime in the decades following.

Gore Vidal was right to call us "the United States of Amnesia.'

[Bucky]

11. With the UK we engineered the Shah's coup in Iran in 1953

A lot of out involvement in the MidEast we inherited from the Brits in our "special relationship" partnership after WW2. Heavy British involvement in the region goes back to the 19-aughts when the Ottoman Empire started getting weak just as the British navy and merchant marine started to convert over to oil instead of coal-powered shipping. German interest in propping up the Turks in oil rich Arab lands was a major factor in the Anglo-German rivalry that started WW1 (think Lawrence of Arabia). Of course if there was money to be made, there were probably some Yankee oil men involved as well in the financing in whatever mischief the British & Germans were up to.

[TBF]

13. This has been going on for decades. nt