America’s Cold War-era foreign policy apparatus was severely criticized on account of its seemingly incurable appetite for backing a variety of right-wing authoritarianisms in the Third World, all in the name of fighting communism.
Critics denounced what they saw as Washington, D.C.’s knee-jerk support for these conservative despotisms, and said that it placed this country “on the wrong side of history.” The Vietnam War and its catastrophic consequences epitomized, so far as the critics were concerned, America’s stubborn determination to continue supporting brutal and corrupt right-wing Third World regimes to the bitter end.
The Cold War is over, but D.C.’s instinctual sentiments of warm-hearted friendship for conservative autocracy in the Third World remain strong. Nothing illustrates this better than America’s hugely generous material support for the Saudis and their furiously pursued aerial bombardment inside Yemen. The U.S. has delivered an astonishing $110 billion worth of weapons to the Riyadh government since Barack Obama assumed the presidency.
The result?
Shiite Muslim guerrillas allied with Iran are emerging victorious from it all.
