Iran Blames US for Protests—US Blames Itself for Iran's 'Blame'
CBS News dutifully reported Iran's Supreme Leader blaming the U.S. for protests, followed by Trump's expected 'punch back.' (CBS News, 2020) This neatly packages the narrative: foreign adversary makes baseless claims, patriotic leader refutes. What's omitted? Decades of documented U.S. covert efforts in Iran, from the 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup that overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister
Mohammad Mosaddegh, to recent admissions by former officials like John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of openly supporting regime change operations. (See: 'All the Shah's Men' by Stephen Kinzer; 'The Iran Project' by the Brookings Institution). These aren't 'blunt accusations' but a pattern of intervention. It's fascinating how a country that openly funds and supplies opposition groups
(see: Congressional appropriations for 'democracy promotion' in Iran, often channeled through opaque NGOs), and whose intelligence agencies readily admit to 'assets on the ground,' acts utterly baffled when its targets suggest external influence. One might wonder if the real story isn't Iran's 'blame,' but the West's collective amnesia regarding its own history of regime change operations. How
many times does the U.S. need to admit interference before the media stops presenting the target's 'blame' as wild conspiracy theory?