I believe you're referring to Syria, not Iran. And I don't think you're describing the situation accurately at all. The Syrian civil war is incredibly complex, and there are many parties involved. The groups that led the offensive were supported by Turkey at various points, but not by the United States. US forces in Syria didn't really have much to do with that offensive.
don_esteban|9 days ago
At that time, there were two strong anti-shah factions in Iran. Islamists and communists. Guess which one was helped by USA? :-)
pessimizer|9 days ago
Neither was helped by the USA. The Shah was helped by the USA.
What the USA did is the same thing it does in all of the Islamic dictatorships that it props up - it used its intelligence and its cash to help its dictator exterminate all of his secular opposition. Actually kill. What was left was religious fundamentalist opposition that it couldn't touch, and that the Shah himself partially relied on to stay in power. That meant that when the general population was finally at the point of exasperation, the only institutions that were 1) prepared to be the vehicle of that exasperation and 2) had an government in waiting that could take charge after the government had fallen were the religious ones.
Same thing that happened in Egypt after decades of helping Mubarak kill members of the secular opposition and destroy their organizations. When the government was overthrown spontaneously by a public driven to their limit, the only people prepared to take over, and supported by the public, were fundamentalists. The US saw another Iran coming and quickly stepped in to destroy the popular will and install another dictator that they could control.
apical_dendrite|9 days ago