In 1898, the US intervened in the Cuban war of independence, and after the defeat of the Spanish Empire and the passage in the US of the Platt Amendment, which in effect gave the US veto power over Cuban legislation, supported government after government that served American interests and the interests of the upper bourgeoisie that dominated the Cuban economy at the expense of the average citizen and the poor. Sixty years later, the Cuban Revolution did away with that sequence of US-supported governments and installed the Castros and their epigones as presidents and supreme leaders. Elections? A joke. Relations with the US? Abysmal.
In 1953, the US instigated, supported, and funded the coup that removed the elected Iranian prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh and firmly established the direct, authoritarian rule of Shah Reza Pahlavi. Twenty-six years later, in 1979, the Islamic Revolution overthrew Pahlavi, and from then till now Iran has been ruled by supreme leaders, ayatollahs, who come to their power by divine intervention, so it seems. The elected prime minister? A figurehead at best. Relations with the US? Abysmal.
In 1984, the US became dissatisfied with the results of an election in Nicaragua that brought Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista party into the presidency. Despite a Congressional law prohibiting aid to resistance aimed at overthrowing Ortega, Ronald Reagan and his regime funded rebellion on the part of so-called Contras. In subsequent elections US-supported candidates won the presidency, until in 2006 Ortega was reelected to the presidency, where he has been in power since then.
In 2003, the US invaded Iraq, defeated and had its president, Sadam Hussein, executed by the government that the US installed in power. After the US abandoned Iraq, a sequence of governments, each more inimical to American interests, succeeded. Elections? Sure. Relations with the US? From bad to worse.
There are many many many many other instances of the US attacking countries, either covertly via CIA intervention or overtly via military incursion. Almost invariably all those instances have led to less-than-ideal relations between the given country and the US. To be sure, not all results have been as fraught as those I’ve suggested. But also almost invariably the reason why the results have not been so fraught has to do with what amounts to economic bullying by the US. Vietnam is a good instance, as are almost all the countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean. El Salvador is, at this point, an exception to the rule. The repeated interventions by the US in the elections and the governments of El Salvador have yielded benefit for the US in the government of Nayib Bukele. So far.
But keep in mind that the US had peachy keen relations with Iran from 1953 to 1979. It’s the long run that is fraught.
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