A Long History of Betrayal: Why Washington keeps encouraging foreign uprisings—and then walking away

[u/violentviolinz]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/16/trump-iran-protests-intervention-kurds-nixon-kissinger-hungary/

https://archive.ph/i4dbH

Before: Coalition aircraft dropped leaflets calling on Iraqis to “fill the streets and alleys and bring down Saddam Hussein and his aides.”

After: Between 30,000 and 60,000 Shiites and some 20,000 Kurds were killed. Over 1.5 million Kurds were displaced, and thousands died from exposure, disease, and land mines.

Bush’s defense was remarkable in its brazenness. “Do I think that the United States should bear guilt because of suggesting that the Iraqi people take matters into their own hands, with the implication being given by some that the United States would be there to support them militarily?” he asked a few weeks later. “That was not true. We never implied that.”

Before: Radio Free Europe (RFE) had been broadcasting into Hungary for years...A survey of Hungarian refugees afterward found that nearly 40 percent believed Western broadcasts had given the impression that the United States would fight to save Hungary.

After: When the dust settled, 2,500 Hungarians were dead, 700 Soviet soldiers had been killed, and 200,000 Hungarians had fled the country.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, preoccupied with the Suez crisis and unwilling to risk a nuclear confrontation, did nothing. As he later put it, “The United States doesn’t now and never has advocated open rebellion by an undefended populace against force over which they could not possibly prevail.”

Before: In 1972, at the Shah of Iran’s request, Kissinger and President Richard Nixon organized a covert operation to arm and encourage Iraq’s Kurdish population in their rebellion against the Baathist regime.

After: Barzani wrote to Kissinger: “We feel, Your Excellency, that the United States has a moral and political responsibility towards our people.” There was no reply. Thousands of Kurds died, and 200,000 became refugees.

When pressed by the House Intelligence Committee about the betrayal, Kissinger offered what has become the definitive statement of American realpolitik toward those it encourages to fight: “Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.” The congressional investigators were appalled. “Even in the context of covert action,” the Pike Committee concluded, “ours was a cynical enterprise.”

Before: In Syria, President Barack Obama provided just enough support to the opposition to keep the civil war grinding on without resolution, before famously backing down from his chemical weapons red line when it was crossed in 2013.

After: The Kurds, who had lost over 11,000 fighters in the campaign against the Islamic State, were left to face Turkish bombs and artillery. As American convoys drove away, Kurdish civilians pelted them with rotten vegetables. “Trump betrayed us,” read one sign held along the road.

American foreign policy operates on two tracks that rarely connect. The rhetorical track, which focuses on freedom, self-determination, and solidarity with those who resist tyranny, serves domestic political purposes and reflects genuine ideological commitments embedded in American national identity. The strategic track, however, operates on political interests, risk calculations, and the hard limits of power. Presidents speak on the first track and act on the second. The people who take American rhetoric seriously—sometimes more seriously than Americans themselves—end up falling into the gap.

Uprisings that get crushed still serve American interests by bleeding adversaries, delegitimizing rival regimes, and creating martyrs. By this logic, the failure of American promises is not an unfortunate downside but part of the strategy itself.

Is this history taught in Chinese schools? Because it should be mandatory.

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Original author: violentviolinz

Original title: A Long History of Betrayal: Why Washington keeps encouraging foreign uprisings—and then walking away

Original link submission: https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/16/trump-iran-protests-intervention-kurds-nixon-kissinger-hungary/

Original text submission: https://archive.ph/i4dbH

Before: Coalition aircraft dropped leaflets calling on Iraqis to “fill the streets and alleys and bring down Saddam Hussein and his aides.”

After: Between 30,000 and 60,000 Shiites and some 20,000 Kurds were killed. Over 1.5 million Kurds were displaced, and thousands died from exposure, disease, and land mines.

Bush’s defense was remarkable in its brazenness. “Do I think that the United States should bear guilt because of suggesting that the Iraqi people take matters into their own hands, with the implication being given by some that the United States would be there to support them militarily?” he asked a few weeks later. “That was not true. We never implied that.”

Before: Radio Free Europe (RFE) had been broadcasting into Hungary for years...A survey of Hungarian refugees afterward found that nearly 40 percent believed Western broadcasts had given the impression that the United States would fight to save Hungary.

After: When the dust settled, 2,500 Hungarians were dead, 700 Soviet soldiers had been killed, and 200,000 Hungarians had fled the country.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, preoccupied with the Suez crisis and unwilling to risk a nuclear confrontation, did nothing. As he later put it, “The United States doesn’t now and never has advocated open rebellion by an undefended populace against force over which they could not possibly prevail.”

Before: In 1972, at the Shah of Iran’s request, Kissinger and President Richard Nixon organized a covert operation to arm and encourage Iraq’s Kurdish population in their rebellion against the Baathist regime.

After: Barzani wrote to Kissinger: “We feel, Your Excellency, that the United States has a moral and political responsibility towards our people.” There was no reply. Thousands of Kurds died, and 200,000 became refugees.

When pressed by the House Intelligence Committee about the betrayal, Kissinger offered what has become the definitive statement of American realpolitik toward those it encourages to fight: “Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.” The congressional investigators were appalled. “Even in the context of covert action,” the Pike Committee concluded, “ours was a cynical enterprise.”

Before: In Syria, President Barack Obama provided just enough support to the opposition to keep the civil war grinding on without resolution, before famously backing down from his chemical weapons red line when it was crossed in 2013.

After: The Kurds, who had lost over 11,000 fighters in the campaign against the Islamic State, were left to face Turkish bombs and artillery. As American convoys drove away, Kurdish civilians pelted them with rotten vegetables. “Trump betrayed us,” read one sign held along the road.

American foreign policy operates on two tracks that rarely connect. The rhetorical track, which focuses on freedom, self-determination, and solidarity with those who resist tyranny, serves domestic political purposes and reflects genuine ideological commitments embedded in American national identity. The strategic track, however, operates on political interests, risk calculations, and the hard limits of power. Presidents speak on the first track and act on the second. The people who take American rhetoric seriously—sometimes more seriously than Americans themselves—end up falling into the gap.

Uprisings that get crushed still serve American interests by bleeding adversaries, delegitimizing rival regimes, and creating martyrs. By this logic, the failure of American promises is not an unfortunate downside but part of the strategy itself.

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