'US discards defaced dictator friends'

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166750.html

Concerns are rising in the Arab world over the US record of stripping long-time dictator allies of its support after the ouster of the defaced rulers.

The website for Al-Jazeera Arabic published an article on Wednesday which listed Washington's former dictator allies who were appreciated while in power but discarded after their ouster.

The article named Iran's former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as an explicit example of America's betrayal of its dictator allies. Former US president Jimmy Carter, who had once described Iran as “an island of stability” under the shah, later abandoned support for the monarch. The US even denied him entry for cancer treatment after he lost power in Iran's popular revolt of 1979.

The one-day ruler of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, who had been brought to power by the US in 1965, returned the favor by turning his country into a representative of the United States in South East Asia. But this did not save him from the People Power Revolution led by Corazon Aquino.

Following Sudan's 1986 revolution, the country's dictator Jafaar Nimeiri was also denied political asylum to the United States. This came after his claims of burying American nuclear waste in his country and helping Jews migrate from Ethiopia to occupied Palestinian territories.

Panama's former ruler Manuel Noriega, currently imprisoned in France, also helped strengthen America's control over the country and the Panama Canal.

Back in 2008, former US President George W. Bush abandoned support for his close ally and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf amid uprisings in the country. Musharraf played a crucial role in the Bush's 'war on terror.'

Quite recently, Tunisia's former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, also a former ally of the US, has been faced with the same fate as various media sources claimed that the US was responsible for furthering along his ouster.

Following Ben Ali's ouster, former Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak stepped down after a popular revolution. Mubarak was also a US ally, serving Washington's policies especially in connection with Israel and its blockade of the Gaza Strip.