"Let us not forget that the current, abhorrent regime in Iran is itself the product of a Western-backed intervention." ​
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So declared Senator Bernie Sanders in his official Senate statement on January 13th, just weeks before the war began. He continued:
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​"In 1953, a British and American-orchestrated coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran. This was done primarily to protect Western oil interests."
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​The implication is clear: American imperialism made Iran what it is today. ​
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​It's a narrative rampant on X, TikTok, and college campuses across the country— and it has migrated from college campuses into the Democratic Socialists of America and the floor of the United States Senate. Last month, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine took to the Wall Street Journal to forward a simple premise: before judging Iran, count America's sins first.
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On March 13th, the New York Times Magazine argued Eisenhower's Cold War interventions lacked restraint and became an "addiction", while treating the menacing threat that produced them as mere historical wallpaper. The pattern connects them all: every act of American power across seven decades ultimately traceable to original sin — a permanent, inexhaustible trump card, and these voices keep playing it.
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This newsletter has its own criticisms of American foreign policy, past and especially present. But one line of thinking deserves to be put on blast: the reflexive self-blame that strips every American decision of its context, leaving only the sin.
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What none of them reckon with is what America was actually up against. Churchill correctly warned an iron curtain was descending across Europe — and behind it, a system with global ambitions, a rapacious appetite for expansion, and a body count that dwarfed anything the CIA ever produced. The men making these decisions were not writing history. They were trying to survive it.
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That accounting — of what America faced, what it got wrong, and what it got right — unfolds below.

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Every week, this newsletter draws on nearly 30 publications across six continents — many of them on the ground closest to tyranny, ignored by mainstream media. Then it tells you what those outlets won't say themselves.
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Here's What You Missed Last Week

The paid subscription only version of Dispatches from the Rebellion launched last week — paid subscribers now receive a deeper Friday edition every week alongside the three free Tuesday global stories.
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​Here's last week's complete edition. It covers three things: the two words the New York Times uses to shut down one of the most important conversations in America — and why that conversation needs to happen. The "No Kings" movement, and the very inconvenient funding behind some of it. And why Europe's leaders are very good at one thing: strongly worded condemnations.
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