Hi long time United States citizen here:

- I don't care about removing oil suppliers from China, I don't know anyone who does. I get most of my stuff from them, seems like a bad idea

- I don't care about Venezuela or lies about them being (drug lords|conquering invaders|bad hombres), they are sovereign, the U.S has no right, justification or excuse to be kidnapping their leaders or fucking with their politics.

- The United States has been spreading extremism and instability globally for 40+ years.

- Oil production in the U.S. is not meaningfully higher than it was under Biden, so "drill baby drill" was just another lie that's been lapped up and is now being spit back out

- A decent deal HAD BEEN MADE under Obama, it was pretty good most would say, then Trump tore it up because of his ego and tiny dick/tiny hands syndrome.

- "mowing the grass" sounds like terrorism first and foremost and crimes against humanity second.

- Just because the U.S. and Israel Administrations want to self select into being world police does not make it just or right.

Let's summarize the history here:

1. The British were stealing Iranian oil (ie the Anglo-Persian Company, which is now BPl;

2. Iran democratically elected Mossadegh who said Iranian resources would be for Iranians;

3. The British freak out. MI6 twice goes to the newly elected Eisenhower administration to get them to intervene. They are rebuffed the first time so the British come back with a fabricated story about how this is communism somehow and the Eisenhower administration takes the bait;

4. Eisenhowever overthrows the democratically elected government of Iran to install the Shah as an autocrat (he was previously a figurehead pretty much);

5. The Shah takes the oil and basically gives it to the Americans so the British didn't even get what they wanted;

6. The Shah was a brutal dictator that included Savak, a secret police that had a history of violence, represseion and disappearing people;

7. By the late 1970s it was becoming clear that the Shah's regime would fall. The Americans were worried that the Communists would win and Iran would fall into the Soviet sphere of influence so got their puuppet in the region, Saddam Hussein, to expel Khomenei from Iraq in the hopes that the Isalamic fundamentalists would win;

8. The fundamentalists did win. Iran was punished for expelling the American puppet with crippling economic sanctions. Additionally, Saddam Hussein was armed and prompted to go fight a war with Iran. The Iran-Iraq war lasted years, killed over a million people (iranians and Iraqis) and basically had no other change in borders or regimes in the region;

9. After 9/11. Iran gave material aid to the US including rounding up hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters;

10. Despite 15 of the 19 hijackers being Saudi, Osama bin Laden being Saudi and al-Qaeda getting material support from Saudi princes and Saudi madrasses (religious schools), Iran got lumped in with Iraq and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil". The reason for this were the hawks in the US administration who believed that George HW Bush messed up not overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 1991. They had prior to 9/11 urged the Clinton administration and Congress to invade Iran;

11. Iraq was invaded because the neocon hawks, particularly Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, won the policy debate. It is highly believed they thought they would be overthrowing Iran too;

12. North Korea managed to stave off attacks by developing a nuclear weapon. That was the true lesson of the Global War on Terror: only a nuclear weapon will guarantee your survival;

13. Despite that the second Ayatollah, Khamenei, issued a fatwa against developing a nuclear weapon, something which still stands to this day, in 2003;

14. Obama negotitated (with European allies) the JCPOA, a program to inspect Iranian nuclear sites, in exchange for sanctions relief. There is no proof the Iranians ever violated the agreement. They even kept abiding by it for up to a year after Trump tore it up to appease Israel;

15. Israel committed too many hostile acts to enumerate, including the bombing of an embassy in Damascus, targeted assassinations within Iran, the murder of Iranians overseas, etc, pretty much all of which Iran just took on the chin;

16. The US and Israel started an unprovoked war last year, which included killing the Iranian negotiators. This war went so badly that hostilities ended after 12 days. It was widely suspected at the time that supplies of anti-missile munitions were getting critically low. Iran basically acted in good faith here that the Americans would negotiate in good faith; and

17. The Iranians were wrong. America did not act in good faith and started another unprovoked war at Israel's urging that included, for some reason, blowing up a middle school with almost 200 10-12 year old girls in it and killing an 87 year old man who had refused to develop a nuclear weapon (ie Khamenei) who also refused to go into a bunker because his people didn't have the same protections. That strike also killed a whole bunch of his family and the new Ayatollah's family.

18. This brings us to today. From Iran's position, the US cannot be trusted and does not negotiate in good faith. The uS will not restrain Israel in any way, which is an issue given Israel's insatiable appetite for blowing up babies. So Iran has concluded that the only way to guarantee their sovereignty is to make the economic pain so dire that th eUS never thinks about doing this again.

This has been clear for months now and Trump is choosing Israel over the economic pain that has been inflicted and is still coming. Millions will likely starve in the coming year.

But sure, keep repeating your State Department talking points.