as Simon Jester points out, pre - 1985, he was our buddy. I was born in '61. I remember the Iranian hostage crisis... Was in intelligence in 1980. I knew quite a bit about who was supplying who with what. I meant to allude to this by mentioning the deposing of the Shah. Upon rereading my post, it is not clear.

That said, it is a vast oversimplification to say we "created" him alone. He was a creation of the cold war, just as the "Freedom fighters" in Afghanistan were. We're cleaning up many messes that were made many years ago. Which is why it struck me as so naive as to think that George Bush, Jr. or Bill Clinton or any one president can sew the seeds of a hatred that has been sewn generations ago. It's actually laughable as a concept. That is the way the history of nations are written, over generations.