To say "we're out now therefore it's not our fault" is ridiculous, pretty much every tinpot dictator/terrorist leader in those countries can be tied in one way

To say "we're out now therefore it's not our fault" is ridiculous, pretty much every tinpot dictator/terrorist leader in those countries can be tied in one way or another back to the CIA or any of the three letter orgs from the US or Britain, just to name a couple, Saddam Hussien, Osama Bin Laden. We've been screwing with the Middle East for decades, before which it was a relatively progressive and pretty normal place, not perfect but arguably just a decade or so behind the US at the time. As it turns out, when your only filter for "people to support financially" is "do they hate the Russians" and you never look any further, you tend to get some not-great results.