Preferential satrap treatment is for countries whose geopolitical alignment helps US... i.e. containing USSR, PRC. Iran/Shah muscle and Saudi money use to be US

Preferential satrap treatment is for countries whose geopolitical alignment helps US... i.e. containing USSR, PRC. Iran/Shah muscle and Saudi money use to be US twin pillar strategy for MENA influence, including coldwar anticommunist containment. Israel is muscle now, and they sure as shit isn't going to share with Iran. Deputy sheriff position is zero-sum. The current realpolitik geopolitical fate for Iran is to be suppressed and relegated, regional players don't want to redistribute power / influence to accommodate Iran. Bluntly Iran is too big allow to flourish, but not so big it cannot be suppressed. That's Iran's fate under current dynamics, no one wants to save Iran, they want to neutralize Iran, naive to pretend otherwise. Iran is no longer in the minority of potential strategic intervention successes, its in the bucket of dozens of countries US intervention fucked over because that's the strategic end goal is for these countries to remain weak. If Iran wants bigger lightcone, it needs to fight for one.