> I never could understand this big glaring hypocrisy from my European point of view.
Surely you're joking. All the major European nations have been masters of exactly what you're describing for centuries. It has been historically routine European behavior.
There are plenty of modern examples of it. See: the French, UK and German relationship with Iraq pre Gulf War and their assistance with Iraq vs Iran. Germany massively supplied Iraq with the ability to make chemical weapons.
Before the US made the mistake of deeply intertwining itself throughout what goes on in the Middle East, the major European nations had been at it for centuries (and several of them are still very actively doing exactly the same things the US is doing, usually in proportion to their economic or military capabilities).
I'm aware of it. The difference is most European countries have no real way to extend their military or economic power meaningfully.
Only US is capable of invading almost any country it wants relatively easily due to its huge navy and aircraft and military bases all over the world. With its huge economy only US can really put meaningful sanctions on foreign countries (US navy basically singlehandedly controls international maritime trade). Notice that almost all sanctions are led by US as EU just nods in agreement and does whatever US tells them to do.
So similar hypocrisy from European countries is less dangerous but US with its power akin to British Empire before can literally rewrite borders around the world and overthrow governments at whim. So when US says Saudi Arabia is an ally and Iran is enemy, that dictates the policy of the whole western world basically.
Surely you're joking. All the major European nations have been masters of exactly what you're describing for centuries. It has been historically routine European behavior.
There are plenty of modern examples of it. See: the French, UK and German relationship with Iraq pre Gulf War and their assistance with Iraq vs Iran. Germany massively supplied Iraq with the ability to make chemical weapons.
Before the US made the mistake of deeply intertwining itself throughout what goes on in the Middle East, the major European nations had been at it for centuries (and several of them are still very actively doing exactly the same things the US is doing, usually in proportion to their economic or military capabilities).