I wonder whether "dictatorship" is actual reason. I see your list:
> Russia: dictatorship. Cuba: dictatorship. Iran: theocratic dictatorship. Venezuela: dictatorship. North Korea: dictatorship. Syria: dictatorship. Sudan: recently a military junta.
I read it as: Russia: enemy ex-superpower, second biggest net oil exporter. Cuba: stole our oil refineries half a century ago, we're still mad about it. Iran: in top 10 of net oil exporters (also, tried to take them over and fucked up). Venezuela: top ten of net oil exporters. North Korea: old enemy, though also universally considered evil. Syria: US wants to force a government change and supports the rebels; there could be an indirect oil-related angle in here.
It may be that I've just been reading too much about energy economics recently and am getting all consipracy-theorist. Even if so, I absolutely don't buy that there's any higher good for any of those sanctions.
You might already have read this, but Daniel Yergin's The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power is a great overview of all the ways lust for oil has messed with so much of recent history. He also wrote follow-up, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World which I have not read but also may be of interest regarding energy economics.
Though the OP is mostly correct. You're response is straining reality.
Russia is technically a democracy, but given that Putin controls the press directly, murders opposition members, and thwarts opponents from running in elections, it's a de-facto dictatorship.
Those are all terrible, terrible places frankly we shouldn't trade with them purely on a moral basis - but we would tolerate them if they played nice.
FYI: Cuba did not 'steal oil' this is false. And nobody cares about Iran's Oil power, they care that Iran has a publicly stated objective literally of overthrowing the USA. And Syria has no oil, your points verge on conspiracy theory. The US would love to rid itself of any entanglement in Syria, and frankly Iran if it could.
> Those are all terrible, terrible places frankly we shouldn't trade with them purely on a moral basis - but we would tolerate them if they played nice.
The Saudis are the same and they also didn't play nice.
> FYI: Cuba did not 'steal oil' this is false.
I wrote "oil refineries", and I must be misunderstanding Wikipedia then, when it says:
"on October 19, 1960 (almost two years after the Cuban Revolution had led to the deposition of the Batista regime) the U.S. placed an embargo on exports to Cuba except for food and medicine after Cuba nationalized American-owned Cuban oil refineries without compensation and as a response to Cuba's role in the Cuban missile crisis. On February 7, 1962 the embargo was extended to include almost all exports.[1]"
Doubtful, given the amount of oil they have and export.
> they care that Iran has a publicly stated objective literally of overthrowing the USA.
Which is entirely because of the "tried to take them over and fucked up" thing I mentioned.
> And Syria has no oil, your points verge on conspiracy theory.
Of course it has oil, it's even an exporter. But here I thought about the longer-term US involvement over the last decades. They didn't start messing with countries in the region because of terrorists or WMDs.
(I don't claim to be an expert in geopolitics, I'm just saying how the "look at these sanctions, they're all against dictatorships!" claim upthread reads to me, with my mind currently primed on worldwide energy economy.)
> Russia: dictatorship. Cuba: dictatorship. Iran: theocratic dictatorship. Venezuela: dictatorship. North Korea: dictatorship. Syria: dictatorship. Sudan: recently a military junta.
I read it as: Russia: enemy ex-superpower, second biggest net oil exporter. Cuba: stole our oil refineries half a century ago, we're still mad about it. Iran: in top 10 of net oil exporters (also, tried to take them over and fucked up). Venezuela: top ten of net oil exporters. North Korea: old enemy, though also universally considered evil. Syria: US wants to force a government change and supports the rebels; there could be an indirect oil-related angle in here.
It may be that I've just been reading too much about energy economics recently and am getting all consipracy-theorist. Even if so, I absolutely don't buy that there's any higher good for any of those sanctions.