[Alberta's Child]

Your post is missing a huge, important aspect of the Barbary pirate problem for the U.S. back in the early decades of this country’s existence. Britain was actually encouraging piracy against American shipping in the Mediterranean Sea after the American Revolution ended. In fact, predation by British ships against American vessels was one of the issues that led to the War of 1812.

That’s why the piracy problem in the Mediterranean wasn’t really resolved until after that war — and (more importantly) the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and France — ended.

[castlebrew]

Good point. And it seems similar to Iran encouraging Houthi troublemaking of various sorts.

Though I recall pretty much everyone having problems with the Barbary pirates (including the Brits). Most got out of it by paying the jizya or ransom. America paid a yearly “tribute”, but eventually refused to do so and took the war to the pirates.