While I've absolutely no doubt the CIA does all sorts of heinous shit around the world, I just don't buy the theory behind so-called color revolutions. If the CIA were able to incite populist revolutions on a whim, there would be a LOT more of them. Sure, they do their very best to encourage them, but you need more than just guns and money to build a movement big enough to topple a government. You need a lot of people.

IMO in most claimed cases of 'color revolutions', the local sentiment was already there, just waiting for an inciting event. I do agree that US sanctions can help create those types of conditions, but once that happens its looking a lot more like a standard US regime change operation rather than a color revolution created by CIA psyops tbh.

But more importantly, from an anarchist perspective, it's suspiciously convenient and self-serving to immediately blame every popular uprising against AES authoritarian states on the CIA, rather than on whichever oppressive regime is actually running the country. Iran is a perfect example of that. Cuba has also been under sanctions for decades without turning into a vile theocracy that treats women like property. So long as governments treat their citizens well, like Cuba generally does, a "color revolution" will never be possible there.

Btw, the theory of color revolutions was an invention of infamous conspiracy theorist, and perennial presidential candidate, Lyndon LaRouche. There’s a good (quite long) video on this topic here if anyone wants to go down the rabbit hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFyn_KSy80.