this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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The law ( the Leahy Law) requires that the US vet any foreign military receiving US arms. However, that doesn’t happen with Israel

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Obviously the US government is sending an endless supply of arms to Israel without conditions because doing so serves its purposes.

The question that you need to ask is how it serves its purposes - how is it that the US government benefits by enabling Israel's Palestinian genocide.

My theory, also supported by other US government actions in the Middle East (such as the Iraq war) is that the US government's overall goal in the Middle East is destabilization.

And that stands to reason, since the Middle East's wealth administered by stable and progressive governments rather than reactionary autocracies could he a threat to western hegemony.

Or more simply, a Middle East consumed by strife can't be stable, and thus can't invest sufficient time and resources into being a serious player on the world stage, since too much of its time and resources is diverted into dealing with internal strife, or pissed away by the dysfunctional governments that have come to power as a result of of the strife.

And Israel, and specifically the overt violence and oppression and now genocide failing to hide behind a shabby mask of "defense" and "security" in which Israel continues to engage, is key to that strife.

If you look at US foreign policy in the Middle East through that lens - asking yourself, at every turn, how does this accord with the presumption that the broad goal of the US government in the Middle East is destabilization, then a lot of things that don't make sense otherwise suddenly do.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

My theory, also supported by other US government actions in the Middle East (such as the Iraq war) is that the US government’s overall goal in the Middle East is destabilization.

The exact opposite is the actual reason the US supports Israel.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -3 points 11 months ago

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, sorry.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

This is correct. I was down with that post until this same sentence. Dude started off on the right path and then just went 180 in the wrong direction.

Israel is the sole democracy in the middle east, defined as a flawed democracy (same as America) by political science.

If we stopped supplying it with weapons and might, it would be overrun by Iran and the Israeli people would be killed to the last. Iran will never stop arming and funding terrorism against Israel. Any apparent respect Iran shows to Israel's borders or legitimacy is an act, a pretext of peace, an armistice really, until they wage total war against Israel. Iranians man, don't let the world have anything nice. It is not in America's national interest to let the only democracy in the region fall, and lose any hope for human rights in the middleeast.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Agreed. Though I don't demonize Iran to the same extent they're clearly enablers of a lot of crap vs USA simply selling guns to an actual government that has a head of state etc

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Yep. You don't need a fancy graduate degree in IR to know this. US policy in the Middle East has always been a pretty open book. The fact that it's often been disastrous isn't evidence of some vast conspiracy to keep the Arab world down. To the contrary, it's evidence of deep stupidity, hubris, arrogance and wilful ignorance on the part of US leadership. Never attribute to malice that which can more easily be attributed to stupidity.