For a long time the justification given for US support of Israel, especially from many on the left, was that it somehow improved the US’s ability to extract oil from the Persian Gulf.

This explanation was nonsensical because most of the Arab monarchies were happy to host US bases as a means to reinforce their power over their populations, and were happy to sell oil on the open market in dollars, reinforcing US power through the petrodollar system. The ONLY pressure on this system was the existence of Israel, which inflames their subject populations because of its genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Even Iran would be happy to see US investment in its petroleum output, especially in the absence of Israel. In 2000, Dick Cheney himself lobbied for reducing sanctions on Iran so that Haliburton could develop their oil wells, saying that the US was missing out on investment [1]. Nevertheless, sanctions on Iran remained for decades.

The reason that sanctions remained for decades is because our government prioritizes Israel’s security OVER the profits of oil companies. This was due to its powerful lobby in the United States, which include organizations like AIPAC. This was all described by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their book “The Israel lobby”.

However, for 20 years, Mearsheimer and Walt’s thesis was outside of the mainstream, not only because of lobby organizations smearing them as antisemites but also because left-wing intellectual figures like Noam Chomsky told their followers that they were naive in not understanding the great power of corporations relative to ‘small’ forces like AIPAC.

20 years later Mearsheimer and Walt have been vindicated. It has become mainstream to take note when politicians take money from AIPAC, which is a shocking majority of Congress. Noam Chomsky has been exposed as a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein, infamous pedophile and donor to Friends of Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) who collaborated with Alan Dershowitz to smear Mearsheimer and Walt [2].

Furthermore, with Iran’s seizure of the Strait of Hormuz the US has lost control over 20% of global oil and LNG transit and indeed has lost a significant amount of sovereignty, because with that control Iran gains coercive leverage over the US. Because of the US commitment to Israel, its access to oil has been constricted and US imperial power has suffered a gaping wound.

I am not trying to portray oil companies in a good light, or that they are the victims in any way, or promote US imperial interests. My motivations are to stop the US from enabling injustices on the Palestinians. But when a problem is misdiagnosed, there is no way a cure can be derived from that misdiagnosis. By hiding the Israel lobby behind the phantom of oil, Chomsky protected them and ensured their continued influence. Many followed suit, hoping to piously absolve themselves of antisemitism by ignoring Zionist political influence. This must end.

[1] https://time.com/archive/6741942/republican-convention-cheney-and-halliburton-the-business-of-sanctions/

[2] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/epstein-and-alan-dershowitz-colluded-attack-john-mearsheimer-over-israeli-lobby-paper-report

  • AltMediaGuyOPMA
    31·
    10 days ago

    I hope you take it easy and feel better…

    I’m not convinced by Biden’s argument. I believe that in those quotes he’s tap-dancing for his donors. The US has (or had) other aircraft carriers in the Middle East that are closer to the Persian Gulf: the military bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Actual aircraft carriers and American troops were stationed there. And that’s where all the oil is - Israel is a thousand miles away from the oil, American troops are on top of it. It doesn’t make sense how Israel would be this precious, essential piece in the system. They don’t even deploy troops beyond their borders. None of the Arab monarchies are given billions in unconditional aid in exchange for troop presence either, and they don’t object to the US presence, which stabilizes their regimes. Edward Said was pointing all this out in the 70s, it’s in Question of Palestine…

    It doesn’t make sense that the US would benefit from ethnic cleansing of the Levant. It doesn’t make the oil flow faster. This isn’t Monster’s Inc, where screams can be turned into energy. The US would much prefer to be a quiet, invisible, extractive presence supporting the monarchies.

    I would need to see evidence of the US actually extracting value from Israel. And not just a little value either, like “police training”, but value which is worth the billions of dollars that are sent there. Value that compensates for US spending on air defense missiles to protect them. Value that compensates for UNSC vetos protecting Israel’s genocide. Value that compensates for the loss of the Strait of Hormuz. I don’t think there’s any evidence that the US is extracting value from Israel in any capacity close to that order of magnitude.

    Think about how the aid to Israel is unconditional - i.e. they do not have to constrain their behavior in any way to receive it. The US has no other relationship like that.

    For those reasons I have a hard time letting go of the idea that Israel has strong advocates in the United States who are able to manipulate the large country into doing ITS bidding.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      1·
      10 days ago

      Thanks, it’s just work stress. I’m dealing with a black woman version of The Don.

      If you consider dollar hegemony and that our government works for the ultra rich, and also, pnac

      https://philarchive.org/rec/BARTSC-15

      This paper establishes the force execution layer of the Protected Class Architecture — the military and covert operation mechanism that eliminates nation-states whose monetary independence threatens the dollar hegemony architecture. The paper traces the full 70-year prior chain from the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 through the current Iran pressure campaign, establishing that the Clark list — Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran — is not a post-September 11 innovation but the most recent iteration of a mechanism operating continuously since 1953. The PNAC document’s explicit statement that the desired military transformation would require ‘some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor’ is examined against the documented personnel overlap between PNAC signatories and Bush administration officials who occupied every position required to execute the Clark list. The Wesley Clark testimony is used as a structural probe rather than primary evidence. The execution record — twenty-two years against the specific Clark list across five administrations spanning both parties — is established as the primary evidence of prior planning. The Saudi dual-function problem is named directly: the United States classified for 14 years the documented connections between the Saudi government and September 11 hijackers in order to protect a petrodollar relationship with the same government whose religious export produced the catalyzing event the architecture had publicly stated it required. The Ukraine conflict is examined as the current force execution iteration — the proxy method deployed against a theater where direct military intervention is not viable. (Not my preferred source, but memory holes and all)

      https://genius.com/General-wesley-clark-seven-countries-in-five-years-annotated

      [AMY GOODMAN] Do you see a replay in what happened in the lead-up to the war with Iraq – the allegations of the weapons of mass destruction, the media leaping onto the bandwagon?

      [GEN. WESLEY CLARK] Well, in a way. But, you know, history doesn’t repeat itself exactly twice. What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.

      I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

      So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” – meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office – “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”

      [AMY GOODMAN] I’m sorry. What did you say his name was? [GEN. WESLEY CLARK] I’m not going to give you his name.

      [AMY GOODMAN] So, go through the countries again.

      [GEN. WESLEY CLARK] Well, starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, then Libya, then Somalia and Sudan, and back to Iran…

      https://lemmy.ml/comment/25012200

      From Paul Williams - Operation Gladio:

      In 1961, the Christian Science Monitor described the CFR as “probably one of the most influential, semipublic organizations in the field of foreign policy…

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      1·
      10 days ago

      Sorry, apparently kbin has character limits or bugs. Anyway, if you read the linked comment, it fills in some blanks.