I attended a book event for Ron Reagan Jr. in Washington, DC, where he thanked his brother Michael for bashing his new memoir about their father. "Michael really helped increase the sales of my book," Ron quipped. Indeed, there is no such thing as bad publicity, or as Oscar Wilde put it, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
So if I was responsible for making policy in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Beirut, Cairo or Riyadh, I would be somewhat concerned after President Barack Obama's State of the Union address last night, in which Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt or Saudi Arabia were not mentioned at all. The omission was intriguing since on the same day Obama was addressing Congress, the front pages of the New York Times and other "elite" newspapers carried reports about the election of a pro-Hezbollah Prime Minister in Lebanon, of political unrest and anti-government violence in Egypt, and of new revelations about the failed efforts to reach Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
If you skim through presidential SOTUs since World War II -- and especially since the 1967 and 1973 Middle East wars -- the issue of U.S. policy in the region and its support for Israel and other American allies, including the efforts to achieve Arab-Israeli peace, have featured prominently in most of these addresses. And that was not surprising. Through the many presidential Cold War "doctrines" (Truman, Eisenhower, Carter), terrorist attacks, oil embargoes, military interventions, and "peace processes," the Middle East and its major players were perceived to be central to U.S. strategic and economic interests. In fact, under President George W. Bush, the U.S.'s Mideast policy seemed to dominate his SOTUs. And let us not forget the almost obligatory reiteration of American support for Israel by most U.S. presidents through the years.
Obama briefly mentioned Iraq in his address -- to mark the withdrawal of U.S. troops from there with no expression of support for the Iraqi government. And he did praise the pro-democracy protestors in Tunisia -- but without integrating these comments into a grand American narrative of a democratic agenda in the Middle East.
So what are we to make of the short shrifting of the Mideast by Obama? Some would argue that the focus of the address was on economic policies and not only foreign policy. After all, not even America's allies in Europe were mentioned. But in fact, the main theme of the SOTU ("The Sputnik Moment") was global -- not domestic: The U.S. needs to restructure its economy, reform education, become more innovative, etc. in order to enhance its competitive edge vis-à-vis China, India, Korea and the other Asian emerging markets. In a way, Obama seems to be responding to the new geostrategic and geo-economic realities, in which the U.S. has no choice but to start reducing its costly commitments in the Middle East, including the support for Arab dictators and autocrats and the futile peace processing -- and start investing its time and effort in strengthening its ties with the nations and economies of the Pacific Rim, with the winners of the 21st century.
As I pointed out in an earlier post "Obama's Choice: Military Quagmires or Economic Opportunities": "only a major effort to reduce American commitment in the Middle East would ensure that the U.S. will succeed in exerting its influence in Asia and take advantage of the huge economic opportunities there. A choice needs to be made on whether to continue wasting American treasure (and lives) on a policy that doesn't advance U.S. interests (the American economy is not dependent on Mideast oil; and in fact, we end-up paying more for our energy supplies through the costs of U.S. intervention in the Middle East) but ends up harming U.S. security (in the form of anti-American terrorism). Or whether to stop providing free security to corrupt and backward regimes and to mischievous client states and start cutting our deficits and prepare the American economy for the competition for trade and investment in Asia and for a partnership with the rising global powers." And as I proposed in another post, "Israel Needs to Adjust to a Post-American Age," it's time for Israel to adjust itself to this new reality. Better sooner than later.
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SOTU ans other stuff speach ---6 hours and 29 minutes
Which means that the US taxpayers who WORK in the factories buy the weapons for Israel, who doesn't pay for her own arms.
Israel thus takes money out of the taxpayers pocket, and puts part of it back.
If Israel used her OWN money-- which she is able to do, there would be economic benefit to Americans.
Meanwhile, if someone took a $20 out of my purse, and spend it in a store that I owned, I would not realize any gain.
"peace" as in a situation with zero conflict - is not desireable to Israels leaders as the concept contains within it a resolution of the Palestinian question. Such a resolution is anathema to Israel's long term goal of gradual annexation of the entire west bank.
(See Tzippi Livnis remarks in the Palestine papers).
Only a sustained military domination of the region allows them to get away with the horrors they impose on the captive Palestinian population while inexorably pushing them out of the region. The key to this is Israels thermonuclear deterrent - which is why an Iranian bomb scares them so much - not because of fears the bomb will be used - but because it neutralises their own deterrent and makes real peace, not necessarilly on their selfish terms, possible.
Here let me help you.
The aid money is used to purchase, educate, and service weapons. As well as maintain supplies. Most of the supplies are not particularly sophisticated, and many are merely US army leftovers (literally).
The aid money is allocated to American Military Contractors. This amounts basically to an ongoing funding of said US industry.
A large chunk of the funds is set aside to pay interest on previous loans. The loans get repaid, the interest gets written off as a gift, a business expense if you will - part of the "aid" package kind of deal. Allies do have such warm friendly relations you know. It’s called mutually beneficial association.
Kind of tough for US to cut it’s nose in spite of it’s face considering the fact that Israel also serves as a testing ground for various US military equipment in every day life kind of thing. This is just a small part, but 3BB in exchange for the intelligence that the US gets in return, is well worth it.
But you go on with your bad self and continue to pretend that the US is just gifting the money to Israel. Sane people know better.
Sorry, Israel needs to spend her own money on her own weapons. We can test them ourselves. We also need to stop guaranteeing her loans and buying up shekels to boost her economy.
Time for us to cut her loose, and spend outr energies and money on OUR problems. We've done enough for Israel.
But don't try to BUY their friendship, can't really be done.
He did manage however to alienate Israel.
The US cannot afford to do anymore wet-nursing, hand-holding, or trillion $ welfare checks.