this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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I mean Saudi Arabia also does all those things, most of them far better than Israel ever could due to geography, and at a far lower cost. If Isreal snapped out of existence tomorrow, between Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Greece European and North American power projection in the Middle East and North Africa remains almost entirely unchanged.
Honestly the military benefits of supporting Isreal while real are definitely not as important as the domestic political benefits to the US, which is to say that the conservatives like Isreal because it provides a nice place to deport all the Jews to while also maintaining precedent for an enthnostate with race based citizenship, and the Democrats like it because they get a lot of gifts, friends, and in their minds potential voters, all for doing exactly what the conservatives want them to do.
Israel has been a key USA asset for destabilizing the region from, at leat, the times of Kissinger as secretary of state and to stop socialist panarab projects like then ones of Nasser or the Ba'aths parties.
Yes, but it’s presence in the region being a destabilizing force is a very different thing to being primarily an unsinkable aircraft carrier as the commenter I responded to described it.
An unsinkable aircraft carrier is a destabilizing force, what are you talking about?
Politically, major outside military forces like aircraft carriers tend to be viewed at a stabilizing force in the local region, but more to the point Redrum and I were talking about Isreal’s primarily being useful politically rather than militarily to destabilize and break up leftist and Soviet groups in the region.
The presence of a Sword of Domacles hanging over the heads of every country in the region does have political uses, not just military ones.
Saudi Arabia is kept in line by Israel's presence in the region. OPEC was once a thorn in the US's side and now they're under control, and Israel was key for that.
I think the US becoming the largest oil producer in the world might have had more to do with the decline in OPEC’s influence on the US but what do I know?
Israel was critical for disempowering OPEC in the Yom Kippur War. We would not have gotten where we are today, with OPEC firmly under control, without Israel's critical role in the conflict.
Except OPEC still had significant power and influence in the US well after the Yom Kippur war ended in 1973, and said war didn’t even involve the majority of the OPEC member countries.
Israel isn't the only reason OPEC has been brought to heel, but it was the last time OPEC ever used an oil embargo afaik
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