The U.S. has long maintained imperial interests in the Middle East and has actively propped up Israel as a regional watchdog to maintain those interests militarily. The 1953 American orchestrated coup, toppling Iranian democracy and securing ownership over 40% of Iranian oil and a pro-American/Israeli government perfectly highlights the interests that America has maintained in the region: That is, maintaining economic domination over the region’s natural resources and geopolitical positioning. The management of these types of operations are a role which Israel now serves for U.S. Interests.
Summarized, these interests are: Preventing the rise of popular movements which threaten the influence and control that the U.S. enjoys over the region’s natural resources and strategic positioning.
A few more examples (out of many) which highlight this role include:
- Israeli invasion of Egypt after the Egyptian President dared to kick out lingering colonial control over the Suez canal
- Repeated Israeli invasions Lebanon and the supply of weaponry and training to right wing rebel groups in order to prevent the rise of democratic movements or otherwise Nationalistic movements which sought to assert Lebanese sovereignty over Lebanon. It also served to prevent the success of a movement which could serve as an example to neighboring nations on asserting national sovereignty.
- Israel again supplied rebel groups in Iraq with weapons and trainings to destabilize a movement which sought to nationalize Iraqi oil and resources that were owned by western corporations.
- Israel supplied rebel groups in Syria with weapons and training to destabilize the Syrian government, which at the time was nationalizing key industries owned by western corporations.
The list could go on, however, the point is the same: Israel serves to prevent the rise of popular movements which threaten the influence and control that the U.S. enjoys over the region’s natural resources and strategic positioning.
This domination isn’t solely for use in the domestic market, but also for strategic leverage in America’s greater foreign policy goals, whether it be during the cold war or in current trade related escalations with China.
The larger impact of this constant intervention is not a positive one. It has not only lead to the destruction of regional democracies, but it also encourages constant destabilization and war. Every multi-billion dollar military contract signed with Israel, or even the hundred billion dollar contracts signed with Saudi Arabia, line the pockets of American arms manufacturers who get great business deals and forever-clients in the region. These arms dealers make billions at the immense cost of human lives, decades long death and destruction, and at the cost of civilian populations who endure never-ending destabilization, forever unable to advocate for their own advancement; no development of democratic movements, no ability to advocate for rights and protections for women, no ability to demand the dignities of a stable life and government, etc. The death of millions and destabilization of entire countries serves well the profit industry and wartime / oil profiteers.
Background History Regarding the Creation of Israel and it’s use as a British Proxy, and later as an American Proxy.
Israel’s Creation as a Watchdog for Western Interests
The middle east has long held the attention of foreign powers for it’s vast wealth of natural resources and key positioning along important trade routes. With the resolution of World War 1 and the subsequent fall of the Ottoman empire, which ruled the general region for several hundred years, Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot agreement which split up the region between the two powers.
The British and the French established semi-colonial entities called mandates within the region. The region had seen a rise in Arab Nationalism and independence movements, so the goal of the mandates were to establish the groundwork for independent states that adhered to British and French interests while not outright offending liberation movements within the mandates.
The British and French recognized, however, that these nationalist movements could pose a serious threat to their interests in maintaining control over natural resources like oil (The British owned the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Iraq Petroleum Company,etc), as well as control over key trade routes like the Suez Canal which the British and French owned at the time.
To address these concerns, the British government sought the creation of a state within historic Palestine which could not succumb to growing Arab nationalism. This would come to be the State of Israel. The British government utilized a growing Zionist movement headed by Theodor Herzl, who, in his book titled The Jewish State wrote, regarding the creation of a state in Palestine: “We should there form a wall of defense for Europe in {west} Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism”.
Britain had hoped that a Zionist state would serve as a regional watchdog to prevent any threat to the Interests of British industry. Winston Churchill recognized such, writing in an article: “Should there be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a jewish state under the protection of the British Crown… an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire.”
With the issuing of the Balfour declaration, Britain gave it support for the creation of Israel, helping to facilitate the settlement of Jewish populations in Historic Palestine. This was followed with the declaration of Israeli Independence in 1949 and Israel’s subsequent ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinians, the Nakba.
The U.S. Enters as the Dominant Power
After the end of the Second World War, with Britain’s global influence on the decline, the United States emerged as the dominant world power, using that position to take control where previous western powers once had influence. The U.S. saw the same strategic value in the middle east as did the British and the French before. U.S. foreign policy sought to take advantage of the oil rich nations and to secure trade routes for the benefit of American Imperialism. Israel would later serve as a watchdog to ensure the stability of U.S. interests either by assisting in direct western invasion or destabilization, or by invading and meddling themselves.
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