Quote:
Originally Posted by aowen
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Actually it's not in our interest. Stable governments facilitate trade and business. Assad is not even winning, and I wouldn't put Iran on the list of highest plausible threats.
However, the bigger points I'd like to make are about Israel. Israel is not at all in our interest. While at one point you could argue that Israel was our door into the Middle East, now it is a source of tension with some of our closest allies, and strains our relations worldwide. It harms our relations with other countries in the Middle East, and implicates us in human rights violations. We have used so so many UN vetoes to trump even our Western allies. Israel also now serves as little economic interest to us in the international arena, but bears some economic importance domestically pertaining to maintaining the support from the Israel and Jewish lobbies. Israel has turned into a liability, alienating us from others, requiring foreign aid, and creating imbalance in a region that may have been on its way to healing wounds long ago if it wasn't constantly being interrupted.
Additionally, I do not support destabilizing a region and causing death to better one's own position. While I already said I don't think it does better our position, I wouldn't support the policy even if it did. Blatant imperialism is out of style, subtle economic manipulation is in, didn't you hear?
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Stable Syria doesn't facilitate anything for us. They're a minor economy that we barely interact with. Cuba has a higher GDP.
And Israel is overtly our door into the Middle East. It's not a past tense thing, and the Middle East is going to be significantly more vital over the next 20 years than it was for the past 20 years. Keeping the oil flowing is of utmost importance to our economy and by extension our military.
The rest is basically immaterial. You're wrong about Israel's economic value to us, especially when contrasted with Syria -- it's fairly significant, particularly their weapons research and development. But ultimately replaceable. The UN is impotent and the "tension" you're referencing is bluster more than substance. The future of Palestine isn't going to crack NATO. And the concept of Israel keeping that region unstable is lulsy. Syria is ripping itself apart, Iraq is ripping itself apart, Afghanistan and Pakistan are half tribal, Egypt just had a full-on coup d'etat, Lebanon is being run by Hezbollah, and Saudi Arabia and Iran are about 18 months away from an arms race. That region is fucked beyond repair by 200 years of foreign intervention and Sunni-Shiite competition. Hating Israel is the only unifying force in the region.