Who Do You Believe in The Middle East?

What are the successes of fifty years of US policy in the Middle East? What has been the cost? Who has won and who has lost? How did a foreign power, Israel,  develop so much influence over the US political duopoly? Why has there been unending conflict?

My generation fought a war over a lie and an historic mistake in Viet Nam. We knew that when we fought it.Viet Nam was and is a natural adversary of China. The  Vietnamese know the territory, we don’t. Our interventionist policy failed there and has been failing ever since in the Middle East. Our collaborative ignorance about foreign affaies and the Middle East in particular, has been made apparent by our disastrous  democracy crusade in Afghanistan and Iraq. At this very time, far right wing religious and political parties in Israel are doing their best to further entangle the US with a war with Iran. We are supposed to believe that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon and use it against Israel which has anywhere from 150-300 nuclear weapons, the means to deliver them, and the intelligence and defense system to stop any Iranian attack and destroy Iran in total.

Iran has the means to acquire nuclear weapons and in the long run, we can do littlle to stop it at a price that is acceptable to us and with any benefits to us.

We have a scary Islamic power, Pakistan, that has the technology and the crazies to do the unthinkable. We cannot do much about that except what we are doing and that is letting them know about the certainty of our response to any nuclear attack.  Israel has that same power and strength against any enemy on the planet. The argument of a life and death nuclear struggle between Iran and Israel is just another myth in the land of myths. I for one am sick of their myths and their intrusions into  the internal political affairs of The United States of America.

I have no interest in telling the Israelis what to do about their security problems except that they are their problems. Israel should be cut free of US support and US manipulation in the affairs of Israel. I am sure that there are many Israelis that share my concerns and would welcome such freedom. The Likud being the exception, but even the Likud should welcome such freedom. Currently, you have an Israeli election schedule being manipulated because of concern that Obama will win re-election next year. Why should that be?

Our priority should be the welfare of 315,000,000 Americans, half of them not doing so well. Our priority should be in the Americas. We know how to destroy and punish any enemy that is foolish enough, crazy enough and has the temerity to attack the US. We also should recognize that we have interests and priorities with countries. We do not have friends in countries. It should be obvious that we neither understand the Middle East nor has our foreign policy done us much good. Are we up for another fifty years of such expensive failures?

Who do you listen to? Who do you believe?