I wrote: > > Now as far as Israel is concerned.....[...] >
And the Listmeister responded: > Thanks for an excellent historical overview of relations between the US and > Israel. This makes slogging through some of the other shit on the list > worthwhile. > It was actually pretty cursory, Jerry. There are some good studies, though, for example David Schoenbaum's now somewhat dated "The United States and the State of Israel" (http://www.amazon.com/United-States-State-Israel/dp/0195045769). Howard Sachar's general history of Israel is very useful too (http://www.amazon.com/History-Israel-Rise-Zionism-Time/dp/0375711325/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231526900&sr=1-1), as is Burton Kaufman's briefer study of US relations with Middle Eastern countries (http://www.amazon.com/Arab-Middle-East-United-States/dp/0805792112/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231527010&sr=1-13). There is also a very good study by Avner Cohen, "Israel and the Bomb", which has some excellent details on the US-Israeli relationship in the 1960s (http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Bomb-Avner-Cohen/dp/0231104839/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231527394&sr=1-1). You will probably have noticed that I did not talk about the importance of the fact that Israel is a democracy, something that is stressed for example by Schoenbaum. It is almost certainly an element of the relationship, but it is hard to know just how much. For example, the US had close ties with Pakistan for many years even though India has always had a much more democratic polity since South Asia became independent, and at times the US has opted to support military rule instead of populist regimes, even democratically elected ones (most notably in Latin America, over and over again). One other thing I should have noted: The US policy has itself become entangled in contradictions in the last few decades. We opposed military rulers like Saddam Hussein, but then decided to use him to contain the Iranian Revolution. We disliked radical Islam, but supported Osama bin Laden and other Islamist forces to give the Soviets trouble in Afghanistan. The neo-cons of course hated both the secular, nationalist military regimes and the Islamic ones, and hoped that by attacking Iraq 6 years ago a pro-Western regime could be established in Baghdad, and the regimes in Syria and Iran would both be destabilized. Instead the neo-con policies have paved the way for a pro-Iranian Shi'ite regime in Iraq, fomented much more Islamic fundamentalism inside and outside Iraq, and strengthened the hands of both Syria and Iran. As any objective observer can see, this venture was a colossal blunder, above and beyond the horrible waste of human lives and money involved, and even though things hav e quieted down a bit in the last few years it is unlikely to end well, for Iraq and probably for the rest of the region. One question it raises as well is where the US will station its forces now that it is bound by the recent referendum in Iraq to completely remove US troops by 2011. One part of the logic of the second Gulf War was that the US could shift its military presence in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to Iraq, since the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia in particular was so galling to Islamist sentiment. That is another policy issue awaiting the Obama administration, and it will be interesting to see what happens there as well. One thing is for sure: the US is in Afghanistan to stay, and it sounds like fighting will be ramped up there very soon. And that is probably where many of our Iraq troops are headed, very shortly. John M. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Persons posting messages to not_honyaku assume all responsibility for their messages. The list owner does not review messages, and accepts no responsibility for the content of messages posted. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
