[Peace-discuss] Strategic assets & liabilities

[David Green]

http://rationalmanifesto.blogspot.com/2010/06/third-world-diplomatic-cooperation-and_05.html

In other words, to respond again to Judt's notion of S.A. and Israel as "strategic liabilities," the point is that the resources of Saudi Arabia and the military of Israel make them assets, which is axiomatic. The actions of their leaders can make those leaders strategic liabilities, in a worst-case scenario. It's inconceivalbe that S.A. would not be an asset, because that's where the oil is. And if Turkey becomes a liability--that is, if their leaders don't do what we want them to--then it becomes even less likely that Israel, whatever its outrageous actions, would become a liability.

"As planners have acknowledged, such an approach leaves the US and its allied regimes "militarily strong but politically weak." It is natural that a power in such a position would not be willing to entrust its hegemony with the whims of the natives and its power of persuasion and would instead prefer violence. In the Middle East, the US relationship with Israel has served just this purpose. As elsewhere in the world, the danger has always been that an independent, nationalist movement would take root, challenging US dominance and emboldening others to follow suit, a threat that has not been taken lightly in Washington. As they constantly puzzle over the inability of the United States to secure support for its objectives among the locals, planners and strategists have inevitably reverted to the use of brutal, overwhelming violence instead - a solution easily supplied by Israel.

"The Lula-Erdogan agreement represents an important and major defeat for these longstanding efforts to suppress democracy and freedom in the third world."

DG


      
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