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The Arabs get angry with us when we provide aid to Israel, just like the Israelis get angry with Iran when Iran aids Hamas/Hezbollah. It makes it much harder to work with Arab governments and it angers Arabs, who can do us harm.
Why did Osama Bin Laden hate the West? In large part he resented that we were helping Israel dominate Palestine.
I have no interest in an Israel-Palestine solution, just like I don't know or care about who should govern South Sudan, Somalia or Myanmar. Let them handle their own affairs. What I want is for the West not to be attached to this dead weight that causes us problems in so many fields. Wouldn't it be great if we enjoyed the support of the Middle Eastern public, or at least got along with them like China does?
We spent 20 years fighting Islamic terrorism and spent trillions of dollars fighting much of the Middle Eastern public and you think their public opinion doesn't matter?
The Abraham Accords caught... Bahrain and the UAE. This great success was followed up with Sudan, of all countries. Not Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia: any of the relevant powers. UAE is vaguely relevant I suppose.
So that leaves just the UAE. Not a great success.
Did you miss the Yemen/Red Sea war we're now fighting? Iran and the US are fighting a proxy war in Iraq as we speak, shelling eachother.
Flatly wrong. The invasion of Iraq was heavily motivated by Israeli influence. Everything from Israel's false WMD intelligence to the open admissions from people in the know like Philip Zelikow, General Wesley Clark, Ruth Wedgewood, Senator Ernest Hollings and others. And people like Sharon and Netanyahu were publicly doing their usual 'they're going to get WMD's routine', urging war. Notably the Israelis panicked when Iraq let in UN weapons inspectors, switching to a position that the inspectors were going to be deceived and so the war must go on regardless, as it did: Foreign Minister Peres told reporters, "The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must. Inspections and inspectors are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and inspectors."
As it happens, he wasn't wrong. Dishonest people can overcome inspections, albeit in a different way than he'd like us to think.
That had nothing to do with the Abraham Accords, it had to do with a river of US aid pouring into Egypt (and some other countries like Jordan) so they'd get along with Israel. You presented the Abraham Accords as this great breakthrough, you said it broke the assumption that Arab states wouldn't have relations with Israel. If the Abraham Accords had gotten Egypt to get along with Israel, then that would've made it a success but it didn't, so it wasn't. My point stands fine, your point that the Abraham Accords were this major breakthrough remains weak.
The Iranians are fighting their proxy wars because they know they're on the chopping block, they saw exactly what happened to Iraq and Trump showed that American promises aren't worth the paper they're written on. They want all pro-US forces as far away from them as possible.
It is hard to keep yourself together when the US is occupying your territory. The problem here is the US stirring up the Middle East, causing chaos, conveniently wrecking anyone that might threaten Israel. It's expensive, it's dangerous, it causes all kinds of long-term problems for the West. It needs to stop.
Why can't you understand a conditional clause? If it were the Abraham Accords that got Egypt to get along with Israel, then that would've made them an achievement. The Abraham Accords got Bahrain and the UAE, of which only the UAE matters. Morocco too, which has basically nothing to do with the Middle East other than being Arab and Islamic.
They have troops there. ISIS is gone yet US troops remain. Clearly it's not about fighting ISIS. If you have troops on the soil of another country without their permission, it's an occupation.
No he wasn't. This is a blatant lie.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1404673/Sharon-urges-America-to-bring-down-Saddam.html
He also wanted an invasion of Iran after Iraq was dealt with: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/05/israel.iraq
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War? I guess there aren't exactly any fixed and universal criteria to consult, but is it really a war, outright? That seems to me to imply higher stakes. I'm not saying you're wrong, mind you, but I'd expect to have heard more about it if it were more than some foreign-shores-coast-guarding with occasional naval gunfire exercises. In other words: Please inform me.
I don't know how one defines high stakes but its a consequential struggle. European Tesla factories are suspending production due to supply chain problems.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-berlin-suspend-most-production-two-weeks-over-red-sea-supply-gap-2024-01-11/
There are some dead Navy SEALs, presumably some dead Houthis, the US Navy's control of a global trade chokepoint is being contested. The Israelis claim they shot down a Houthi missile in space, making it the first instance of space warfare. IMO this is qualitatively on another level to Ethiopian pirates.
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