If de-stabilizing the middle is is not in the interest of Americans, then why has the American military spending so many resources in keeping the region in constant conflict?

Because it’s in Israel’s interest. Israel wants the region destabilized so that its enemies will be destroyed and it can expand. As I wrote in my previous post, the Israel lobby successfully influences the United States to prioritize Israel’s interests over its own. It does this by eliminating anyone opposed to Israel in Congress by dumping money into their elections. In 2024 they spent $8.5 million to unseat Cori Bush in her Democrat primary election, spent $15 million to unseat Jamaal Bowman in his primary (one of the most expensive primary elections ever), and in 2026 a pro-Israel coalition spent over $18 million to unseat Thomas Massie in his primary. They’ve done this to many others in the past and will likely make a strong attempt to unseat Ro Khanna in the future. If they didn’t have to do this to get the United States to support Israel they wouldn’t spend the money. Once they control Congress, they can get the US to spend orders of magnitudes more than they put in.

Yes, for sure the US wants to maintain economic supremacy. But when you say they’ve “been trying to have control of the region’s resources for decades” it’s belied by the fact that the US already has control of the regions resources. US has (or had) huge bases all around the Persian gulf, where all the oil is, in Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and profound influence over the oligarchs of those countries. And those oligarchs would be happy to have the US there forever, because the US keeps them in power. The only friction with this situation is Israel, which increases security risks for the US bases and the Arab oligarchs. In other words, Israel is the only source of threat to the US’s powerful position in the region. Edward Said was writing about this in the 70s in Question of Palestine - that was almost 50 years ago. You could say Iran threatened that position, but Iran was terrified of attacking the US until forced to by Trump’s stupid decisions.

If you’re then going to say that the US went to war with Iran to control its resources, I think you need to come up with the careful accounting to point to exactly what resources will be taken to make up for the trillions of dollars that would need to be spent to conquer Iran, even in the best case scenario. The Iraq war cost around $2 trillion, and eventually the US had to pull out. Iran has three times the population, a much more motivated population, and is much more dug in than Iraq was during the second Gulf War. In the best case scenario, you would have to come up with resources greater than probably $10 trillion that will need to be spent conquering Iran. For reference Saudi Aramco is worth about $2 trillion. The math doesn’t work out.

Venezuela, Latin America, and the Donroe Doctrine are separate issues where the US is indeed acting imperialistically, trying to vassalize countries and extract resources. But even when operating in this maximally extractive manner the US usually uses a much softer touch that a full invasion or bombings. Because long term instabilities are actually bad for energy investment. Developing oil reserves requires years of infrastructure buildout, and operators avoid regions where geopolitical risks or insurgencies threaten to destroy their capital-intensive facilities, especially when it can take a decade or more to recover the initial investment…

what is it with people on Lemmy treating Ukraine like it’s this moral bellwether? They got invaded but they aren’t angels - they have openly Nazi battalions and paradoxically (or perhaps not so paradoxically) are aligned with Israel. They’re getting used by NATO to deny Russia access to a critical warm water port of Crimea and are getting wrecked for it. Just like the US would wreck (and has wrecked) anyone trying to deny access to Panama. Don’t come here thinking you’re going to get the same worshipful sympathy from me.

There will only be peace if America is weakened and Israel destroyed

I don’t disagree with this, but

It is in the interest of the Americans for the genocidal Israelis to keep destabilizing the region

I don’t see how the destabilization is “in the interest” of Americans. Before the Iran war started, they had access to Persian gulf oil through the Strait of Hormuz, now they don’t. They’ve lost access to around 20% of the global supply of oil. This is going to be enormously painful, economically.

I attribute this irrationality to the influence of the Israel lobby in US politics, AIPAC and the like, prioritizing Israel’s interests over that of America.

If you truly want to absolve the Israel lobby of responsibility, I think a more robust argument for you is just that the US government is insane.

thanks for pointing that out.

“This is a case where the power of the Lobby is being overridden by the threat of a great depression worldwide”

One Israeli combat soldier described how members of his unit yelled in celebration and congratulated each other after shooting a Palestinian car driving near the yellow line, “killing everyone inside.”

The soldier said scenes like this had “become common” after the ceasefire took effect.

“In the weeks he was stationed in Gaza, he said, he saw soldiers relishing the chance to go after those who crossed — or came close to crossing — the so-called yellow line,” AP wrote.

In many cases, Israeli forces have failed or refused to clearly mark the yellow line, leading to confusion among Palestinians living near it and giving Israeli troops the opportunity to kill them for sport.

when this is juxtaposed with the fact that the recent MOU depends on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, all the drama about capitulation is revealed to be much ado about nothing - israel will not withdraw, the deal will not be consummated.

“let Syria take care if it” implicitly admits “al-Qaeda” Syria is aligned with US. Of course this is common knowledge now.

They are made locally

Reddit suspended me for 3 days for posting this there. They said this is “calling for violence” lol

“[The money] didn’t come from regular people. It’s come from billionaires, and 95 percent of it - at least 95 percent - has come from the Israeli lobby,” Massie said, specifically naming Aipac; the Republican Jewish Coalition; Christians United for Israel; and a trio of billionaires that have dominated the US election landscape: Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson - none of whom are from Kentucky.

“Their position is more war, it’s more strife, it’s more bombs, it’s more foreign aid, and those are the things that I’ve been voting against. So the real reason that this race is a serious race, and I may lose, is because a foreign lobby has fully funded to the extent that they’ve never done in any Republican race ever before,” Massie said.

Massie has raised some $5m for his campaign, but $10m alone has been spent running attack ads against him in Kentucky, including an AI-generated video of him going into a hotel with members of “The Squad” - the progressive female congresswomen in the Democratic Party.

yes. Their own cruelty exhilarates them.

for sure - fuck Obama. But it’s important to acknowledge that Trump in particular caved to very old and tired arguments from Netanyahu that others had rejected.

Israel is the only reliable millitary ally in the region … Doing nothing just leads to plane hijackings and the spread of militant extremism like Houthis, Hezbollah, IRGC, etc.

this is such bullshit

Israel has no more right to exist than Nazi Germany

You have to wonder if he browsed lemmy.world!

thank you

thank you

not Israel. Jewish Insider is talking about American Jews.

A common refrain in conversations with those in the Democratic pro-Israel world after the votes — and even before then — was that the end of Netanyahu’s premiership would provide a critical opening and opportunity to start rebuilding support for Israel among Democrats.