> ..."Watchdog" is no longer accurate after the 1973 defeat, and
> especially after Lebanon and the first Intifada, when Washington began
> to see [Israel] not as a "watchdog", but as a net liability ... Simply
> "dumping it" (certainly always a possibility - were dealing with
> Americans, after all) would - and still will - [lead to] a furious
> factional bloodletting within the American ruling class, to the point,
> perhaps, of endangering the stability of the political regime. So it
> has been pretty much unthinkable...
I think the consensus in Washington is that nuclear-armed Israel (in effective alliance with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt) is still the best guarantor of "stability" within the family dictatorships that keep control of "our" oil and profits in the region -- still the world's greatest geopolitical prize.
But I do agree that the possibility of "dumping it" remains an option for the US elite (and contingency plans for that undoubtedly exist). And I don't think that that would lead to "a furious factional bloodletting within the American ruling class, to the point, perhaps, of endangering the stability of the political regime": look what happened in 1956.
--CGE