> And what good for the United States--speaking as a flinty-eyed State
> Department realist--is "condominium" over the western Middle East?
> Giving both Egypt and Israel an excuse to avoid war in order to
> receive aid is a good thing from the idealist perspective (to which I
> belong). But the U.S.'s strategic interests are in the eastern Middle
> East.
.
If you want to ensure the existence and safety of pliant regimes in the
oil-rich states of the eastern Middle East you can't have a mighty Arab
state in the western Middle East run by people who oppose all your goals and
plans for the region. Nasser gave Iran, Iraq and the Gulf states a lot of
headaches in his day......
Seth