comment on Zionism discussion

[Brad DeLong]

>On Thu Jul 19, Brad DeLong wrote:
>
>>  > > But what does the U.S. get from this $3 billion a year, besides
>>  > > a more difficult and prickly relationship with the Gulf states
>>  > > where the oil is?
>
><snip>
>
>>  > A good case can be made that the annual payment to Egypt (which
>>  > could never be made without a larger one to Israel) bought the
>>  > end of general war in the middle east and made the Middle East a
>>  > one-superpower zone. We essentially bought condominium....
>
>>  And what good for the United States--speaking as a flinty-eyed State
>>  Department realist--is "condominium" over the western Middle East?
>
>What good was the end of the prospect of general war in the Middle East?
>What good was ruling out a war that could lead to the end of the world?

I agree with you, but I don't think that the realists do: the only 
thing that could make a war in the middle east world-threatening 
would be if the superpowers let themselves get dragged in, and if the 
U.S. is focused on the gulf, it wouldn't be dragged into anything 
happening in Israel.

It's only the non-realist aspects of American policy that make the 
realists interested in calming things down, and paying $6 billion a 
year to try to make sure that things *are* calmed down...

Brad DeLong