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There is a broad bipartisan consensus among policymakers that Israel has advanced U.S. interest in the Middle East and beyond.
* Israel has successfully prevented victories by radical nationalist movements in Lebanon and Jordan, as well as in Palestine. * Israel has kept Syria, for many years an ally of the Soviet Union, in check. * Israel's air force is predominant throughout the region. * Israel's frequent wars have provided battlefield testing for American arms, often against Soviet weapons. * It has served as a conduit for U.S. arms to regimes and movements too unpopular in the United States for openly granting direct military assistance, such as apartheid South Africa, the Islamic Republic in Iran, the military junta in Guatemala, and the Nicaraguan Contras. Israeli military advisers have assisted the Contras, the Salvadoran junta, and foreign occupation forces in Namibia and Western Sahara. * Israel's intelligence service has assisted the U.S. in intelligence gathering and covert operations. * Israel has missiles capable of reaching as far as the former Soviet Union, it possesses a nuclear arsenal of hundreds of weapons, and it has cooperated with the U.S. military-industrial complex with research and development for new jet fighters and anti-missile defense systems.
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