It’s been two years since the publication of John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt’s book "The Israel Lobby," and David Makovsky writes in the The Jewish Week that they’re still wrong:
While Mearsheimer and Walt concede that during the Cold War Israel may have been an asset to the United States, they suggest that in the post- Cold War period and certainly after 9/11, whatever value it had has long since been replaced by costs. Their argument is that securing oil and good relations with the Arab world should be the primary U.S. goal in the Middle East, and our association with and strong support for Israel impede this aim.
Specifically, they write that Arab and Muslim antipathy toward the United States results from their identifying the United States with Israel.
But the Mideast is far more complex than they appreciate. Not only has the U.S.- Israeli relationship not been a liability for either country, it has been, at least to some extent, an asset to the Arab regimes, as a strategic counterweight to radicalism.
For instance, Israel helps with containing the spread of Iran, writes Makovsky, currently the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:
Radicals, led by Iran, are enemies not only of the United States and Israel but also of key Arab regimes. The Saudis and all six Gulf states believe that Iran has hegemonic designs on Arab oil. Senior officials in these states, as well as their counterparts in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, also fear Iran for security, territorial, and ideological reasons. They see Iran as hostile to the Arabs for reasons relating to a mix of historical incursions by Persia into the Arab world, aspirations for regional dominance, and sectarian differences. They fear that Iran will funnel money to militant organizations, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, so that these proxies will destabilize the Arab regimes and gain Iran a foothold in a Sunni Arab world. Iran could, in their eyes, also foment social unrest among Shiite communities who happen to live in the oil- sensitive areas of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. And the Arab regimes fear that Iranian support from abroad could fuel local extremism.
After all, if Iran can fund a Sunni Hamas, why could it not fund the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the Islamic Action Front in Jordan?
Yet it is the United States and Israel that are often the most likely to act — or at least serve as the strongest countervailing forces — against Hamas and Hezbollah and perhaps against Iran, leaving Arab regimes to benefit while still maintaining an arm’s distance. Few Arab governments actually believe that a weak Israel would serve their national interests.
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