UPDATED: Last week, Donald Trump said the U.S. isn’t involved in the Middle East for oil, but because we “want to protect Israel.” The comments have gone all but unreported in the mainstream press.
Trump made the comment during a rally in Winston-Salem, N.C. on Sept. 8, when he was bragging about America’s energy independence, which he said Joe Biden would undermine if he gets the White House (minute 47):
I like being energy independent, don’t you? I’m sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it’s below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? Thank you President Trump! Look at your electric bills and everything else– these guys, your electric would go up four, five, six times. The Green New Deal it’s called the Green New Nightmare. While I’m president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don’t have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We’ve been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don’t have to be in the Middle East. You know there was a time we needed desperately oil, we don’t need that anymore. We have more than they do, isn’t that nice? After years of rebuilding other countries, we are finally building our country.
The American Conservative’s Barbara Boland is the only reporter who seems to have picked up Trump’s remarks.
The mainstream default position is that the U.S. is in the region because of oil.
These comments by Trump tie into the pedigree of analysis from policymakers that the U.S. invaded Iraq to make Israel safer. Like the former head of the 911 Commission who said that the threat to Israel was the motivation for the war.
Earlier it was for both, a senior Pakistani defense official tells DesPardes. “Israel provided the reason for Middle East destabilization and US presence so the US could maintain its military presence in the region. “As the State Department warned that it would do, in the 1940s”, writes Mondoweiss.
“But since the shale oil revolution, it is primarily Israel”, says the official on condition of anonymity as he”s not authorized to comment official.
Commenting earlier on US-Israel relations and latter’s military and nuclear capabilities, an Asia-Pacific based geopolitical analyst had said that Israel is effectively an autonomous 51st state of the USA. According to him, “Israel’s ability to shape US regional policy exceeds that of any other allies”.
Under US law, any arms sales in the Middle East must take Israel’s qualitative military edge into account.
The protection afforded by the USA renders Israel an untouchable actor on world stage, the analyst says. “Its (Israel’s) nukes and missiles are the spearheads of that symbiotic relationship.”
Based on original report by Mondoweiss: News and opinion about Palestine, Israel and USA.
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