The Exaggerated Role of the Israel Lobby
It exists, and is powerful, but is not dictating U.S. foreign policy
There is a long-standing debate among those who recognize the bizarre nature of the U.S.-Israeli relationship as to whether this is because the Israel Lobby (consisting of groups like AIPAC and various think tanks as well as segments of the Christian evangelical community )is powerful enough to have a grip on U.S. foreign policy in a way that pulls America to behave against its own interest - or is it because Israel is a proxy state of the United States performing a functionary role for a global imperial power.
The argument for the former (the Israel Lobby argument) is best made by John Mearshimer and Stephen Walt, who wrote a whole book making their case. The case for Israel as a proxy state subservient to U.S. interests is best made by Noam Chomsky. All sides make very good arguments and there is enough literature on it that there is no point in me trying to summarize here.
Instead I want to focus on the very specific cases of the Gaza genocide and U.S. policy toward Iran. Especially because the recent bombing of Iran by the United States was understandably attributed by many people to Israel calling the shots in the relationship, dragging the U.S. into a conflict that does not serve the national interest.
I think here one can make the case that the support for Israel here does align with wider U.S. global objectives.
American Objectives
If you look at how the U.S. has behaved in the Middle East over the past few years, it is remarkably consistent with America geopolitical objectives dating back to 1945.
I outlined those objectives in a previous post, which I recommend at least skimming:
The tl;dr of it is that in the Second World War, American policy planners recognized the U.S. would come out as the dominant power in the world. Their (natural) goal was to solidify that as much as possible and build a world order that was most beneficial to American political and economic interests.
Due to its oil reserves, the Middle East was immediately recognized as the most strategically important area in the world and thus one that had to be controlled. Control did not mean direct ownership in the old European-colonial sense. It meant ensuring a flow of oil to Western economies, traded in dollars, with a portion of the profits directed back to the West in the form of investment or arms purchases. It also meant, crucially, not having an independent foreign policy that strayed from larger U.S. geopolitical objectives. In the Cold War period, that meant not aligning with the Soviet Union. Today, its both Russia and China.
Plans never work out perfectly but fast forward to the present day and the U.S. has done remarkably well. Nearly every major state in the Middle East is a client state or otherwise in ruins, as with Syria - though its new leader is quickly recognizing the rules. The only one outside this regional order is Iran.
Where U.S. and Israeli Interests Meet
The Islamic Republic, that is, the government of Iran, exists in opposition to the U.S. regional order. It was birthed in defiance of the United States, overthrowing the Western-imposed dictator, the Shah, and taking hostage U.S. embassy staff. From an American geopolitical perspective, this cannot go unpunished. If Iran is able to succeed as a state, having defied the United States, then the whole regional order may begin to unravel. To quote my previous piece:
Consider for a moment the following hypothetical. Iran comes to an agreement with the U.S. along the lines of the JCPOA and does not develop a nuclear weapon. Sanctions are lifted. It uses its enormous oil wealth and a flood of foreign investment, perhaps led by the Chinese, to jump start its economy. And don’t forget, Iran has a population of 92 million people. Compare that to Iraq (45 million people), Saudi Arabia (33 million people) and Israel (9 million people.) Freed from sanctions and leveraging its educated workforce, industrial base and stupendous natural wealth it would naturally become a dominant economic power in the region.
It would also be natural that surrounding states would be pulled into the economic orbit, signing trade and investment deals that draw them all closer together. Soon Iran is heavily investing in Iraq or Syria or Jordan. Suddenly all of those countries have a lot more stake in Iran and few it much more favorably. And it would only follow that a country with great economic wealth would direct some of that to conventional armed forces in order to secure its position.
To sum - an Iran freed from sanctions (or threat of being bombed) is likely to become a major power in the region. Is that a threat to the U.S. in of itself? No. But it is a threat if Iran views itself as independent of the rules dictated by the U.S. imposed regional order and develops its own foreign policy - which then begs a more global geopolitical problem. China is currently the number one export market for Iranian oil. Imagine China getting closer with Iran as it develops more economically. Greater Chinese investment, perhaps a Chinese military base, perhaps even a military alliance. Then (it is feared) that could be used as a way for China to begin to “penetrate the region.”
Conversely, if the U.S. maintained full control of the region (including Iran) then it would put the United States in an advantageous position should conflict with China ever occur. In a recent piece for Jacobin, which I highly recommend reading to better understand this perspective, Branko Marcetic details how “outgoing CENTCOM [the Pentagon’s name for the Middle East] commander Michael Kurilla has had Iran in his crosshairs for years as part of a larger vision for keeping China out of the Middle East and squeezing it in an eventual conflict.”
As Kurilla explained to the House Armed Services Committee in 2023, half of the oil and more than a third of the natural gas that China consumes comes from countries in CENTCOM’s purview, and nearly all of it arrives by ship, through the Strait of Hormuz. “That makes them vulnerable,” he said. “God forbid there’s ever a conflict with China, but we could end up holding a lot of their economy at risk in the CENTCOM region.”
All this is to say, the destruction of the Islamic State is a high priority for a strong faction of policy makers in DC and one that aligns with larger U.S. geopolitical objectives dating back to 1945. It doesn’t mean it’s right, or sensible, but it does carry a certain logic from that perspective.
And thus the alignment with Israel’s own interest in destroying the Islamic State, which is to assure Israeli regional hegemony operating within the U.S. regional order.
Did Israel get the U.S. to attack Iran?
I should add the important caveat that this perspective in DC operates on a very narrow spectrum of elite opinion toward Iran. There is a minority viewpoint that Iran can be brought back into the fold by using the slow easing of sanctions and American investment to gradually entice it under the auspices of the regional order. There is an overlapping viewpoint that says the best way to handle Iran is to keep them completely isolated (via sanctions) so that they turn into a basket case that can never successfully develop as an independent state.
But these opinions do operate on a narrow spectrum, you never hear anyone of prominence suggest the U.S. should just lay off Iran. And I think the hawks are the dominant voice, represented by military people like Kurilla and political people like…almost all Republican politicians and half (if not more) of the Democrats.
So what is Israel’s role in all of this? I think they have a voice and influence but its to amplify a policy preference that already exists and is deeply ingrained in the perspective of U.S. planners who are trying to maintain American global dominance.
In this particular situation, it does look like Israel got itself into a mess by attacking Iran - for which it is obviously seeking to destroy the Islamic State with the hopes of seeing Iran descend into chaos. But the mess presented an opportunity for U.S. planners who share the same goal and took advantage to press for demonstrating to Iran the awesome power of the American military while setting back the country’s ability to develop a nuclear deterrent from future attacks.
And yes - it helped that the fanatic Zionist mega-donors like Miriam Adelson were probably calling up Trump urging him on and AIPAC was probably dialing Republican congressman asking them to do the same. And maybe it helped tipped the balance in Trump’s mind. But the constituency for either isolating or destroying the Islamic State already existed within the halls of American power.
The Power of the Lobby
I do want to note that I don’t dismiss the power of the Israel Lobby altogether. It has been very effective in a number of ways. 38 states have laws restricting people from participating or even advocating for a boycott of Israel (despite states often boycotting one another.) In Texas, you have to sign something of a loyalty pledge to Israel in order to work for the state or, in one very strange case, receive hurricane aid. American politicians bend over backward to affirm their belief in the non-sensical notion of Israel’s “right to exist” and the Trump administration has been rounding up and imprisoning foreign-born students for the crime of expressing criticism of Israel. The corporate media is insanely pro-Israel, even “liberal” outlets like The New York Times. Chris Brunett has a great piece going into even more detail on how insane this has gotten and the efforts by pro-Israel forces to completely censor any criticism.
All of this can be attributed to the Lobby exercising its power. And one can make the reasonable argument that the ability to heavily influence the mainstream discourse and filter out politicians that are critical of Israel inevitably has an influence over policy-formulation. I agree, how could it not?
But what I don’t agree with is that it is essentially dictating U.S. policy toward the region. The U.S. has long-viewed the Middle East through an imperial lens and has a long history of punishing states that defy it - either through isolation, intervention or destruction. Policy planners within the U.S. view this approach to Iran as within the national interest, with or without the influence of AIPAC.
And that is unfortunate for Iran because the Islamic Republic still exists, and for both the U.S. and Israel the recent war was never just about retarding Tehran’s nuclear capabilities. Whether cover or overt, there will be more to come.