r/International • u/DryDeer775 • 22h ago
Opinion The reality of US-Israel relations—Part 1
wsws.orgMany commentators, arguing that the US–Israel war on Iran is faltering despite overwhelming firepower, have placed the primary blame on Washington’s junior partner, Israel and on Donald Trump personally for supposedly allowing himself to be bounced into a conflict without a strategic plan for victory.
Their chief complaint is that Israel’s leadership, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long advocated confrontation with Iran, and the powerful pro‑Israel lobbying networks exercise too much influence over US foreign policy.
But the Israel‑centred thesis cannot explain how a state of roughly 10 million people, with a $610 billion GDP, far smaller than that of Saudi Arabia and a tiny fraction of the $30 trillion of the world’s largest economy and dominant military power, the United States, could determine Washington’s strategic direction—outside of claims of a global Zionist conspiracy.
Reducing the origins of the war to the manoeuvres of the Israel lobby or the decisions of Israel’s government sidelines the historical, geopolitical, socio‑economic and class dynamics that have shaped the conflict. It ignores the US National Security Strategy of 2025, written by Trump’s own national security apparatus, that stated quite categorically, “America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, and that the Strait of Hormuz remain open.”
