There are both convergences and divergences, to be sure. The convergences are obvious: both the United States and Israel — not Netanyahu’s government alone, but the whole Zionist power elite — want to put an end to Iran’s nuclear program. Israel sees this matter as an existential threat, jeopardizing its present status as the only nuclear-armed state in the region. Washington sees the not-so-hypothetical future possession of nuclear weapons by Iran as a major deterrent since Tehran could threaten to nuke neighboring Arab oil fields, provoking a disaster for US interests and the global economy. And both Washington and Israel have a clear interest in rolling back Iran’s regional influence.
Now, there are divergences too, even though they aren’t as obvious as the convergences. More generally, there has hardly ever been total overlap between Israel’s goals and those of the United States. Take the first major Israeli war serving US interests: the June 1967 Six-Day War through which Israel dealt a heavy blow to the two Arab states that were then radically opposed to US imperialism — Egypt under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Syria under the leadership of the left-wing of the Arab-nationalist Ba’ath party. Israel seized the opportunity of the 1967 war to complete its takeover of the whole of British mandate Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, primarily at the expense of the Jordanian monarchy — a staunch US ally that had been ruling the West Bank after having annexed it in 1949. This was certainly not something Washington wished.
In the ongoing onslaught on Iran, the divergence is getting more visible every time Netanyahu calls for “regime change” and supports the restoration of the monarchy under Reza Pahlavi, the son of the 1979-deposed shah, while Trump dismisses the latter as he dismissed the Venezuelan right-wing opposition leader, María Corina Machado, after abducting Nicolás Maduro. Compare…
Auteur: Gilbert Achcar
