U.S.-Israeli Special Relationship

As long as the Middle East controls the majority of the worlds accessible energy reserves , U .S . foreign policy in that region should be an instrument used to guarantee Americans fair and regular access to affordable petroleum products . Instead of a unified policy aimed at ensuring cheap and accessible foreign oil , the United States currently has two major foreign policy objectives in the Middle East , the concrete and tangible goal of oil access and the dubious and counterproductive goal of protecting Israel , a nation with no oil reserves , to the detriment of

the United States oil goal . Given the large Arab oil supply and American dependence on oil imports , one might reasonably predict a formidable alliance between the United States and the Arab states especially considering the contentious relationship between Israel and the Arab nations . On the contrary , the United States has formed a special relationship with Israel , the terms of which are not formally delineated , but that is marked by massive amounts of economic and military aid , favorable loan guarantees , and diplomatic protection in the United Nations Security Council . Without even considering the war on terror , it would seem likely that strongly supporting Israel is not in the United States best interest

Defining the Problem

The most ready argument currently used to defend the American-Israeli relationship stems from the Holocaust and the horrifying atrocities Jews suffered from the Nazis . Certainly , the Holocaust was a horrific tragedy beyond and European Jews suffered terribly . At the same time , it seems naive to continue to base foreign policy on events that are over 60 years old . If the Middle East is truly as important to the American economy and lifestyle as is apparent , it makes little sense to back the one nation whose actions inflame the Arab world . This historical circumstance , no matter how tragic , should hold little consideration for modern U .S . policy-makers whose decisions have both immediate and long term effects . Arab-Israeli conflicts started soon after the State of Israel was formed in 1948 and continue to this day as Palestinians and Israelis still struggle to coexist . Various terrorist groups , including Osama bin Laden 's al-Qaeda organization view the United States as Israel 's enabler in the conflict , and have killed thousands of American citizens in response . Terrorists admit their motivations for both the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks have roots in American support for Israel . The War on Terror , a result of these attacks , is the chief security problem for the United States and represents an incredibly high price for Americans to pay for supporting a nation of such geopolitical insignificance

The most practical political model for guiding nation-state interactions is the realist school of thought . Realists stress maximizing the power of the nation-state as the highest priority in international relations and predict how nation-states might behave in given situations . Political scientist Dr . Robert McCollister describes the realist concept of the world as one where nation-states exist in an anarchic international system in which there is...