No Formal Alliance With Israel

U.S. soldier talking to an Israeli solder during a joint exercise with the Patriot anti-missile system, in north Tel Aviv October 24, 2012.

The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison explains to readers, “The U.S.- Israel relationship is already a net liability for America.”

Larison writes:

There are a few obvious reasons why the U.S. shouldn’t do this. First, the U.S. already has far too many formal security commitments around the world, and adding another would needlessly add to U.S. burdens overseas. Second, Israel is already more than capable of defending itself, and has no need of a U.S. security guarantee. Besides, I doubt Israel would want to be obliged to the U.S. in this way. There is certainly no reason why the U.S. should want to formally commit itself to defending a country that has been involved in numerous conflicts with its neighbors and will likely be involved in more in the years to come. A formal alliance between the U.S. and Israel virtually guarantees that the U.S. will be pulled into many more unnecessary wars in the region, and in practice it would gain the U.S. nothing. The U.S.-Israel relationship is already a net liability for America, so it doesn’t make sense for the U.S. to bind itself more closely to them and become even more closely identified with them in the eyes of the region and the rest of the world.