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Just to provide another perspective, I just recently read this book by Stephen Gowans - an actual tankie - and I thought it provided a reasonable argument for seeing the relationship the other way around, ie. it is really US that is at top of this relationship and Israel its accomplice.
Basically, the argument is that it's not necessary to argue that US relationship to Israel is governed by factors beyond direct US interests. In Gowans' telling, what is important is America's grand strategic vision for Middle East, which revolves around keeping Middle East divided in small states that cannot unite under the aegis of socialist Arab nationalism or another vision, ie. Islam. The biggest danger from American perspective would be an united socialist Arab nation which could nationalize oil production and stop easy Western access relatively inexpensive and guaranteed supply of Middle Eastern oil, not mainly because US needs it, as such, but because it concurrently works as a control factor that keeps Europe on US leash.
For this purpose, America supports whatever forces that can effectively stand against Arab socialism and anti-American Islamism (Iran included), whether that means Gulf monarchs, suitably non-anti-American Islamists, ethnic minorities, secular pro-American dictators - or Israel, a settler-colonialist nation created and fostered through Western influence. Israel is just one part of a general puzzle, albeit a very important one, due to its strategic location and the fact that is interests and Western interests meet quite well.
Thus, it's not necessary to explain the invasion of Iraq with Israeli influence - it's sufficient that Saddam at least came from an Arab-nationalist background and ran a highly nationalized economy (which was swiftly privatized after Iraq invasion). It's not necessary to explain the destabilization of Syria with Israeli influence - it's sufficient that Assad is an Arab nationalist, and even a successful overthrow of his regime is not necessary, destabilization is enough to achieve goals. It's not necessary to explain Nasser's pro-Soviet orientation with Israel - US would have eventually opposed him anyway, as he was an Arab nationalist. The same goes for Gaddafi etc.
I'm not saying that I'm fully buying this thesis, but it's an interesting counterweight.
US support for Israel didn't really begin in earnest until the Kennedy Administration, and by that time Pan-Arabism was a lost cause. Pan-Arabism's main proponent was Nasser, and other Arab leaders were rightly suspicious that Nasser only advocated for it under the presumption that he would be running everything. It was this reason that the union of Egypt and Syria was so short-lived; Syria, despite being nominally committed to the Pan-Arab cause, wasn't about to surrender sovereignty to Egypt. I haven't read Gowans's book, but any serious concern about Pan-Arab socialism after about 1970 comes across as anachronistic.
Well, no, it's not sufficient. Saddam may have been an Arab Nationalist but he was one who was already hated by the rest of the Arab world. Even the fellow Ba'athists in Syria sent troops to fight against him during Desert Storm.
Detsabilization by whom? I have yet to hear any credible arguments that the United States, Israel, or any other Western government is responsible for the situation in Syria. Israel had fought wars there but they'd been doing that since 1948, and had officially been in a cease-fire since 1974. If anything the US government was criticized for not getting involved enough; Obama publicly called for Assad's resignation but nonetheless allowed him to cross several "lines in the sand" without any action or consequence other than condemnation. The US didn't get formally involved until 2017 but even then this was pretty minimal involvement.
Nasser was only pro-Soviet because they were willing to sell him weapons when the US wasn't. And the reason the US wasn't was that they were trying to keep the Arab-Israeli Conflict in low gear. Nasser wasn't interested in aligning himself with any superpower, only with doing what he felt was in Egypt's interest. And if that meant playing the powers off of each other and getting into wars, then so be it.
Your summary here highlights a lot of the objections I have with purely ideological writers like Gowans and Chomsky is that they have a sort of tunnel-vision where they stick to a thesis that confirms their priors and if there's tons of evidence to challenge this thesis, they ignore it rather than address it. It's almost as if they assume that their audience is a bunch of fellow tankies without knowledge of the subject looking for a polemic they can use any time they're trying to crap on US foreign policy, kind of like how in Manufacturing Consent Chomsky expects that the reader won't know that the North Vietnamese invaded Laos in 1958 and that that may have had an influence on Laotian politics at the time.
This all assumes that "instability" can only be caused by powerful interference, which in the Middle East is hysterical. The place is built on instability, everyone hates everyone and the minute a strongman falls (like Ghadaffi or Hussein), everyone goes right back to the blood feuds, terrorism and murder that are the normal social interactions of the ME.
These are societies built on ever-shifting clan alliances, backroom dealings, secret accords and political gamesmanship dressed up as muslim piety. It does not require the US or Israel to destabilize it, it is already unstable. Now, both countries and many more have done a lot of bad shit in the ME, but that's a different question to what causes it. And the sad answer is: the will of the people. This is what the populace of the ME wants, an endless struggle of internecine violence, intermittent warfare, insane racism and religious bigotry. This is what they vote for, given a chance (MB in Egypt, Hamas in the territories, Erdogan in Turkey etc.). This is what they default to any time a dictator installed to keep a lid on things so the oil keeps flowing falls.
Ghadaffi, for all his faults, at least didn't allow slavery. Hussein, a truly despicable tyrant, was 100% better than the ISIS regime his people installed at the first opportunity once he and the US were gone. This is not a US problem, it's not an Israel problem, hell, it's not even a dictator problem. It's a people problem. You can't have peace among people who don't want it. You can enforce it, for a while, if you're strong enough. But every dictator falls, and every foreign intervention runs out of money or political will eventually. You're left with the population, and if the boys want to fight, you better let 'em.
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I have never quite understood this argument. All of those countries need to sell oil in order to finance various state projects (including the all-important state project of ensuring that spoils go to the people whose support the leader needs to stay in power). So, the idea that in any realistic scenario the West will be unable to buy oil doesn't make much sense.
At least, if you have not read about or lived through the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, or the 1979 oil crisis. Things can in fact get worse in a way that is bad for the people making them worse too.
I did, in fact, live through both of those incidents. But the latter was the result of a drop in production as a result of conflict; it was not an embargo. As for the former, it was short-lived, and that is the point: It is unsustainable for those states to employ an embargo for very long. Note, also, that the US is not reliant on imported oil anymore, unlike in 1973; moreover the vast majority of current imports come from non-OPEC countries, esp Canada.
It is unsustainable as those states are currently constructed. Which is kind of the point.
And a united socialist Arab nation could certainly result in a drop in production. It might not be true that socialism can cause sand shortages in the Sahara, but it can certainly cause oil shortages in countries with plentiful oil.
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We can see from Russia's actions, right now, that ability to offer access to oil (and gas) to other countries offers a country a lot of potential power to affect things, should it so choose, for whatever reason. The argument is not related to a simplistic "America overthrows countries to get their oil" model, it's related to the idea that America fears that oil-producing countries might use their production ability as a leverage and wishes to have enough influence to perhaps utilize that leverage itself.
That model is nowhere implied in Gdanning's reply. He argues the leverage is not that big, as any "crude democracies" have to share their oil rents to keep elites and populace sate, which sets a limit to their oil output game. Same holds for Russia: they are still reaping surpluses, even with exports to Europe shut, and hugely discounted sales to China, but I am not sure it would last for long.
The argument you outlined looks plausible to me, but all narratives about need for preventive action are also weapons by themselves.
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It doesn't seem to have helped Russia this time though, even heavily dependent countries like Germany and the baltics haven't taken a soft stance. It works for minor transgressions and concessions, until it doesn't. Then the consumer finds other sources and your own economy is in shambles. It's the "King Cotton" myth.
It's still a major deal in Europe, and is predicted to cause considerable troubles, both regarding the economy and the angry populace. All things told European countries would likely vastly prefer a scenario where Russia has a government that doesn't do things like this to one that does.
It's a double-edged sword. Sure, there will be damage in europe, but the russian economy is also screwed. Using your market power like this is not some "I win" button, it's brinkmanship, you can squeeze some advantage in the beginning, but if you keep pushing, the two cars collide, and not only is your leverage gone, now you also have a serious problem.
But that's not what we were sold. It was "something something, the GDP of Italy, two weeks to flatten the Russian economy". The entire affair is a massive blow to credibility of people who measure economic influence by GDP.
It's way too early to say that. I do think russia will suffer far more than europe from the severing of trade, so you can count me in the gdp camp. I'll grant that some predictions on the deterioration of the russian economy under sanctions (I've heard -50% early on) were exaggerated.
I can agree it's too early to say. If it turns out the winter won't be as bad as everyone says, I'll tip my hat to the the GDPers, but at the moment everyone seems a bit on edge.
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