Israel's strategic blunders "harm Washington's interests"

An American expert on international affairs has said that he regards Israel’s offensive against the Gaza Strip as an example of the kind of strategic blunder which harms Washington’s interests. Professor Stephen Walt called on the United States not to get dragged into the quagmire due to the poor strategies of its main ally in the Middle East.

According to Prof. Walt, Israel’s most recent aggression was a “foolish act equal to the foolishness committed by Israel a few years ago”, a reference to Israel’s assault on and invasion of Gaza in late 2008. He said that Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9 was “worse than a crime”.

Not only do Israeli leaders get involved in such blunders, said Walt, but they also harm their victims and undermine the state of Israel and the interests of the United States.

The strategic studies specialist called on his country to “learn the lesson” from what has happened in the past few days and not allow US Middle East policy to be affected by an ally whose strategies are not up to the mark.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.