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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

The Difference Between Clients and Allies

No matter how long another state has been a U.S. client, the U.S. owes it much less than it owes it to its real allies.

Robert Kaplan makes some dubious claims in his argument for rapprochement with Iran:

The [U.S.-Israeli] relationship has been a feature of U.S. policy for decades, and thus has all the legitimacy of American treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, and so forth [bold mine-DL]. A proud and powerful nation does not drop such an ally, no matter how inconvenient that ally’s behavior may be at times. Our allegiance to Israel [bold mine-DL] is a matter not only of its being a democracy but also of its being a valuable chess piece—a pro-American military dynamo in the heart of the Middle East.

Kaplan is arguing against something of a strawman here, since no one claims that successful negotiation requires the U.S. to “drop” its “special” relationship with Israel. If the U.S. pursued a broader reconciliation with Iran beyond a deal on the nuclear issue, that should not require the U.S. to downgrade its relationship with Israel unless the Israeli government made it impossible to avoid. Even so, that doesn’t mean that this “special” relationship should remain the way it is, nor does it mean that we should treat as if it were comparable to relationships with treaty allies.

Kaplan makes a number of false or questionable assumptions here. First of all, having a longstanding patron-client relationship does not elevate that relationship to the same level as those that the U.S. has with its treaty allies. No matter how long another state has been a U.S. client, the U.S. owes it much less than it owes it to its real allies, and it cannot be expected to treat them in the same way. The U.S. has arguably had a similar patron-client relationship with Pakistan for even longer, but no one would seriously claim that this relationship “has all the legitimacy of American treaty alliances.” The relationship with Israel, like the one with Pakistan, is a relationship of expedience that has become more and more of a liability over time. To be blunt, the U.S. has no “allegiance” to Israel, nor could it have any such thing. Elevating this relationship as Kaplan does both exaggerates the importance of the relationship with the client and diminishes the relationship with our real allies. Put simply, Israel is not a U.S. ally, and it shouldn’t be called that or treated as if it were one. The sooner we can start acknowledging that it isn’t one, the easier it will be to build a healthier relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

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