Greg Scoblete reminds us that the constant carping about “allied” unhappiness with the U.S. in the Near East is happening because the U.S. won’t do its clients’ bidding at our expense:

So the next time you hear someone complain that America’s “allies” in the Middle East are upset about the lack of American leadership on this or that, remember that what they’re really cheesed off about is the fact that American blood and treasure are not being put on the line to defend their interests.

We can understand why a client government might want its patron to do everything that the client wants in its region, but a patron is under no obligation to join or launch new wars in order to keep its dependents happy. Israel and Saudi Arabia have been the loudest in expressing their displeasure with U.S. actions or lack of actions on several issues over the last few years, which is a little strange since they both need good relations with the U.S. far more than our government needs good relations with them. Both states have been in the habit of getting what they want from Washington for a long time, and the U.S. has indulged them for so long that they may assume that their priorities are supposed to prevail. It shouldn’t work that way, and lately it hasn’t been. Now that this is happening less often than they expect, they have been throwing fits to make Washington act differently, and somewhat incredibly there are quite a few members of Congress that are only too ready to oblige. The U.S. would be well-advised to continue rejecting these clients’ unreasonable demands, especially on those issues where their preferred policies on Syria and Iran would lead the U.S. into new and unnecessary conflicts that probably won’t even benefit the clients that are agitating for them.