The US Empire Deliberately Stokes Hatred and Violence in the Middle East

By Caitlin Johnstone – May 15, 2024

Have you not seen how the US empire uses the radicalism caused by its military violence in the middle east to justify more military expansionism in the region, leading to more military violence?

I sometimes see people expressing bafflement that the US would back a genocide in the middle east knowing that it will radicalize the region against them, mistakenly thinking this goes against US strategic goals.

And I always want to say to them, uh, have you been asleep the last quarter century? Have you not seen how the US empire uses the radicalism caused by its military violence in the middle east to justify more military expansionism in the region, leading to more military violence?

That’s what the so-called “war on terror” has been about since 9/11. The data unmistakably shows that US-led military interventionism in the middle east in the name of fighting “terrorism” actually leads more people to join US-designated terrorist organizations and commit more terrorist attacks, because nothing will radicalize you against the US and its allies like watching them murder and displace your loved ones right in front of you. But the interventionism continues anyway. Why? Because the resource-rich middle east is a crucial geostrategic region for planetary domination, and the US empire wants to have an expanded military presence there.

It’s actually a brilliant self-reinforcing scam. It works like this:

Step 1: Murder people in the middle east in the name of fighting “terrorism”.

Step 2: This causes people to hate you and your allies and to want to retaliate with violence.

Step 3: Designate these people “terrorists”.

Step 4: Send more war machinery to the region to go fight “terrorism”.

Step 5: Murder more people in the middle east in the name of fighting “terrorism”.

Do you see how this cycle would repeat over and over again, leading to more and more US military expansionism in the middle east? That’s exactly what we’ve been seeing, and it’s exactly what the US empire wants.

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Why do you think the US empire spends so much energy propping up dictatorships throughout the middle east, despite claiming to support democracy? It’s so that they can impose their will on the region without any meaningful consequences in terms of geostrategic control. They can freely rain military explosives upon west Asia without losing allies and partners, and all that will happen is a bunch of radicalized hatred throughout the general public, which they desire anyway.

If the oil-rich nations in the middle east ever had democratic rule, their governments would quickly move away from their official and unofficial alliances and partnerships with the United States and Israel, and would in all likelihood form their own powerful bloc in support of their own interests. Because the empire helps suppress the will of the people in that region by installing and supporting dictators instead, the only recourse some people feel they have to see their will enacted in that direction is the non-state violence known as “terrorism”.

Someday there will be a large-scale violent attack on the US in retaliation for its genocide in Gaza, and the response from the US will with absolute certainty be more military expansionism in the middle east. This all suits the US empire managers perfectly fine. They want it, and they actively work to make it happen.

The US-centralized empire makes the world more hateful, more violent, more dangerous and more abusive. Humanity cannot know peace until this globe-dominating power structure has been cast into the dustbin of history.

(Caitlin Johnstone.com)