That didn't answer my question
It did indeed. We are not under regular rocket attack.
And what problems did the US face in the region before its intimate involvement with Israel then
:raises eyebrows: regular warfare? Groups dedicated to destroying the western/American influence in the region? Destabilizing and dangerous moves by regimes inherently opposed to us and allied with the Soviets?
Remember, the US didn't begin its' "intimate involvement" with Israel until after the 1967 war -
decades after "The America I Have Seen" and "Signposts" put America center in the cross-hairs of the Sunni Islamist movement.
But you are OK with Israel having them though ? Thats never going to work out very well
It seems to have worked out very well indeed. It has keept Arab nation-states in check (obviously it would not keep the Islamic State in check, and it is a coin flip whether it would keep the Islamic Republic in check), and done it's part to turn the region from one that see's regular large-scale wars between nation-states to one that see's wars against non-nation-state networks.
Lets just say for arguments sake Israel had fallen during the 1973 Yom Kippur conflict. How do you think the US position in the region would be different today ?
Hm. Its' an interesting counterfactual. Probably we would have gone to war against Egypt and Syria during the resultant mass bloodbath of Israeli citizens. One thing Kissinger and Nixon weren't afraid of was sending in the Marines to teach third world countries a lesson. Given their backing, it's not impossible it would have sparked a kinetic conflict with the Soviet Union (people underestimate how very friggin hair-trigger the 1973 fight was), although a more likely scenario is that they funnel support to Syria (but not Egypt) to increase American casualties and drain American resources. Post Vietnam, our military would have had good combat experience, but incredibly low morale - whether or not some good victories in the desert against enemies we can see would have helped or not is a coin toss. A long and painful partial occupation of the territory currently covered by Israel and Palestine would have probably followed, but we would have lacked the ability to go further. Egypt's junta would have been unlikely to survive both the war and its aftermath, and Egypt today would probably be ruled by an Islamist Theocracy, similar to Iran.
So we would be in a much, much, much worse position,
far more exposed, with
significantly larger casualties and much higher, much more constant costs.
On the contrary it was a touchstone for its dissent. By Bin Laden’s own account, this is why al Qaeda attacked America. His critique has never been cultural; he never mentions Madonna, Hollywood, homosexuality or drugs in his diatribes. US support for Israel, especially the support it gave to Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982, first triggered Bin Laden’s anti-Americanism.
Bin Laden's declaration of War mentions the word "Israel" twice, and both times it is to speak of the "Israel-America" faction that he accuses of supporting the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia (who had made effective peace with Israel). When he mentions the Palestinians he puts them as simply another in a list of victims that include Muslims in the Philippines, Burma, Somalia, Kashmir, Tajikistan, and Bosnia. Bin Laden had two major "touchstones" for his "dissent" - firstly when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan (which the Palestinians
supported), and secondly when the Government of Saudi Arabia rejected his offer for aid against Saddam Hussein in favor of U.S. assistance. The presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf is the center of his declaration of war.
Furthermore, the Sunni extremist critique is
deeply cultural, and has been since the 1920s.