One of the more loathsome ways in which Donald Trump has denigrated the already bloody and lawless foreign policy of the United States is to reduce those policies to little more than cover for what would otherwise be shady arms deals. In a world which, in pursuit of a blood-soaked dollar, we had already flooded with weapons of all sorts, Trump has taken the callous indifference of using weapons supplies as a tool of foreign policy and turned it into the central purpose of our foreign policy.
In the case of the Israel-United Arab Emirates agreement (it’s not a peace deal since the two countries have never been at war), the potential sale of F-35 fighter jets and armed Predator drones was at the center of US efforts to broker the deal. The UAE has lusted after these arms for many years, and this is a step toward getting them, even though there are many ways this particular arrangement could be scuttled.
I look at the growing scandal over this in Israel and how it might play out in Washington in my latest piece for Responsible Statecraft.