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An anti-Zionist online acquaintance of mine once groused that "Arab armies couldn't drive an AAV into the sea"
There's probably something there about authoritarian regimes hollowing out institutions that could be seriously applied, but I found the comparison so striking and viscerally hilarious that I repeat it at every opportunity.
There's an op-ed piece by a ranking US military official called "Why Arabs Lose Wars" that touches on the phenomenon. Thinking back on it, there's probably more than a pinch of racism in its construction, but the gist of it is:
To be fair, the citizens of Arab countries aren't being armed and funded by the US military industrial complex.
Israel's access to US military equipment was pretty limited until the 1970s.
In 1953, the CIA orchestrated a coup d'etat in Iran that ousted a democratically elected premier and restored a religious extremist dictator shah to power. Meanwhile, the Zionist movement has been supported by western countries since its founding. In addition to US and European countries, the Saudi royal family and OPEC countries have been doing all sorts of fuckery, with the support of western countries and especially western oil companies. This is more complicated than "Isreal strong" and "Arab bad."
In 1953, the CIA orchestrated a coup d’etat in Iran that ousted a democratically elected premier and restored a religious extremist dictator shah to power.
Correct (or partly correct - the Shah was secular) but has little to do with Israel, and nothing to do with Arabs?
Meanwhile, the Zionist movement has been supported by western countries since its founding.
Only in the broadest sense? Israel's foundation was only enabled by Soviet military aid at a time when Western countries were largely unwilling to assist; the US intervened in support of Egypt against Israel in the 1950s, and US military aid didn't become a major factor in Israel until the 1970s.
In addition to US and European countries, the Saudi royal family and OPEC countries have been doing all sorts of fuckery, with the support of western countries and especially western oil companies.
... that was also not until the 1970s.
This is more complicated than “Isreal strong” and “Arab bad.”
It's less "Israel strong" and more "Dictatorships hollow out institutions, including vital institutions like the military", like I explicitly said.
To be fair, the Arab military industrial complex could be as advanced as the US if they weren’t stuck under dictatorships.
Democratically elected leaders unfortunately existed in proximity to rich oil fields. Foreign powers made it a point there would be fractured dictatorships across literal arbitrary lines.
So are you saying Western involvement helped create the dictatorships in Arab countries? If that’s the case, how did it happen, and why does the Arab world have such strong resentment toward the West?
There's a whole lot there, but with the most broad strokes imaginable: Imperialism and the Cold War, both of which are great causes of resentment.
Secular democracies in the arab world made economic ties with the USSR during the cold war, which was a bad time.