Editorial
There is something deeply troubling about watching the most powerful nation on earth take its foreign policy cues from a state it was supposed to be guiding, not following. The United States built its global reputation on certain foundational claims: the defence of human rights, the promotion of democratic values, and the pursuit of peace as a strategic and moral imperative. These were not decorative slogans. They were the basis on which America asked the world to trust its leadership.
That trust is now visibly eroding.
When Washington’s positions on Gaza, Lebanon, and the broader Middle East consistently align with Israeli military and political objectives, often ahead of American strategic interests, the question becomes unavoidable. Who is actually setting the agenda. A superpower that conditions its aid, adjusts its vetoes, and calibrates its diplomatic language according to the preferences of a regional ally has not merely made a policy choice. It has revealed something about where real influence sits.
This is not an argument against the American-Israeli relationship. Strategic alliances are a permanent feature of international politics, and no serious observer pretends otherwise. The argument is about proportion and cost. When alignment becomes indistinguishable from subordination, the superpower pays a price that no military alliance can recover. It pays in moral credibility. It pays in the trust of the Global South, which watches carefully and remembers accurately. It pays in the widening gap between what America says about human rights in other contexts and what it tolerates, funds, and defends in this one.
Contradictions of this scale do not go unnoticed. They become the defining image. And when the defining image of the world’s leading democracy is unconditional cover for policies that international courts are examining for violations of international law, the damage runs deeper than any single administration can repair.
America’s values are its greatest strategic asset. They deserve better stewardship than this.
