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Feeble is precisely the right word to describe US pressure on Israel. Saying "We've asked them" over and over again just doesn't cut it. It's weak and everyone can see that.
This latest middle east crisis has been hugely damaging to US moral and diplomatic credibility.
The silver lining is that unconditional support for Israel correlates with age; the Americans who support Israel no matter what are slowly but surely aging out of the political equation. In one or two more generations the situation may be very different, which if I had to guess, is why Israel wants complete the annexation of Gaza sooner rather than later.
This couldn't further from the truth. The U.S. has enormous leverage over Israel, via the massive foreign assistance it has provided since 1948.
Its politicians may be too spineless, too hoodwinked by decades of extremist propaganda over all these decades -- or in the cases of evangelicals, blinded by their own religious delusions; or (in the case of most) just too self-interested and apathetic -- to make use of this leverage. But there is no question that this leverage exists.
Aren't the Houthis a proxy of Iran who are being used to try to goad the US into a regional conflict?
and by doing so, spread the resources that would've been devoted to ukraine thinner. And by proxy, take attention away from china's regional ambitions.
It's clear that these events aren't happening in isolation.
The USA hasn't had any of that for decades. The illegal invasion and destruction of Iraq in 2003 was the beginning of the end of the worlds' tolerance for American exceptionalism. The only ones who don't seem to understand this, are Americans.
300+ million citizens and apparently no credible prospect under the age of 70, let alone 60 or 50.
There’s a minimum age, why not a maximum? Seems like an opportunity to handle this right now as both deeply unpopular front runners would be made ineligible.
I personally don’t mind Joe Biden, he at least comes across as genuine. But I think an opportunity to guarantee both candidates ineligible could be a win for both parties. (But of course both sides think they can win with their guy so they probably aren’t interested.)
As far as I can tell, Biden is only doing the job because he loves the country and doesn't want it going down in flames with another Trump presidency, and there's honestly no better and electable candidates available on the Dem side (which has long been a problem with Dems anyway; Obama was a big aberration here in that he actually had a lot of charisma and likability).
So yes, I agree the US seems to have a systemic inability to choose better candidates.