You make a really good point, Alexandra. Having an attitude of superiority has sometimes been really off-putting to the people of the Middle East as America has sought to enact our own agenda rather than consider the good of the people concerned. That being said, I do think that this issue has progressed to the point where America has a fairly small amount of “skin in the game” and may be able to be an effective helper.
How do you see bias playing into the issue? The idea of the all-powerful “Israel lobby” has been pretty clearly disproven (the US has commonly been accused of bias in this arena). Would our bias just be trying to control Middle Eastern oil?
