It’s an objectively existing and easily verifiable fact that the total assistance that the US gave Ukraine in the span of a single year amounts to approximately two-thirds of what it gave Israel over the past three-quarters of a century. This statistic is all the more surprising when considering that the Israel lobby is widely regarded by many as exerting disproportionate influence over the US’ foreign policy formulations, which suggests that the anti-Russian one has since far surpassed it in just ten months.

Zelensky’s address to Congress saw the Ukrainian leader play the Iran card by smearing the Islamic Republic as “genocidal terrorists”. His exact words were that “Russia found an ally in this - in this genocidal policy: Iran. Iranian deadly drones sent to Russia in hundreds - in hundreds became a threat to our critical infrastructure. That is how one terrorist has found the other.” The purpose of this part of his larger perception management operation on Wednesday was to appeal to the Israel lobby.

The self-proclaimed Jewish State was described in a February 2022 report from the Congressional Research Service as “the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II” after receiving “$150 billion (current, or non-inflation-adjusted, dollars)” to date. By contrast, Russian Defense Minister Shoigu revealed earlier this week that “The 27 (NATO) countries have already spent $97 billion on arms supplies to Ukraine” this year alone.

The Council on Foreign Relations and Biden himself both back up this data. The first reported on 16 December that “In 2022, the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress have directed nearly $50 billion in assistance to Ukraine”, while the latter added during his joint press conference with Zelensky on Wednesday that “I look forward to signing the omnibus - omnibus bill soon, which includes $45 billion - $45 billion in additional funding for Ukraine.” That brings the total to just below Shoigu’s $97 billion.

It’s therefore an objectively existing and easily verifiable fact that the total assistance that the US gave Ukraine in the span of a single year amounts to approximately two-thirds of what it gave Israel over the past three-quarters of a century. This statistic is all the more surprising when considering that the Israel lobby is widely regarded by many as exerting disproportionate influence over the US’ foreign policy formulations, which suggests that the anti-Russian one has since far surpassed it in just ten months.

There’s now no doubt that the US could have always given Israel much more than it already did if it truly had the political will, which might prompt that country’s influence network to lobby much more aggressively for additional support across the coming future. After all, they now realize just how comparatively cheap the US has been in supporting what’s supposed to be one of its top allies in history despite their best efforts to obtain the maximum aid possible after how much Ukraine got in just a year.

Any additional support that they try to squeeze from the American state’s coffers might come at the expense of what it’s already giving to Ukraine seeing as how there isn’t unlimited money no matter how compelling the latest impression to the contrary might be. The anti-Russian lobby, which Zelensky serves as the figurehead of, is keenly aware of its Israeli counterpart’s potential plans since they make the most sense from the latter’s interests.

With a view towards preemptively averting the scenario of them making a power play for more funding at the expense of their rival’s proxy war agenda, the anti-Russian lobby tasked the Ukrainian leader with attempting to appeal to their Israeli counterparts in order to mislead them into thinking that their goals are actually aligned. To that end, he spewed his defamatory claim that Iran is supposedly ruled by “genocidal terrorists”, which was aimed at getting the Israel lobby to support his anti-Russian one.

At all costs, a fight for finite financial resources between these two powerful lobbies must be avoided in order to indefinitely maintain NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine. In the event that the anti-Russian lobby fails and is instead confronted with a major challenge from their Israeli counterparts across the coming future, then it’s possible that the resultant zero-sum competition might lead to Kiev receiving less support next year than it did over the past one, and maybe even a lot less too.

As was earlier mentioned, the Israel lobby now knows that there was actually always around an extra $100 billion in yearly funding available this whole time that the US refused to tap into for supporting that West Asian country for whatever its reasons in not doing so might have been. This interest network has every reason to lobby as aggressively as possible to secure a larger portion of that taxpayer-provided pie, which would obviously be at Kiev’s expense, ergo the latter’s motivation in averting this scenario.

The preceding trifecta of financial-military-strategic dynamics leads to the “politically inconvenient” conclusion that the US actually considers Israel’s related interests to be secondary to Ukraine’s despite it being taboo to publicly confirm this obvious fact. Ensuring Israel’s security, which is what the US’ aid is officially supposed to be for, clearly isn’t as important as eroding Russia’s own via the literally unprecedented amount aid given to Ukraine for that purpose over the span of just a single year.

This insight reveals that the US’ hierarchy of foreign policy importance has changed since the start of Russia’s special operation, which Moscow was forced to commence in order to defend its national security red lines in Ukraine after NATO crossed them there. Containing Russia was prioritized by the US over containing China contrary to popular expectations at the time since achieving the former was predicted to facilitate the latter, which would have the effect of maintaining the US’ unipolar hegemony.

That was a globally game-changing gamble that the US couldn’t resist, hence the astronomical sum that it’s disbursed to Ukraine over the past year in order to achieve the first of those two grand strategic goals by proxy. By comparison, ensuring Israel’s security doesn’t advance any similarly significant goal for the US, which explains why it never seriously considered giving the self-proclaimed Jewish State anywhere near that amount of funding in just ten months.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that the Israel lobby is expected to passively go along with its top foreign patron’s newfound strategic calculations that are clearly at the expense of Tel Aviv’s interests. The resultant competition for finite financial resources that might inevitably break out between them and their anti-Russian rivals could very well turn out to be zero-sum, with there being a credible chance that Ukraine might get a smaller portion of the taxpayer-provided pie next year as Israel gets more.

The scenario of these two powerful lobbies slinging mud at one another as they wrestle over control of Congress’ purse strings could be mutually disadvantageous since they could inadvertently end up discrediting one another in the public’s eyes, hence why Zelensky and his backers want to avert this. That explains his irrelevant inclusion of Iran in his address to lawmakers on Wednesday, which was meant to mislead the Israel lobby into supporting the anti-Russian one that he’s the frontman for.

His objective was to get them to think that their security is also supposedly being advanced by the US’ unprecedented support to Ukraine even though that’s not the case since Russia’s alleged use of Iranian drones there carries no risk whatsoever at all for Israel. The opposite is in fact true since the more drones that Iran reportedly delivers to Russia reduces the amount that it can stockpile at home and/or give to its regional allies like Hezbollah, which can be argued as being a net gain for Israel’s security.

It’ll remain to be seen whether Zelensky’s thinly veiled and obviously desperate appeal to the Israel lobby will succeed in convincing them to call off their predicted lobbying offensive in the coming future, which could realistically occur at the expense of his anti-Russian lobby’s interests. Regardless of what happens, however, it’s important to acknowledge the newfound trifecta of financial-military-strategic dynamics that are nowadays influencing American policy vis a vis Israel and Ukraine.

Courtesy Andrew Korybko

https://korybko.substack.com/p/zelensky-played-the-iran-card-during?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=835783&post_id=92265568&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email