U.S. President Barack Obama is greeted upon his arrival at King Khalid International Airport for a summit meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 20, 2016 © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Jeremy Shapiro and Richard Sokolsky, VOX: How America enables its allies' bad behavior
It is satisfying and certainly trendy to complain about America's allies. President Barack Obama unloaded on them recently in an interview with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, calling them "free riders" who rely on the US for security but refuse to pay back. The commentariat has piled on, with a special focus on deteriorating relations with such perennial malcontents as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey.
The truth is that our allies behave the way they do because we let them. We provide billions of dollars in military and other aid to countries in order to protect and advance US interests, yet we fail to use this leverage to induce the recipients of this aid to behave in a way that actually advances US interests.
That's because the US has become so focused on maintaining its relationships with its allies above all else that it's forgotten what the relationships were for in the first place: securing US interests.
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WNU Editor: America has had some bad allies in the past (and present) .... maybe Donald Trump is right .... now is the time to re-evaluate everything.
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