Reckless Clients and Double Standards

Secretary Blinken made a claim yesterday that absolutely no one will believe:

“We apply the same standard to everyone,” Blinken said. “And that doesn’t change whether the country in question is an adversary, a competitor, a friend or an ally.”

Everyone can see that Blinken isn’t telling the truth. It’s a bit odd that top U.S. officials try to preserve the fiction that the U.S. holds allies and clients to the same standard that it uses for others. No one takes the story seriously, and it just prompts critics to call out the pointless lying.

It is obvious that allies and clients are given a free pass for things that would trigger condemnation, sanctions, or possibly even military action when others do them. The problem isn’t just that the U.S. lets allies and clients get away with more crimes, but that it simply refuses to impose significant penalties on them no matter what they do. There isn’t a double standard so much as there is no standard for allies and clients at all.

That is why the Saudis and the UAE could devastate Yemen with U.S. help for years and never have to worry that they might be jeopardizing their support from Washington. That is why the UAE can stoke civil wars in Africa and support forces committing genocide without fearing consequences from the U.S. And it’s why the Israeli government has been able to create a man-made famine and kill tens of thousands of civilians with its indiscriminate military campaign in Gaza. The clients are confident that the U.S. will never cut them off, and they know that they will never face any punishment from Washington, so they do whatever they want and expect the U.S. to rescue them if they get in over their heads.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.