article_snippet: Washington has long worked to consolidate a highly militarized, pro-American Middle Eastern order.
article_snippet: For a start, seeking dominance impels Washington to replicate, in multiple venues, Washington Faustian bargain with imperial Iran from 1953 until the last shah's overthrow in 1979, providing substantial and effectively open-ended support to governments acting against the desires of governments acting against the desires of their own publics own publics.
article_snippet: While American elites argue that the United States benefits from such arrangements, American elites are ultimately unsustainable, as Iran's 1979 revolution demonstrated.
article_snippet: A determination to dominate the Middle East keeps locking Washington into these kinds of relationships; for Washington own sake, the United States needs to stop trying to be the Middle East's hegemon.
article_snippet: Washington needs cooperation with just such an imperial Iran against common foes like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and to balance counterproductive policies of the United States's regional allies.
article_snippet: Washington's self-damaging drive for Middle Eastern hegemony is inextricably linked to Washington's self-damaging drive for Middle Eastern hegemony unconditional support for an increasingly extreme and unrepresentative Israel.