America’s midterm defeat has revived an extraordinary proposition: that the world’s most powerful country is somehow at the mercy of one of its most dependent allies.
The Republican defeat in the midterms has produced a fascinating spectacle: the political establishment of a global superpower increasingly portraying itself as the victim of a small, dependent Middle Eastern ally.
US Vice President JD Vance attributes the defeat to the Iran war and calls for reconsidering America’s relationship with Israel. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, announced on election day that nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel would end, partly because supporting Israel had become a political liability.
The familiar narrative is gathering momentum: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dragged America into a war, Israel exercises disproportionate influence over Washington, and Americans are paying the price.
This argument is profoundly contradictory. The United States possesses the world’s most formidable military and intelligence apparatus, coupled with immense economic leverage and an unrivalled capacity to project power.
Yet we are supposed to believe that a country of roughly 10 million people, heavily dependent on American military and diplomatic support, can somehow dictate Washington’s strategic decisions.
Netanyahu can indeed pitch his case to Trump, much like a start-up founder pitches a venture capitalist. He can present intelligence, articulate the opportunity, emphasize the risks of inaction, and try to convince his audience.
But a responsible investor conducts his own due diligence and ultimately decides whether to invest. If the investment subsequently collapses, imagine the absurdity of the venture capitalist explaining to his limited partners that the founder “dragged” him into investing.
The founder may have been persuasive, perhaps even misleading. But persuasion does not transfer responsibility. Israel can provide intelligence and strategic assessments. Netanyahu can recommend a course of action, but he cannot order American forces into battle.
Washington must independently evaluate and assess the situation through its own national security apparatuses before making such consequential decisions.
The distinction becomes clearer when examining the actual balance of power. Washington can suspend weapons deliveries, withdraw diplomatic protection, restrict cooperation, and impose enormous economic and strategic costs on Israel.
What comparable instruments does Jerusalem possess against Washington? Very few, if any.
Consider Qatar, which has substantial natural gas resources, has pledged over a trillion dollars in US domestic investments, and hosts a major American military installation. These provide tangible bargaining assets, yet nobody seriously suggests Qatar dictates American foreign policy.
Israel, meanwhile, depends heavily on American military technology, diplomatic protection, and strategic cooperation. Its relationship with Washington is fundamentally asymmetric. The extraordinary claim is not that Israel influences America. It is that the dependent party somehow controls the relationship.
American support for Israel is not necessarily evidence of Israeli influence. It may simply reflect American preferences and convergence of interests. When two countries pursue overlapping goals, their cooperation does not establish that one has manipulated the other.
To infer control from agreement is to confuse correlation with causation. Indeed, the argument becomes almost unfalsifiable. When Washington supports Israel, it supposedly demonstrates Israeli control. When Washington opposes Israel, it merely demonstrates the limits of that control.
What evidence, then, could disprove the theory? History offers useful counterexamples. Dwight Eisenhower pressured Israel to withdraw from Sinai in 1956. Barack Obama negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement despite Netanyahu’s vehement opposition.
The point is not that Israeli advocacy has no effect. It sometimes can. The point is that the US-Israel relationship operates within a balance of power that overwhelmingly favours Washington, and too many in the US seem to have conveniently forgotten it.
Republicans lost amid dissatisfaction over living costs, the Iran war, political leadership, and domestic governance. Reducing that complicated outcome to Israel offers an explanation that is both politically convenient and intellectually lazy.
And once Israel becomes a scapegoat for American failures, the narrative risks becoming self-reinforcing. Every unpopular policy associated with Israel becomes further evidence of its supposed influence, regardless of whether Washington independently supported it.
The irony is remarkable: the same political culture that celebrates American sovereignty, strength, and independence increasingly entertains the notion that Washington is helpless before Jerusalem.
America is perfectly entitled to reconsider its relationship with Israel. It can reduce military assistance, impose conditions, pursue different regional strategies, or conclude that particular commitments no longer serve its interests. Those would be sovereign decisions.
But a superpower cannot simultaneously claim unparalleled power and plead helplessness whenever the consequences of exercising that power become unpopular.
Israel can advise, persuade, and advocate for its interests. But ultimately Washington decides. And if it made the wrong decision, the responsibility ultimately belongs to Washington.
The ability to exercise power without accepting responsibility for it is not sovereignty. It’s an alibi.
