Over the last six decades, the U.S. has invested $299 billion in military and economic aid for Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries currently in turmoil. Egypt tops a list of ten nations, receiving $114 billion since the end of World War II. Iraq comes in second, getting nearly $60 billion from the U.S. (over and above war costs).
Far outpacing those ten countries is Israel, an ally that received another $185 billion in U.S. aid in the same period. Its close neighbor Syria is near the low end of the aid spectrum, but is certainly taking center stage in world affairs today.
What did all that money buy the U.S.? Neither regional stability nor automatic support.
Categories: Americas, United States
We should note that the 299 billions of $ have in fact been spent in the USA. The US weapons industry benefited most of all.
Egypt for instance received surplus wheat. The money would have been better spent to promote Egyptian agriculture, but of course it was the US farmers that needed to benefit.
Regarding aid to Israel: There is more to it than these figures show. As Robert Fisk wrote in one of his books, where he proved for instance that military equipment left over from the first Gulf war was unloaded in Israel – not accounted for in any statistics.
Much of the aid is military which only aids war and doesn’t circumvent it.