This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 21st, 2024.

I'm Caleb Brown. Between the US insinuating itself into disputes in the Middle East

and actively supporting authoritarian regimes,

it's hard to conclude that things are going particularly well for U.S. Middle East policy.

Cato's John Hoffman believes U.S. Middle East policy is quite simply a failure.

John, if I understand you correctly, your view is that Washington, when it comes to engaging in Middle East policy.

For the most part, their answers are weapons and money and other military support and that is pretty much the range of

how the US engages in the pretty much. It's always been

in the Middle East. Is that right?

Pretty much. It's always been a overly militarized approach

to the region and you know that that's not the case for

you know just right now this is the case for for decades of policy towards the

Middle East whether there's a Republican in office,

whether there's a Democrat in office, this commitment to an overly militarized

approach to the Middle East is truly bipartisan and nature and decades in the making.

In a conversation I had with our now former colleague Jordan Cohen, he pointed out the degree to which this conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas

has been fought to some extent with U.S. weapons on both sides.

And that is something that you would hope

would give our foreign policy leadership in the federal government at least some pause but it doesn't

appear to have done so.

No so like you said it should be somewhat of a wake-up call here and alarm bells going off saying hold on you know

both sides here are using US weapons to commit you know atrocities and you know how do we as the United States you know feel with you know our

...