US Foreign Policy Capture — Israel Lobby
New signal today is the posture Trump is being forced into at the Beijing summit: having failed to pressure Iran back to the table through threats, the United States is now in the position of needing China to apply leverage over Tehran — leverage that exists because China is Iran’s primary oil buyer, a relationship Iran preserved partly as a hedge against US maximum pressure. The war that AIPAC celebrated as “historic” and “decisive” has produced an outcome in which Washington is now supplicant to Beijing on Middle East policy. That is a direct Mearsheimer-Walt confirmation: the lobby-driven war has demonstrably damaged US strategic positioning, not strengthened it.

At the congressional level, the Hegseth hearing (May 12) produced the clearest Republican dissent to date — McConnell’s “NATO is the most important military alliance in world history” statement and Cole’s “America First has never meant America alone” are senior Republican voices directly framing the war as strategically self-defeating. This is not base dissent; it’s appropriations-level pushback.

Simultaneously, the Haaretz piece from May 6 documents AIPAC explicitly warning donors of a “well-funded effort to punish anyone who stands with Israel” — the lobby is in defensive fundraising posture, not offensive influence mode. The Illinois, North Carolina, and Ohio primary dynamics from March confirm the toxicity of AIPAC association is now structural among Democratic voters. The war powers resolution remains blocked by AIPAC-backed Democrats (Landsman, Gottheimer, Moskowitz, collectively $1.7M in AIPAC funding) — the mechanics are intact, but the political cost of that position is visibly rising.

Sources: Spectrum News/AP, Hegseth testimony · Haaretz, AIPAC donor email · Foreign Policy, coalition fractures