Reckless Clients and Double Standards

There isn’t a double standard so much as there is no standard for allies and clients at all.

Secretary Blinken made a claim yesterday that absolutely no one will believe:

“We apply the same standard to everyone,” Blinken said. “And that doesn’t change whether the country in question is an adversary, a competitor, a friend or an ally.”

Everyone can see that Blinken isn’t telling the truth. It’s a bit odd that top U.S. officials try to preserve the fiction that the U.S. holds allies and clients to the same standard that it uses for others. No one takes the story seriously, and it just prompts critics to call out the pointless lying.

It is obvious that allies and clients are given a free pass for things that would trigger condemnation, sanctions, or possibly even military action when others do them. The problem isn’t just that the U.S. lets allies and clients get away with more crimes, but that it simply refuses to impose significant penalties on them no matter what they do. There isn’t a double standard so much as there is no standard for allies and clients at all.

That is why the Saudis and the UAE could devastate Yemen with U.S. help for years and never have to worry that they might be jeopardizing their support from Washington. That is why the UAE can stoke civil wars in Africa and support forces committing genocide without fearing consequences from the U.S. And it’s why the Israeli government has been able to create a man-made famine and kill tens of thousands of civilians with its indiscriminate military campaign in Gaza. The clients are confident that the U.S. will never cut them off, and they know that they will never face any punishment from Washington, so they do whatever they want and expect the U.S. to rescue them if they get in over their heads.

The two-tiered system that privileges one set of states and penalizes another is at the heart of the “rules-based order” that Blinken and his colleagues love so much. If a state belongs to the privileged set aligned with Washington, it will be held to the lowest standard while receiving praise for adhering to the highest. At the same time, the U.S. will pose as a fair arbiter while it shamelessly plays favorites and rigs the scales.

Occasionally, the U.S. will offer some token objections and maybe even impose some minor consequences as a sop to domestic critics, but holding an ally or client to a high standard that comes with real costs is out of the question. The U.S. does not make a habit of using its leverage with clients to improve their behavior or rein in their excesses, and it is usually desperate to whitewash the clients’ record and cater to the clients. The clients never have to fear that they will get on the wrong side of Washington, because our leaders convince themselves that they have to placate the clients constantly to keep them on “our side.”