The more extreme Israeli policy becomes, the more likely the US has been to support it - and the less respect it has for the large mass of Arab peoples whose future and well being are mortgaged to illusory hopes embodied, for instance, in the Oslo accords. Moreover, a deep gulf separates Arab culture and civilization from the United States. Beyond that, there is no feeling at all, for instance, for the dreadful suffering of the Iraqi people, whose identity and existence have simply been lost sight of in the present situation. In some way also, anything positive about the Arabs is seen in the US as a threat to Israel. In this respect, pro-Israeli American Jews, traditional Orientalists, and military hawks have played a devastating role.
Moral opprobrium is heaped on Arab states as it is on no others.
Sanctions against them are far harsher than against any other country in the history of US foreign policy. In the case of Iraq, a number of further extenuations make the US even more repressive. Burning in the collective American unconscious is a puritanical zeal decreeing the sternest possible attitude towards any one deemed to be an unregenerate sinner. This clearly guided American policy towards the native American Indians, who were first demonized, then portrayed as wasteful savages, then exterminated, their tiny remnant confined to reservations and concentration camps. This almost religious anger fuels a judgemental attitude that has no place at all in international politics, but for the United States it is a central tenet of its worldwide behavior.