Israel has long served a kind of cut-out role for delivering weapons to states with atrocious 'Western values' records but which are compliant with US corporate

Israel has long served a kind of cut-out role for delivering weapons to states with atrocious 'Western values' records but which are compliant with US corporate interests. Equatorial Guinea was one such example, with dictator Obiang and his ExxonMobil contract. Steve Coll mentions this in "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power" (2012): > "Fortunately for Obiang, coup-prone African governments rolling in oil but lacking in arms and intelligence to defend their bounty had a discrete alternative to the Pentagon and C.I.A. for defense support: Israel. Quietly, the Bush Administration encouraged Obiang to enter into security and commercial ties with Tel Aviv." Azerbaijan is a similar example as US weapons sales were banned for human rights abuse reasons. A Wikileaked US State Dept cable stated (2009) "Through its close relations with Israel, Azerbaijan gets a level of access to the quality weapon systems it needs to develop its army that it can not obtain from the U.S. and Europe due to various legal limitations..." If the dictatorial government funnels the oil money into the Western banking system, then the US turns a blind eye to this kind of thing (e.g. Saudi and UAE use of Pegasus to persecute pro-democracy activists) and if not, it's sanctions and regime change time.