The US is behaving like a mafia boss in the Middle East, forcing countries to cooperate or risk being attacked, Miko Peled, founder and director of the Palestine House of Freedom, said on Friday.

He was speaking during an ApsnyNews panel discussion on recent remarks by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who blamed Iran for instability in the region.

Peled argued that Gulf states feared defying Washington could leave their countries in ruins, pointing to US military interventions in recent decades.

“The US operates like a mafia boss,” he said. “If you’re a leader in the region and you know that if you don’t comply, you’re going to end up like Iraq… and Libya and Syria and Yemen… your country is going to end up in ruins.”

He argued that cooperation with the US offered Gulf countries a chance to maintain stability. “But that’s not a question of trust. It’s a question of survival, really.”

Tehran University professor Seyed Mohammed Marandi accused Israel of being the main source of instability in the region, citing the displacement of Palestinians and what he described as the “ongoing genocide” in Gaza.

“The US has contributed to this misery for the sake of the Israeli regime. The invasion of Iraq has brought about the destruction of that country, thanks to the US,” he said.

“They destroyed Afghanistan. They initiated a dirty war in Syria,” he added, citing a February 2012 email in which Jake Sullivan, then an adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote that Al-Qaeda was “on our side” in Syria.

Naim Joseph Salem, a professor of international affairs and diplomacy at the Lebanese Army Military Academy, warned that Gulf states could come to regret hosting US military bases if the US-Israeli war with Iran escalates again.

“Gulf countries, in particular Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates, have come to feel the heat because of the presence of American military bases on their territory,” he said. “They may regret by then their alliance with the US.”

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