Who Really Makes US Foreign Policy? Who Benefits and Who Loses?

In a piece of news that shocked the mainstream media, retired US Army general John Allen was forced to resign as president of the Brookings Institution after it was revealed the FBI was investigating him for lobbying on behalf of the Qatari monarchy. Of course, the real news, scarcely noted by the Washington Post, New York Times, or any other purported paper of record,

Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), under which such activities are regulated, includes several exceptions that allow for such activities without declaring a conflict of interest

• think tanks operate under an "academic exception" that allows for engagement in "bona fide religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits or the fine arts."
• From a libertarian perspective, who is to say who should be giving money to whom and for what?

The blatant hypocrisy of it all is what really stands out.

• The same universities and think tanks decry China, yet decry the influence of countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia, yet the same groups are quick to criticize the Uyghur and Ukraine lobbies for receiving funding from the US government
• Critically thinking Americans are accused of being in the pay of Moscow, Beijing and Tehran

https://mises.org/wire/who-really-makes-us-foreign-policy-who-benefits-and-who-loses