Not only may you "respectfully inquire" but you could find out for yourself.
However.
The US customers have no choice in the matter in any case. The Marines are happy because procurement is from the Navy aircraft budget and there has been no hint that they are expected to give up any other force structure to pay for the F-35. The AF's last leaders who advocated another fighter were fired.
The partner nations signed on when the jet was promised as 2700 pounds lighter, far less expensive to buy, available in 2012-13 and with equal operating costs to an F-16, and when Rafale and Typhoon were not in service and JAS 39E did not exist. None except Denmark has formally reviewed that commitment, despite the changes since that time.
Consequently, none of the "experts" in the other nations have access to the kind of data about non-F-35 solutions that would allow them to make a professional judgment as to whether (for instance) JAS 39E would meet their national needs at one-third the LCC. You don't get that access without a real competition (and not a Netherlands-style beauty contest).
Korea carried out a rules-based competition, which the F-15SE won. The decision was then reversed using additional criteria that were secret, so there are no grounds for assuming that U.S. political pressure was not influential if not decisive.
The F-35 won in Japan, against Typhoon (almost unthinkable) and Super Hornet, which was at that time still hobbled by official and unrealistic insistence that its OSD would be around 2030. It was chosen by Israel, for specific missions (read "A2G"), but Israel is not spending its own money.
Last edited by LowObservable; 14th Jul 2015 at 11:56.