Iraq, Israel, Iran

When John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's article on the Israel Lobby appeared in the London Review of Books, after having been commissioned and killed by the Atlantic Monthly, neoconservative publicists launched an all-out campaign to slander the authors as anti-Semites. Now that their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy has appeared--a work of considerable scope, carefully documented, and not just an expanded version of the article--the imputation of anti-Semitism will doubtless be repeated more sparingly for readers lower down the educational ladder. Meanwhile, the literate establishment press will (a) ignore it, (b) pretend that it says nothing new or surprising, and (c) rule out the probable inferences from the data, on the ground that the very meaning of the word "lobby" is elusive.

The truth is that many new facts are in this book, and many surprising facts. By reconstructing a trail of meetings and public statements in 2001-2002, for example, the authors show that much of the leadership of Israel was puzzled at first by the boyish enthusiasm for a war on Iraq among their neoconservative allies. Why Iraq? they asked. Why now? They would appear to have obtained assurances, however, that once the "regime change" in Iraq was accomplished, the next war would be against Iran.

A notable pilgrimage followed. One by one they lined up, Netanyahu, Sharon, Peres, and Barak, writing op-eds and issuing flaming warnings to convince Americans that Saddam Hussein was a menace of world-historical magnitude. Suddenly the message was that any delay of the president's plan to bomb, invade, and occupy Iraq would be seized on by "the terrorists" as a sign of weakness. Regarding the correct treatment of terrorists, as also regarding the avoidance of weakness, Americans look to Israelis as mentors in a class by themselves.

So a war projected years before by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz--a war secured at last by the fixing of the facts around the policy at the Office of the Vice President--was allowed to borrow some prestige at an intermediate stage by the consent of a few well-regarded Israeli politicians. Yet their target of choice had been Iran. They accepted the change of sequence without outward signs of doubt, possibly owing to their acquaintance with the Middle East doctrine espoused by the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute--a doctrine which held that to create a viable order after the fall of Iraq, regime change in Iran and Syria would have to follow expeditiously.

To sum up this part: the evidence of Mearsheimer and Walt suggests that Israel was never the prime mover of the Iraq war. Rather, once the Cheney-Wolfowitz design was in place, the Israeli ministers who trooped through American opinion pages and news-talk shows did what they could to heat up the war fever. This war was on the cards before they threw in their lot with Cheney and Bush; by their efforts they merely helped to confer on the plan an aura of legitimacy and worldly wisdom.

But now the American war with Iran they originally wanted is coming closer. Last Tuesday, when the mass media were crammed to distraction with the behavior of a senator in an airport washroom, few could be troubled to notice an important speech by President Bush. If Iran is allowed to persist in its present state, the president told the American Legion convention in Reno, it threatens "to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust." He said he had no intention of allowing that; and so he has "authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities." Those words come close to saying not that a war is coming but that it is already here. No lawmaker who reads them can affect the slightest shock at any action the president takes against Iran.

Admittedly, it was a showdown speech, reckless and belligerent, to a soldier audience; but then, this has been just the sort of crowd and message that Cheney and Bush favor when they are about to open a new round of killings. And in a sense, the Senate had given the president his cue when it approved, by a vote of 97-0, the July 11 Lieberman Amendment to Confront Iran. It is hardly an accident that the president and his favorite tame senator concurred in their choice of the word "confront." The pretext for the Lieberman amendment, as for the president's order, was the discovery of caches of weapons alleged to belong to Iran, the capture of Iranian advisers said to be operating against American troops, and the assertion that the most deadly IEDs used against Americans are often traceable to Iranian sources--claims that have been widely treated in the press as possible, but suspect and unverified. Still, the vote was 97-0. If few Americans took notice, the government of Iran surely did.

That unanimous vote was the latest in a series of capitulations that has included the apparent end of resistance by Nancy Pelosi to the next war. After the election of 2006, the speaker of the house declared her intention to enact into law a requirement that this president seek separate authorization for a war against Iran. On the point of doing so, she addressed the AIPAC convention, and was booed for criticizing the escalation of the Iraq war. Pelosi took the hint, shelved her authorization plan, and went with AIPAC against the anti-war base of the Democratic party.

This much, one might know without the help of Mearsheimer and Walt. But without their record, how many would trace the connection between the removal of Philip Zelikow as policy counselor of the state department, at the end of 2006, and a speech Zelikow had given in September 2006 urging serious negotiation and a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine? The ousting of Zelikow was a blessing to the war party, since it freed them from a skeptical confidant of Secretary of State Rice--perhaps the only person of stature anywhere near the administration whom she treated as an ally and friend. And the meaning of the change was clear when Zelikow's replacement turned out to be Eliot Cohen: a neoconservative war scholar and enthusiast, an early booster of the "surge" on the pundit shows, and incidentally a shameless slanderer of Mearsheimer-Walt ("Yes, It's Anti-Semitic," Washington Post, April 5, 2006).

From Zelikow to Cohen was only a step on the long path of humiliation that now stretched before Condoleeza Rice. When, in March 2007, amid suggestions of a renewal of diplomacy, she intimated that talks might be helpful in dealing with the Hamas-Fatah unity government (whose formation the Arab world had greeted as offering a promise of peace), she was demolished by an AIPAC-backed advisory letter bearing the signatures of 79 senators, which directed her not to speak with a government that had not yet recognized Israel. From that moment Rice was effectively neutralized.

The hottest cries for another war have been coming this summer from Joe Lieberman. He has called for attacks on Iran, and for attacks on Syria. It is as if Lieberman, with his appetite for multiple theaters of conflict, spoke from the congealed memory of all the wars he never fought. But Joe Lieberman is a stalking-horse. He would not say these things without getting permission from Vice President Cheney, a close and admired friend. Nor would Cheney permit a high-profile lawmaker whom he partly controls to set the United States and Israel on so perilous a course unless he had ascertained its acceptability to Ehud Olmert.

Yet the chief orchestrater of the second neoconservative war of aggression is Elliott Abrams. Convicted for deceptions around Iran-Contra, as Lewis Libby was convicted for deceptions stemming from Iraq--and pardoned by the elder Bush just as Libby had his sentence commuted by the younger--Abrams now presides over the Middle East desk at the National Security Council. All of the wildness of this astonishing functionary and all his reckless love of subversion will be required to pump up the "imminent danger" of Iran. For here, as with Iraq, the danger can only be made to look imminent by manipulation and forgery. On all sober estimates, Iran is several months from mastering the nuclear cycle, and several years from producing a weapon. Whereas Israel for decades has been in possession of a substantial nuclear arsenal.

How mad is Elliott Abrams? If one passage cited by Mearsheimer-Walt is quoted accurately, it would seem to be the duty of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to subject Abrams to as exacting a challenge as the Senate Judiciary Committee brought to Alberto Gonzales. The man at the Middle East desk of the National Security Council wrote in 1997 in his book Faith or Fear: "there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart--except in Israel--from the rest of the population." When he wrote those words, Abrams probably did not expect to serve in another American administration. He certainly did not expect to occupy a position that would require him to weigh the national interest of Israel, the country with which he confessed himself uniquely at one, alongside the national interest of a country in which he felt himself to stand "apart...from the rest of the population." Now that he is calling the shots against Hamas and Hezbollah, Damascus and Tehran, his words of 1997 ought to alarm us into reflection.

Among many possible lines of inquiry, the senators might begin by recognizing that the United States has other allies in Asia besides Israel. One of those allies is India; and there is a further point of resemblance. In a distinct exception to our anti-proliferation policy, we have allowed India to develop nuclear weapons; just as, in an earlier such exception, we allowed Israel to do the same. But suppose we read tomorrow a statement by the director of the South Asia desk of the National Security Council which declared: "There can be no doubt that Hindus are to stand apart from any nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Hindu to be apart--except in India--from the rest of the population." Suppose, further, we knew this man still held these beliefs at a time of maximum tension between India and Pakistan; and that he had recently channeled 86 million dollars to regional gangs and militias bent on increasing the tension. Would we not conclude that something in our counsels of state had gone seriously out of joint?

The Mearsheimer-Walt study of American policy deserves to be widely read and discussed. It could not be more timely. If the speeches and saber-rattling by the president, the ambassador to Iraq, and several army officers mean anything, they mean that Cheney and Abrams are preparing to do to Iran what Cheney and Wolfowitz did to Iraq. They are gunning for an incident. They are working against some resistance from the armed forces but none from the opposition party at home. The president has ordered American troops to confront Iran. Sarkozy has fallen into line, Brown and Merkel are silent, and outside the United States only Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency stands between the war party and a prefabricated justification for a war that would extend across a vast subcontinent. Unless some opposition can rouse itself, we are poised to descend with non-partisan compliance into a moral and political disaster that will dwarf anything America has seen.

Comments

[Jane]

This is an excellent and convincing post, and I am sure that Bromwich's analysis is correct. That said, I don't see what the commenters are arguing about. It is a foregone conclusion that Iran will be bombed. It is a foregone conclusion that the result will be a disaster. Those who argue that it SHOULD be done are silly. It will accomplish nothing except to hasten the downfall of the US. Oh, yeah--it will accomplish one more thing--to make even fewer people around the world care about that downfall, and more people celebrate it.

[Justtellthetruth]

Great post!!!!

[Justtellthetruth]

Great Post Mr. Bromwich, and judging by the 5 pages of postings, I'd say that people ARE listening.

However, we need to go further, and discuss what needs to be done to cause the greatest changes in US security as it pertains to Israel policy.

The most effective action would clearly be forcing israel to abandon all settlements and to quit the occupatio entirely. This will happen on it's own in several decades, in that the utterly failed settlements movement would have bankrupted israel without our constant financial support, and most people there resent the idea of sending their children to stand in a circle of human targets round religious fanatics and racist ultranationalists that they do not support or agree with.

But we could greatly decrease that timeframe by withholding all financial and diplomatic support to israel until they agree to remove every settler from the West bank and East Jerusalem, raze every settlement, and pull the IDF out of all terrirories.

That would certainly be the straw for most Israelis, many of whom, as I mentioned above, do not support the settlers or the occupation that is there solely to protect them. Then we would work in conjuction with the UN to do what virtually the rest of the world has been clamoring for for decades; send in a mostly arab peace keeing force after the IDF pulls out in order to keep both the israelis and the Palestiniansm from crossing the border.

This would work to reduce significantly the possibility of further terrorist attacks on US soil, in that the occuaption is the greatest marketing tool that Middle Eastern terrorists have at their disposal (according to CIA analysts, the Iraq study Group, Jimmy Carter, Tony Blair, ect.). It wold also make Israel much safer, and in the long run, no longer in need of our financial support. They might even become wealthy enough to pay back some of the 100s of Billions they already owe us.

[Justtellthetruth]

I guess I'll get in line here to call you on your BS as well, Mommamia.

First, Pakistan, which is suppossed to be our ally, Harbors Osama Bin Laden, his leadership and many followers. They harborMullah Omar and the leadership of the Taliban, and many followers, and many top brass in the pakistani army are sympathetic to both groups. Paksitan harbors, AQ Khan, the man who sold Nuclear tech to both North korea and Iran (and god knows who else). Pakistan HAS nukes and is overflowing with radicals that hate the US and Israel, many of whom are in areas that are under their own control.

That being said, Iran has not atacked another nation for about 250 years. They wont have nukes for years to come (if ever). They never said that they want to wipe ISRAEL off the map, but rather that they would like to see the REGIME removed there. As mentioned in other posts, Israel has 200 nukes and the absolute protection of the US. Iran, after they build a few (without ever being able to test them) would be insuring their own total destruction were they to ever acta against israel.

To suggest that Iran poses any threat that even comes close to that which Paksistan poses is simply a bald faced lie, and Pakistan is our ALLY!!!

Lets get to the heart of the matter. The settlers and their supporters are the enemey of Israel, the US, and Palestine, in that they could care less how many Israelis, Americans (ie 9/11) or Palestinians die as a result of their fanatical actions. They need to be cut off financially and diplomatically, and if that means that we cut off Israel first in order to facilitate that, then so be it.
The settlers and their backers are morally reprehensible, a threat to world peace, and, despite all the "Wiping" talk about Iran, are the only ones who have been engaging in "Wiping" behavior, which they have been doing for the last 40 years.

[Boadicea]

Thank you for taking the time to outline so succinctly for us the situation regarding this drum beat for an invasion of Iran.

Let us hope that the book is read, that we all keep an open mind when reading it, and that you come back often to inform and enlighten.

[IanEss]

Mearsheimer & Walt are utterly correct as is Mr. Bromwich. To those who would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities would make hostages of our soldiers in Iraq and choke the Strait of Hormuz. Naive ideologues court the death of our soldiers and the depletion of our treasury only when Congress relinquishes its duty. Such zeal, taken to extreme, will not halt what they fear most, the rise of Palestine.

[realitytrumpsbull]

The reason I support impeachment is that it sure seems like we've got people from other countries trying to call the shots in our very own United States, and this bunch of clowns is in on it.

If it's not Mexico demanding entry(and money, of course), it's middle eastern countries demanding this or that(also demanding money), and a tin ear turned to the views of the actual voters who will ultimately be handed the bill for all of this proxy largesse.

I guess the question that you could ask is when it was, exactly, that a laundry list of other countries gained de facto voting rights in the US Congress, and what, if anything, can honestly be done to remedy the situation at this point. But, this is where it comes down to a hard-and-fast debate about the influence of special interests and PAC's etc. over the outcome of whatever legislation does finally make it through Congress, and to what extent and degree as-yet unborn generations are going to be placed on the tenterhooks of involuntary foreign involvement and indebtedness. To add insult to injury, you've got entities like the American Enterprise Institute decrying domestic concerns over all of these high-dollar global hijinks as 'nativism'. But, there also does come a point when the question can fairly and honestly be posed as to the ultimate ambitions of some/all of these groups, and the behavior and influence our own representation has in terms of siphoning still more billions of US tax dollars into the hands of foreign parties.
When China is purported to be holding over a trillion in US debt, how is it exactly that we're not being basically sold into wage slavery in the form of paying taxes to foreign countries, and even worse, foreign royalty? What's REALLY going on, here, and is anyone sober/'with it'/uncorrupted enough still to keep the books straight and their powder dry?
We'll never see another balanced budget, at this rate...

[DC]

The Mearsheimer/Walk book is excellent and a must read for any interested world citizen.

It is desperately needed examination by two academics who are concerned about US foreign policy and the future of Israel and even Jewish identity. As they write, "The Israeli lobby is not a cabal or conspiracy or anything of the sort...."

The authors demonstrate that the unconditional massive financial support is out of proportion to US interest, there is no strategic or moral justification for such unconditional support, and that ultimately it is damaging and undermines US interests as well as Israeli interests and security.

They argue it is time to treat Israel like a normal state and stop pretending that US and Israel have the same interests.

What is not in the book is the discussion of the massive profit motive to keep the conflict going, the arms that are sold and the jobs it brings. I.e. wittiness the most recent military aid package to the ME, and the lion's share to Israel.

[Justtellthetruth]

Great post Mr. Bromwich. And, judging by the 5 pages of responses, I would say that a lot of people are listening. However, We need to talk more directly about bringing an end to the Israeli settlment movement once and for all.

The US can do it almost singlehandedly, by cutting off all funding and diplomatic support for Israel, until such time as they act to remove every settler and all occupying forces from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. After they do that, we could pay whatever it took to help remove them, and then whatever it took to safe guard both Israel and the Palestinians after the occuaption ends. We should then institute a mostly arab peace keeping force in conjunction with the UN in order to keep both sides out of trouble. Its working quite well in Lebanon now.

We would save Billions per year, (3 billion per year fot the last 40 years, with 30 BILLION more added to that over the next 10 years) Israel ONLY needs this money to cover the massive shortfall caused by the crushing expenses of the occupation and the settlement Movement that it protects.

[TLV]

Conversation on CNN between Wolf Blitzer and Seymour Hersh in 2006:

BLITZER: Some senior military officers are prepared to resign?

HERSH: I’m saying if this isn’t walked back and if the President isn’t told that you cannot do it — and once the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, some senior members of the military say to the President, let’s get the nuclear option off the table, it will be taken off. He will not defy the military in a formal report. Unless something specific is told to the White House that you’ve got to drop the dream of a nuclear option, and that’s exactly the issue I’m talking about, people have said to me they would resign.

BLITZER: Do you want to name names?

HERSH: Are you kidding?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/09/hersh-military/

[lthuedk]

Ballsy and informative, David. Stage far right, Alan Dershowitz will now begin his classic spiel on anti-semitism. He and the Likudists apparently wear an abreviated mustache and goose-step in their sleep.

Did the people of Isreal forget about the holocaust? Whatever happened to tolerance, negotiation, and peace?

I suspect the seeds of the preemptive aggression sewn in the Middle East by the American Likud have germinated and are bearing ugly fruit. When Americans look back at the roots and causes of the Big Fear and the Middle East Wars, they will see words and imagery not created by Israel's majority or the majority of Americans, but the work product of the Likudist/Z­ionist/Neo Con mind.

What ever happened to the Labor Party's influence in Israel?

My Museum of Tolerance wrist band reads: "Freedom is not a gift." What exactly has the Israel lobbly done in the last decade that has not negatively affected our American rights and liberties?

Anyone?

[straightshooter]

Simply put, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are loyal and courageous Americans who can see the disaster approaching us as a consequence of Washington's 60 year "special relationship" with Israel, an expansionary state build on the ruins of historic Palestine and the expulsion of its native Palestinia­n/Canaanit­e inhabitants.
Another great American is Jimmy Carter whose recent book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid is a pivotal step in the struggle.

In this regard, check out the following url regarding the premiere of the documentary film
on Carter's book tour of America in Venice. The film will also be shown at the current Toronto International Film Festival with Carter and his wife in attendance.
Go to - http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=22068

Herewith the first paragraphs:
Carter’s Palestine book highlighted in Demme documentary

Documentary ‘Man from Plains’ follows Carter’ on ‘Palestine: Peace not Apartheid’ book tour.

VENICE, Italy - Former US president Jimmy Carter takes on America's mainstream media with a controversial book on the Middle East in a Jonathan Demme documentary that premiered Friday at the Venice film festival.

The documentary portrait "Man from Plains" follows Carter all over America on his tour late last year to promote the book, provocatively titled "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."

[bethinCary]

I hope and pray one day in a few years, when all is said and done: war crimes will be brought against AIPAC and the neocons who continue to promote war in the Mideast.
Who is really benefitting from the wars?
Saudis, oil companies,defense contractors, drug dealers, and gun runners.
then there's that little fact that Cheney keeps pushing about IEDs and Iran. But what about over 190,000 AK47 and Glocks missing from the US supply? My guess is the US left the gate open there for the Sunnis.
Pay attention people-read up on Iran/Contra.
The Clintons'. The Bushs'. War crimes.
Read. Read. Read.
After we all educate ourself-only them can we act-decisively and intelligently.

[dannyo152]

Looking at another article from this morning which reports on a split in the Administration regarding the surge, I noted that while the local commander wanted to keep his full command in Iraq, the Pentagon was arguing that the troops were needed for other possible conflicts in the area. I guess the other conflicts would be Syria or Iran. Maybe the game being played by the brass here is telling George and friends "bombing alone won't do the job so you can't have Iran until you've finished Iraq," and waiting out the clock for someone sober to be put in charge.

[outnow]

Great post!

We all know now exactly who calls the shots and who lays down and takes it.

I was reading some of the recently released conversations of Donald Rumsfeld and Tariq Assiz, formerly of Iraq, from 1983 on Wikipedia under "Rumsfeld."

"Taking out" Syria and Iran have been in the planning since 1983, according to these de-classified documents.

Thank you for sharing with us who is who in this war against the Middle East, and who are the moving forces behind the effort. The major country behind "taking out" Iran is clearly Israel.

None of these wars would be happening without the economic force of oil.

Oil + Zionism + any alleged threat of nuclear development or interference = war.

Ever since 1953 with the U.S. covert installation of the Shah of Iran, there has been war with Iran. Don't forget the Iraq-Iran war supported by the U.S.

Why do the hate us? Duh! The Shah received about a billion for all the oil taken during his tenure. He spent most of that on weapons purchased from the U.S. What a deal for the people of Iraq! Meanwhile, he tortured the people. Typical U.S. spreading of "freedom and democracy" in the Middle East.