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| Volume XIV, Spring 2007, Number 1 |
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| Editor's Note |
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As we go to press, the Bush administration is making a military attack on Iran politically acceptable by softening up the American public with the news that Iran might be supplying some explosive devices to the Shiites in Iraq (our allies, let’s remember). This was characterized by Michael Gordon of The New York Times as shocking. More shocking would be a report that the Iranians were standing meekly to one side while the United States laid waste to their co-religionists next door. It is a question whether the major media and think tanks are going to rise up to challenge the administration’s “reasons” for a possible war against the Islamic Republic (see the Symposium on page 1 for a lively discussion of related issues).
A recent book on this subject is by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke: The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing. These authors, whose 2004 study of the neo-conservatives — America Alone — was highly praised, point out that there was a failure on the part of scholars and prestigious institutions to try to stop the rush to war in Iraq: “Search the articles of Foreign Affairs from the fall of 2001 to the spring of 2003, the period in which the Iraq debate was conducted, and you will look in vain for a single article that raises moderate skepticism, let alone fundamental questions, about the looming decisions.” The organizations that fomented war for the administration are actually lobbying entities such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. However, a great deal of funding for mainstream think tanks such as the Carnegie Endowment and the Council on Foreign Relations is also very sensitive to the concerns of the Israel Lobby. Insiders did not need Walt and Mearsheimer to reveal this news; everyone knows it, though few will talk openly about it.
One man who dares to speak out is former president Jimmy Carter. His new book,Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid, is parked near the top of the best-seller lists, and he is engaged in a publicity tour. It was preceded last fall by a protest campaign from Democratic office holders who tried to get Simon and Schuster to change the title; the comparison between Israeli and South African racism had struck a nerve. Recently, Carter made a stop at Brandeis, a university founded and supported principally by Jewish money. There was controversy over giving him a forum for his uncongenial views, but the (mostly) young audience was respectful, even warm. In the following days, however, a number of irate donors to Brandeis withdrew substantial contributions. It is thus far unknown what abasement or compensation from the university administration will be required to regain the favor of this group.
Whether this intimidation by the Brandeis donors is a sign of hubris or the opposite, insecurity, is for psychiatrists to figure out. In either case, it supports the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis: hard-line supporters of Israel suppress anything but positive portrayals of Israel in American public discourse (read the full text of their paper from our fall 2006 issue at www.mepc.org). As one must reiterate whenever this topic is discussed, the Lobby does not represent a majority of Jewish Americans, and it commands the loyalty of a greater number of Christian Zionists. Its views are reinforced in part by proffering incentives, but even more by periodically smiting those under its patronage for deviant behavior. Politicians are especially vulnerable, but educational entities and major media organs also have to toe the line. The Brandeis administration probably thought its close ties to the American Jewish community gave it some latitude. This brouhaha has not yet played itself out, and heads may roll, but it is intended as an object lesson to critics of Israel, not banishment of the university into outer darkness.
Jimmy Cater is too famous and too fearless to knuckle under to the speech police. Still, no one enjoys public abuse, and he deserves points for moral courage. Many Jewish Americans of even greater courage are also criticizing Israel, though not in the mass media or prime-time news. There, the Israel Lobby holds sway, and it is four-square behind the case now being built for making war on Iran. Sunni friends of the Untied States such as Saudi Arabia are taking more responsibility for diplomacy to mitigate the gains in Iranian regional influence and avert the catastrophe of a regional Shia-Sunni war that U.S. policy is fomenting. Having upended the balance of power and made the Middle East more dangerous by dismantling Iraq, many in the region fear that the Bush administration may be bent on discovering or manufacturing “reasons” for a military attack against Iran, the advice of allies and the Iraq Study Group be damned (see the articles inside regarding the energy security issues of the Gulf, Central Asia and Turkey).
Looking back on 2002, when the current war was being cooked up, the weak state of Iraq was supposed to be a mere speed bump en route to Iran, Israel’s more powerful enemy and the nemesis of the United States since the 1979 revolution overturned the shah’s regime. Iraq’s “liberation” would cause the Iranians to throw off their oppressive mullahs spontaneously, out of emulation of the model next door, and line up behind their new modern masters. It sounds impossible, like dominoes falling up. Yet many who peddled the idea still walk the halls of power. Of course, Donald Rumsfeld is gone, but Paul Wolfowitz is head of the World Bank, Douglas Feith is teaching at Georgetown University, David Wurmser is still the vice president’s Middle East adviser, and Elliott Abrams is still the NSC officer in change of the Middle East. Only Scooter Libby has been called to account, and for perjury rather than other actions and decisions he and Vice-president Cheney might have been asked to justify. The president is listening to Frederick Kagan of the neo-con AEI, father of the “surge,” and William Kristol, editor of the neo-con Weekly Standard. The diplomacy recommended by Jim Baker has been rejected in favor of bullying — except in the case of North Korea. The low state of public trust in American policy is illustrated by widespread suspicion that the North Korea deal may have been done only to clear the decks for military action against Iran.
As for the core issue in the dispute between the United States and the Muslim world, the failure of the notably belated and weak effort by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to restart talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was entirely predictable (see Dundas for analysis of the legal issues involved, p. 42). Washington, whether controlled by Republicans or Democrats, will not put pressure on Israel until Israel’s American partisans decide that real peace would be better for both Israelis and Jews. The withdrawal of American empathy for Arabs and Muslims post-9/11 precludes any initiatives to address their concerns. Too bad. It might neutralize some of the rampant anti-American rage worldwide (see Esposito, p. 27).
Anne Joyce
February 2007
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