N
NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL@yahoo.com
Guest
August 14, 2007
'This One Is So Hot': The Censorship of Walt and Mearsheimer
I now have a copy of the letter John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt sent
to the board of the Chicago Global Affairs Council after it cancelled
their September appearance there under political pressure. The letter
follows, below.
A couple of comments. This is a sad business. Two distinguished profs
who have both spoken at the Council before are disinvited regretfully/
squeamishly by a respected professional friend, and informed that they
might only speak if someone else comes to counter their statements.
The old "context" argument used against Rachel Corrie and everyone
else. Your views are too toxic to be heard unless we "balance" them.
Walt and Mearsheimer point out that Michael Oren spoke at the Council
earlier this year on Middle East matters without "context." Oren is a
neoconservative who made aliyah to Israel in the 70s and who served as
an officer in the Israeli army. John Mearsheimer served as an officer
in the United States Air Force. Let us be very clear about this: A
former officer in the Israeli Army who lives in Israel (and has lately
served in the Israeli Reserves) may hold forth about our policy in the
Middle East, but a former officer in our Air Force has no place to do
the same. You don't have to be a nativist to find this mindboggling.
Mearsheimer and Walt are all for Oren speaking, they just want to be
able to speak too. And just compare the literary and analytical work
of Oren and Mearsheimer; there is no comparison. Oren is a polemicist,
Mearsheimer a serious student of American policy. Deeply dispiriting.
Where is Alan Dershowitz, to decry the censorship?
I'm upset. I tell myself that this just shows how afraid the other
side is of the truth, but face it, they're winning. Last night my wife
said at dinner that I am "paying a price" for my views on the Middle
East. I have a long career as a journalist. I lost a blog-job earlier
this year over these issues, I can't get paying assignments to write
about these matters; and they are all that I care about, as my country
fumbles through the aftermath of 9/11 and Iraq. I sense some of that
same sorrow in the Walt and Mearsheimer letter that follows. At the
peaks of their careers, they have devoted themselves to these policy
issues out of some sense of duty; and they're not being allowed to
speak. It appears from the letter that a friendship has ended: the
authors' with Marshall Bouton. How long before the country wakes up
from this madness?
August 5, 2007
[Addressed, individually, to board members of the Council, and to
members of Council committees]
We are writing to bring to your attention a troubling incident
involving the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. We do so reluctantly,
as we have both enjoyed our prior associations with the Council and we
have great respect for its aims and accomplishments. Nonetheless, we
felt this was an episode that should not pass without comment.
On September 4, 2007, our book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the most
highly respected publishers in the United States. Through our
publisher, the Council issued an invitation for both of us to speak at
a session on September 27, 2007. We were delighted to accept, as each
of us had spoken at the Council on several occasions in the past and
knew we would attract a diverse and well-informed audience that would
engage us in a lively and productive discussion.
On July 19, while discussing the details of our visit with Sharon
Houtkamp, who was handling the arrangements at the Council, we learned
that the Council had already received a number of communications
protesting our appearance. We were not particularly surprised by this
news, as we had seen a similar pattern of behavior after our original
article on "The Israel Lobby" appeared in the London Review of Books
in March 2006. We were still looking forward to the event, however,
especially because it gave us an opportunity to engage these issues in
an open forum.
Then, on July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us
(Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was cancelling the event. He
said he felt "extremely uncomfortable making this call" and that his
decision did not reflect his personal views on the subject of our
book. Instead, he explained that his decision was based on the need
"to protect the institution." He said that he had a serious "political
problem," because there were individuals who would be angry if he gave
us a venue to speak, and that this would have serious negative
consequences for the Council. "This one is so hot," Marshall
maintained, that he could not present it at a Council session unless
someone from "the other side"-such as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-
Defamation League-was on stage with us. At the very least, he needed
to present "contending viewpoints." But he said it was too late to try
to change the format, as the fall schedule was being finalized and
there would not be sufficient time to arrange an alternate date. He
showed little interest in doing anything with us in 2008 or beyond.
Several comments are in order regarding this situation.
First, since the publication of our original article on the Israel
lobby, we have appeared either singly or together at a number of
different venues, including Brown University, the Council on Foreign
Relations, Columbia University, Cornell University, Emerson College,
the Great Hall at Cooper Union, Georgetown University, the National
Press Club, the Nieman Fellows Program at Harvard University, the
University of Montana, the Jewish Community Center in Newton,
Massachusetts, and Congregation Kam Isaiah Israel in Chicago. In all
but one of these venues we appeared on our own, i.e., without someone
from the "other side." As one would expect, we often faced vigorous
questions from members of the audience, which invariably included
individuals who disagreed in fundamental ways with some of our
arguments. Nevertheless, the back-and-forth at each of these events
was always civil, and quite a few participants said that they
benefited from listening to us and to our interlocutors.
Second, the Council has recently welcomed speakers who do represent a
"contending viewpoint," and they have appeared on their own. Consider
the case of Michael Oren, an Israeli-American author, who appeared at
the Council on February 8, 2007, to talk about "The Middle East and
the United States: A Long and Complicated Relationship." Oren has a
different view of U.S. Middle East policy than we do; indeed, he gave
a keynote address at AIPAC's annual policy conference this past spring
that directly challenged our perspective. We believe it was entirely
appropriate for the Council to have invited him to speak, and without
having a representative from an opposing group there to debate him.
The Council has also welcomed a number of other speakers on this
general topic in recent years, such as Dennis Ross, Max Boot and
Rashid Khalidi, and none of their appearances included someone
representing a "contending view."
One might argue that our views are too controversial to be presented
on their own. However, they are seen as controversial only because
some of the groups and individuals that we criticized in our original
article have misrepresented what we said or leveled unjustified
charges at us personally-such as the baseless claim that we (or our
views) are anti-Semitic. The purpose of these charges, of course, is
to discourage respected organizations like the Council from giving us
an audience, or to create conditions where they feel compelled to
include "contending views" in order to preserve "balance" and to
insulate themselves from external criticism.
In fact, our views are not extreme. Our book does not question
Israel's right to exist and does not portray pro-Israel groups in the
United States as some sort of conspiracy to "control" U.S. foreign
policy. Rather, it describes these groups and individuals-both Jewish
and gentile-as simply an effective special interest group whose
activities are not substantially different from groups like the NRA,
the farm lobby, the AARP, or other ethnic lobbies. Its activities, in
other words, are as American as apple pie, although we argue that its
influence has helped produce policies that are not in the U.S.
national interest. We also suggest that these policies have been
unintentionally harmful to Israel as well, and that a different course
of action would be better for both countries. It is not obvious to us
why such views could not be included in the Council's schedule.
Although we find it somewhat unseemly to refer to our own careers, it
is perhaps worth noting that we are both well-established figures with
solid mainstream credentials. We are fortunate to occupy chaired
professorships at distinguished universities, and to have been elected
members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. We have both
held important leadership positions at Chicago or Harvard, each of us
serves on the editorial boards of several leading foreign policy
journals (such as Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy), and we have
both done consulting work for U.S. government agencies. Given our
backgrounds, the idea that it would be inappropriate for us to appear
on our own at a Council session seems far-fetched.
Finally, and most importantly, we believe that the decision to cancel
our appearance is antithetical to the principle of open discussion
that underpins American democracy, and that is so essential for
maximizing the prospects that our country pursues a wise foreign
policy. In essence, we believe this is a case in which a handful of
people who disagree with our views have used their influence to
intimidate Marshall into rescinding the Council's invitation to us, so
as to insure that interested members will not hear what we have to say
about Israeli policy, the U.S. relationship with Israel, and the lobby
itself. This is not the way we are supposed to address important
issues of public policy in the United States, and it is surely not the
way the Council normally conducts its business. This is undoubtedly
why Marshall, who is a very smart and decent man, felt so
uncomfortable calling us to say that the event had been cancelled. He
knew this decision was contrary to everything that the Council is
supposed to represent.
The Chicago Council is obviously under no obligation to grant us a
venue, and we are not writing in an attempt to reverse this decision.
But given the importance of the issues that are raised in our book, we
are genuinely disappointed that we will not have the benefit of open
exchange with the Council's members, including those who might want to
challenge our arguments or conclusions. The United States and its
allies-including Israel-face many challenging problems in the Middle
East, and our country will not be able to address them intelligently
if we cannot have an open and civilized discussion about U.S.
interests in the region, and the various factors that shape American
policy there. Regrettably, the decision to cancel our appearance has
made that much-needed conversation more difficult.
Sincerely,
John J. Mearsheimer
R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political
Science
University of Chicago
Stephen M. Walt
Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs
Harvard
University
Posted at 08:37 AM in Politics, Culture, Religion, U.S. Policy in the
Mideast
www.philipweiss.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email to Chicago Council on Global Affairs re: ban of M/W
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=77114
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"Many Americans are convinced that military coercion serves our
interest. They cite Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now they are
ready to bring Iran and Pakistan to heel with bombs."
August 15, 2007
The Peculiar Relationship
"No American President Can Stand Up to Israel"
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"No American President can stand up to Israel."
These words came from feisty Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval
Operations (1967-1970) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
(1970-1974). Moorer was, perhaps, the last independent- minded
American military leader.
Admiral Moorer knew what he was talking about. On June 8, 1967, Israel
attacked the American intelligence ship, USS Liberty, killing 34
American sailors and wounding 173. The Israelis even strafed the life
rafts, machine-gunning the American sailors leaving the stricken ship.
Apparently, the USS Liberty had picked up Israeli communications that
revealed Israel's responsibility for the Seven Day War. Even today,
history books and the majority of Americans blame the conflict on the
Arabs.
The United States Navy knew the truth, but the President of the United
States took Israel's side against the American military and ordered
the United States Navy to shut its mouth. President Lyndon Johnson
said it was all just a mistake. Later in life, Admiral Moorer formed a
commission and presented the unvarnished truth to Americans.
The power of the Israel Lobby over American foreign policy is
considerable. In March 2006, two distinguished American scholars, John
Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, expressed concern in the London Review
of Books that the power of the Israel Lobby was bending US foreign
policy in directions that serve neither US nor Israeli interests. The
two experts were hoping to start a debate that might rescue the US and
Israel from unsuccessful policies of coercion that are intensifying
Muslim hatred of Israel and America. The Israel lobby was opposed to
any such reassessment, and attempted to close it off with epithets:
"Jew-baiter, " "anti-Semitic, " and even "anti-American. " Today
Israeli citizens who oppose Zionist plans for greater Israel are
denounced as "anti-Semites. "
Many Americans are unaware of the influence of the Israel lobby.
Instead they think of the US as "the world's sole superpower," a macho
new Roman Empire whose orders are obeyed without question or the
insolent nonentity is "bombed back to the stone age." Many Americans
are convinced that military coercion serves our interest. They cite
Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now they are ready to bring Iran
and Pakistan to heel with bombs.
This arrogance results in the murder of tens of thousands, perhaps
hundreds of thousands, of men, women and children, a fate that many
Americans seem to believe is appropriate for countries that do not
accept US hegemony.
Coercion is what American foreign policy has become. Macho
superpatriots love it. Many of these superpatriots derive vicarious
pleasure from their delusions that America is "kicking those sand
******s' asses."
This is the America of the Bush Regime. If some of these superpatriots
had their way every "unpatriotic, terrorist supporter" who dares to
criticize the war against "the Islamofacists" would be sent to Gitmo,
if not shot on the spot.
These Bush supporters have morphed the Republican Party into the
Brownshirt Party. They cannot wait to attack Iran, preferably with
nuclear weapons. Impatient for Armageddon, some are so full of hubris
and self-righteousness that they actually believe that their support
for evil means they will be "wafted up to heaven." [see
It has come as a crippling blow to Democrats that "their" political
party is comfortable with Bush's America, and will do nothing to stop
the Bush regime's aggression against the Iraqi people or to prevent
the Bush regime's attack on Iran.
The Democrats could easily impeach both Bush and Cheney in the House,
as impeachment only requires a majority vote. They could not convict
in the Senate without Republican support, as conviction requires
ratification by two-thirds of Senators present. Nevertheless, a House
vote for impeachment would take the wind out of the sails of war, save
countless lives and perhaps even save humanity from nuclear holocaust.
Various rationales or excuses have been constructed for the Democrats'
complicity in aggression that does not serve America. Perhaps the most
popular rationale is that the Democrats are letting the Republicans
have all the rope they want with which to produce such a high
disapproval rating that the Democrats will sweep the 2008 election.
It is doubtful that the Democrats would assume that men as cunning as
Karl Rove and Dick Cheney do not understand the electoral consequences
of a low public approval rating and are walking blindly into an
electoral wipeout. Rove's departure does not mean that no strategy is
in place.
So what does explain the complicity of the Democratic Party in a
policy that the American public, and especially Democratic
constituencies, reject? Perhaps a clue is offered from the
Minneapolis- St. Paul Star Tribune news report (August 1, 2007) that
Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison will spend a week in Israel on "a
privately funded trip sponsored by the American Israel Education
Federation. The AIEF--the charitable arm of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC)--is sending 19 members of Congress to meet
with Israeli leaders. The group, made up mostly of freshman Democrats,
has plans to meet with Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and [puppet]
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The senior Democratic member on
the trip is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has gone three
times. . . . The trip to Israel is Ellison's second as a congressman.
"
According to the Star-Tribune, a Republican group, which includes Rep.
Michele Bachmann (R, Minn), led by Rep. Eric Cantor (R, Va) is already
in Israel. According to news reports, another 40 are following these
two groups during the August recess, and "by the time the year is out
every single member of Congress will have made their rounds in
Israel." This claim is probably overstated, but it does show careful
Israeli management of US policy in the Middle East.
Elsewhere on earth and especially among Muslims, the suspicion is rife
that the reason the war against Iraq cannot end, and the reason Iran
and Syria must be attacked, is that the US must destroy all Muslim
opposition to Israel's theft of Palestine, turning an entire people
into refugees driven from their homes and from the lands on which they
have lived for many centuries. Americans might think that they are
merely grabbing control over oil, keeping it out of the hands of
terrorists, but that is not the way the rest of the world views the
conflict.
Jimmy Carter was the last American president who stood up to Israel
and demanded that US diplomacy be, at least officially if not in
practice, even-handed in its approach to Israel and Palestine. Since
Carter's presidency, even-handedness has slowly drained from US policy
in the Middle East. The neoconservative Bush/Cheney regime has
abandoned even the pretense of even-handedness.
This is unfortunate, because military coercion has proven to be
unsuccessful. Exhausted from the conflict, the US military, according
to former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, Colin Powell, is "nearly broken." Demoralized elite West
Point graduates are leaving the army at the fastest clip in 30 years.
Desertions are rapidly rising. A friend, a US Marine officer who
served in combat in Vietnam, recently wrote to me that his son's
Marine unit, currently training for its third deployment to Iraq in
September, is short 12-16 men in every platoon and expects to be hit
with more AWOLs prior to deployment.
Instead of re-evaluating a failed policy, Bush's "war tsar," General
Douglas Lute, has called for the reinstitution of the draft. Gen. Lute
doesn't see why Americans should not be returned to military servitude
in order to save the Bush administration the embarrassment of having
to correct a mistaken Middle East policy that commits the US to more
aggression and to debilitating long-term military conflict in the
Middle East.
It is difficult to see how this policy serves any interest other than
the very narrow one of the armaments industry. Apparently, nothing can
be done to change this disastrous policy until the Israel Lobby comes
to the realization that Israel's interest is not being served by the
current policy of military coercion.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
'This One Is So Hot': The Censorship of Walt and Mearsheimer
I now have a copy of the letter John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt sent
to the board of the Chicago Global Affairs Council after it cancelled
their September appearance there under political pressure. The letter
follows, below.
A couple of comments. This is a sad business. Two distinguished profs
who have both spoken at the Council before are disinvited regretfully/
squeamishly by a respected professional friend, and informed that they
might only speak if someone else comes to counter their statements.
The old "context" argument used against Rachel Corrie and everyone
else. Your views are too toxic to be heard unless we "balance" them.
Walt and Mearsheimer point out that Michael Oren spoke at the Council
earlier this year on Middle East matters without "context." Oren is a
neoconservative who made aliyah to Israel in the 70s and who served as
an officer in the Israeli army. John Mearsheimer served as an officer
in the United States Air Force. Let us be very clear about this: A
former officer in the Israeli Army who lives in Israel (and has lately
served in the Israeli Reserves) may hold forth about our policy in the
Middle East, but a former officer in our Air Force has no place to do
the same. You don't have to be a nativist to find this mindboggling.
Mearsheimer and Walt are all for Oren speaking, they just want to be
able to speak too. And just compare the literary and analytical work
of Oren and Mearsheimer; there is no comparison. Oren is a polemicist,
Mearsheimer a serious student of American policy. Deeply dispiriting.
Where is Alan Dershowitz, to decry the censorship?
I'm upset. I tell myself that this just shows how afraid the other
side is of the truth, but face it, they're winning. Last night my wife
said at dinner that I am "paying a price" for my views on the Middle
East. I have a long career as a journalist. I lost a blog-job earlier
this year over these issues, I can't get paying assignments to write
about these matters; and they are all that I care about, as my country
fumbles through the aftermath of 9/11 and Iraq. I sense some of that
same sorrow in the Walt and Mearsheimer letter that follows. At the
peaks of their careers, they have devoted themselves to these policy
issues out of some sense of duty; and they're not being allowed to
speak. It appears from the letter that a friendship has ended: the
authors' with Marshall Bouton. How long before the country wakes up
from this madness?
August 5, 2007
[Addressed, individually, to board members of the Council, and to
members of Council committees]
We are writing to bring to your attention a troubling incident
involving the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. We do so reluctantly,
as we have both enjoyed our prior associations with the Council and we
have great respect for its aims and accomplishments. Nonetheless, we
felt this was an episode that should not pass without comment.
On September 4, 2007, our book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the most
highly respected publishers in the United States. Through our
publisher, the Council issued an invitation for both of us to speak at
a session on September 27, 2007. We were delighted to accept, as each
of us had spoken at the Council on several occasions in the past and
knew we would attract a diverse and well-informed audience that would
engage us in a lively and productive discussion.
On July 19, while discussing the details of our visit with Sharon
Houtkamp, who was handling the arrangements at the Council, we learned
that the Council had already received a number of communications
protesting our appearance. We were not particularly surprised by this
news, as we had seen a similar pattern of behavior after our original
article on "The Israel Lobby" appeared in the London Review of Books
in March 2006. We were still looking forward to the event, however,
especially because it gave us an opportunity to engage these issues in
an open forum.
Then, on July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us
(Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was cancelling the event. He
said he felt "extremely uncomfortable making this call" and that his
decision did not reflect his personal views on the subject of our
book. Instead, he explained that his decision was based on the need
"to protect the institution." He said that he had a serious "political
problem," because there were individuals who would be angry if he gave
us a venue to speak, and that this would have serious negative
consequences for the Council. "This one is so hot," Marshall
maintained, that he could not present it at a Council session unless
someone from "the other side"-such as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-
Defamation League-was on stage with us. At the very least, he needed
to present "contending viewpoints." But he said it was too late to try
to change the format, as the fall schedule was being finalized and
there would not be sufficient time to arrange an alternate date. He
showed little interest in doing anything with us in 2008 or beyond.
Several comments are in order regarding this situation.
First, since the publication of our original article on the Israel
lobby, we have appeared either singly or together at a number of
different venues, including Brown University, the Council on Foreign
Relations, Columbia University, Cornell University, Emerson College,
the Great Hall at Cooper Union, Georgetown University, the National
Press Club, the Nieman Fellows Program at Harvard University, the
University of Montana, the Jewish Community Center in Newton,
Massachusetts, and Congregation Kam Isaiah Israel in Chicago. In all
but one of these venues we appeared on our own, i.e., without someone
from the "other side." As one would expect, we often faced vigorous
questions from members of the audience, which invariably included
individuals who disagreed in fundamental ways with some of our
arguments. Nevertheless, the back-and-forth at each of these events
was always civil, and quite a few participants said that they
benefited from listening to us and to our interlocutors.
Second, the Council has recently welcomed speakers who do represent a
"contending viewpoint," and they have appeared on their own. Consider
the case of Michael Oren, an Israeli-American author, who appeared at
the Council on February 8, 2007, to talk about "The Middle East and
the United States: A Long and Complicated Relationship." Oren has a
different view of U.S. Middle East policy than we do; indeed, he gave
a keynote address at AIPAC's annual policy conference this past spring
that directly challenged our perspective. We believe it was entirely
appropriate for the Council to have invited him to speak, and without
having a representative from an opposing group there to debate him.
The Council has also welcomed a number of other speakers on this
general topic in recent years, such as Dennis Ross, Max Boot and
Rashid Khalidi, and none of their appearances included someone
representing a "contending view."
One might argue that our views are too controversial to be presented
on their own. However, they are seen as controversial only because
some of the groups and individuals that we criticized in our original
article have misrepresented what we said or leveled unjustified
charges at us personally-such as the baseless claim that we (or our
views) are anti-Semitic. The purpose of these charges, of course, is
to discourage respected organizations like the Council from giving us
an audience, or to create conditions where they feel compelled to
include "contending views" in order to preserve "balance" and to
insulate themselves from external criticism.
In fact, our views are not extreme. Our book does not question
Israel's right to exist and does not portray pro-Israel groups in the
United States as some sort of conspiracy to "control" U.S. foreign
policy. Rather, it describes these groups and individuals-both Jewish
and gentile-as simply an effective special interest group whose
activities are not substantially different from groups like the NRA,
the farm lobby, the AARP, or other ethnic lobbies. Its activities, in
other words, are as American as apple pie, although we argue that its
influence has helped produce policies that are not in the U.S.
national interest. We also suggest that these policies have been
unintentionally harmful to Israel as well, and that a different course
of action would be better for both countries. It is not obvious to us
why such views could not be included in the Council's schedule.
Although we find it somewhat unseemly to refer to our own careers, it
is perhaps worth noting that we are both well-established figures with
solid mainstream credentials. We are fortunate to occupy chaired
professorships at distinguished universities, and to have been elected
members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. We have both
held important leadership positions at Chicago or Harvard, each of us
serves on the editorial boards of several leading foreign policy
journals (such as Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy), and we have
both done consulting work for U.S. government agencies. Given our
backgrounds, the idea that it would be inappropriate for us to appear
on our own at a Council session seems far-fetched.
Finally, and most importantly, we believe that the decision to cancel
our appearance is antithetical to the principle of open discussion
that underpins American democracy, and that is so essential for
maximizing the prospects that our country pursues a wise foreign
policy. In essence, we believe this is a case in which a handful of
people who disagree with our views have used their influence to
intimidate Marshall into rescinding the Council's invitation to us, so
as to insure that interested members will not hear what we have to say
about Israeli policy, the U.S. relationship with Israel, and the lobby
itself. This is not the way we are supposed to address important
issues of public policy in the United States, and it is surely not the
way the Council normally conducts its business. This is undoubtedly
why Marshall, who is a very smart and decent man, felt so
uncomfortable calling us to say that the event had been cancelled. He
knew this decision was contrary to everything that the Council is
supposed to represent.
The Chicago Council is obviously under no obligation to grant us a
venue, and we are not writing in an attempt to reverse this decision.
But given the importance of the issues that are raised in our book, we
are genuinely disappointed that we will not have the benefit of open
exchange with the Council's members, including those who might want to
challenge our arguments or conclusions. The United States and its
allies-including Israel-face many challenging problems in the Middle
East, and our country will not be able to address them intelligently
if we cannot have an open and civilized discussion about U.S.
interests in the region, and the various factors that shape American
policy there. Regrettably, the decision to cancel our appearance has
made that much-needed conversation more difficult.
Sincerely,
John J. Mearsheimer
R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political
Science
University of Chicago
Stephen M. Walt
Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs
Harvard
University
Posted at 08:37 AM in Politics, Culture, Religion, U.S. Policy in the
Mideast
www.philipweiss.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email to Chicago Council on Global Affairs re: ban of M/W
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=77114
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Many Americans are convinced that military coercion serves our
interest. They cite Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now they are
ready to bring Iran and Pakistan to heel with bombs."
August 15, 2007
The Peculiar Relationship
"No American President Can Stand Up to Israel"
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"No American President can stand up to Israel."
These words came from feisty Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval
Operations (1967-1970) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
(1970-1974). Moorer was, perhaps, the last independent- minded
American military leader.
Admiral Moorer knew what he was talking about. On June 8, 1967, Israel
attacked the American intelligence ship, USS Liberty, killing 34
American sailors and wounding 173. The Israelis even strafed the life
rafts, machine-gunning the American sailors leaving the stricken ship.
Apparently, the USS Liberty had picked up Israeli communications that
revealed Israel's responsibility for the Seven Day War. Even today,
history books and the majority of Americans blame the conflict on the
Arabs.
The United States Navy knew the truth, but the President of the United
States took Israel's side against the American military and ordered
the United States Navy to shut its mouth. President Lyndon Johnson
said it was all just a mistake. Later in life, Admiral Moorer formed a
commission and presented the unvarnished truth to Americans.
The power of the Israel Lobby over American foreign policy is
considerable. In March 2006, two distinguished American scholars, John
Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, expressed concern in the London Review
of Books that the power of the Israel Lobby was bending US foreign
policy in directions that serve neither US nor Israeli interests. The
two experts were hoping to start a debate that might rescue the US and
Israel from unsuccessful policies of coercion that are intensifying
Muslim hatred of Israel and America. The Israel lobby was opposed to
any such reassessment, and attempted to close it off with epithets:
"Jew-baiter, " "anti-Semitic, " and even "anti-American. " Today
Israeli citizens who oppose Zionist plans for greater Israel are
denounced as "anti-Semites. "
Many Americans are unaware of the influence of the Israel lobby.
Instead they think of the US as "the world's sole superpower," a macho
new Roman Empire whose orders are obeyed without question or the
insolent nonentity is "bombed back to the stone age." Many Americans
are convinced that military coercion serves our interest. They cite
Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now they are ready to bring Iran
and Pakistan to heel with bombs.
This arrogance results in the murder of tens of thousands, perhaps
hundreds of thousands, of men, women and children, a fate that many
Americans seem to believe is appropriate for countries that do not
accept US hegemony.
Coercion is what American foreign policy has become. Macho
superpatriots love it. Many of these superpatriots derive vicarious
pleasure from their delusions that America is "kicking those sand
******s' asses."
This is the America of the Bush Regime. If some of these superpatriots
had their way every "unpatriotic, terrorist supporter" who dares to
criticize the war against "the Islamofacists" would be sent to Gitmo,
if not shot on the spot.
These Bush supporters have morphed the Republican Party into the
Brownshirt Party. They cannot wait to attack Iran, preferably with
nuclear weapons. Impatient for Armageddon, some are so full of hubris
and self-righteousness that they actually believe that their support
for evil means they will be "wafted up to heaven." [see
It has come as a crippling blow to Democrats that "their" political
party is comfortable with Bush's America, and will do nothing to stop
the Bush regime's aggression against the Iraqi people or to prevent
the Bush regime's attack on Iran.
The Democrats could easily impeach both Bush and Cheney in the House,
as impeachment only requires a majority vote. They could not convict
in the Senate without Republican support, as conviction requires
ratification by two-thirds of Senators present. Nevertheless, a House
vote for impeachment would take the wind out of the sails of war, save
countless lives and perhaps even save humanity from nuclear holocaust.
Various rationales or excuses have been constructed for the Democrats'
complicity in aggression that does not serve America. Perhaps the most
popular rationale is that the Democrats are letting the Republicans
have all the rope they want with which to produce such a high
disapproval rating that the Democrats will sweep the 2008 election.
It is doubtful that the Democrats would assume that men as cunning as
Karl Rove and Dick Cheney do not understand the electoral consequences
of a low public approval rating and are walking blindly into an
electoral wipeout. Rove's departure does not mean that no strategy is
in place.
So what does explain the complicity of the Democratic Party in a
policy that the American public, and especially Democratic
constituencies, reject? Perhaps a clue is offered from the
Minneapolis- St. Paul Star Tribune news report (August 1, 2007) that
Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison will spend a week in Israel on "a
privately funded trip sponsored by the American Israel Education
Federation. The AIEF--the charitable arm of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC)--is sending 19 members of Congress to meet
with Israeli leaders. The group, made up mostly of freshman Democrats,
has plans to meet with Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and [puppet]
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The senior Democratic member on
the trip is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has gone three
times. . . . The trip to Israel is Ellison's second as a congressman.
"
According to the Star-Tribune, a Republican group, which includes Rep.
Michele Bachmann (R, Minn), led by Rep. Eric Cantor (R, Va) is already
in Israel. According to news reports, another 40 are following these
two groups during the August recess, and "by the time the year is out
every single member of Congress will have made their rounds in
Israel." This claim is probably overstated, but it does show careful
Israeli management of US policy in the Middle East.
Elsewhere on earth and especially among Muslims, the suspicion is rife
that the reason the war against Iraq cannot end, and the reason Iran
and Syria must be attacked, is that the US must destroy all Muslim
opposition to Israel's theft of Palestine, turning an entire people
into refugees driven from their homes and from the lands on which they
have lived for many centuries. Americans might think that they are
merely grabbing control over oil, keeping it out of the hands of
terrorists, but that is not the way the rest of the world views the
conflict.
Jimmy Carter was the last American president who stood up to Israel
and demanded that US diplomacy be, at least officially if not in
practice, even-handed in its approach to Israel and Palestine. Since
Carter's presidency, even-handedness has slowly drained from US policy
in the Middle East. The neoconservative Bush/Cheney regime has
abandoned even the pretense of even-handedness.
This is unfortunate, because military coercion has proven to be
unsuccessful. Exhausted from the conflict, the US military, according
to former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, Colin Powell, is "nearly broken." Demoralized elite West
Point graduates are leaving the army at the fastest clip in 30 years.
Desertions are rapidly rising. A friend, a US Marine officer who
served in combat in Vietnam, recently wrote to me that his son's
Marine unit, currently training for its third deployment to Iraq in
September, is short 12-16 men in every platoon and expects to be hit
with more AWOLs prior to deployment.
Instead of re-evaluating a failed policy, Bush's "war tsar," General
Douglas Lute, has called for the reinstitution of the draft. Gen. Lute
doesn't see why Americans should not be returned to military servitude
in order to save the Bush administration the embarrassment of having
to correct a mistaken Middle East policy that commits the US to more
aggression and to debilitating long-term military conflict in the
Middle East.
It is difficult to see how this policy serves any interest other than
the very narrow one of the armaments industry. Apparently, nothing can
be done to change this disastrous policy until the Israel Lobby comes
to the realization that Israel's interest is not being served by the
current policy of military coercion.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.