A few weeks back I brought up the charge of dual loyalty with respect to the neocons who claim that Israel’s interests and the U.S.’s interests are identical. A very sensitive question, yes, and a lot of people got upset with me, including friends.
Well now in The New Republic, John Judis has joined me in legitimizing this question. Here is the money quote:
On the one hand, Rosenfeld, Harris, and others want to deny that American Jews and American Jewish organizations like AIPAC suffer from dual loyalty in trying to influence U.S. foreign policy. It’s anti-Semitic or contributes to anti-Semitism, they say, to make that charge. On the other hand, they want to demand of American Jewish intellectuals a certain loyalty to Israel, Israeli policies, and to Zionism as part of their being Jewish. They make dual loyalty an inescapable part of being Jewish in a world in which a Jewish state exists. And that’s probably the case. Many Jews now suffer from dual loyalty–the same way that Cuban-Americans or Mexican-Americans do. By ignoring this dilemma–and, worse still, by charging those who acknowledge its existence with anti-Semitism– the critics of the new anti-Semitism are engaged in a flight from their own political selves. They are guilty of a certain kind of bad faith.
This is intellectually valiant work, Judis should be applauded; and TNR praised for running the piece. As for the demand made on Jewish intellectuals to be loyal to Israel, it is one that anyone who has worked for the New Republic (I did it once, and carried Marty Peretz’s anti-U.N. water for him) has experienced.
Wow, I’m just stunned by this. It’s another achievement of the AJC report, which Judis’s piece addresses (and of Walt-Mearsheimer, who broke the whole thing open). Don’t you see what is happening? The dual-loyalty question is being mainstreamed. The degree to which neocons and neolibs and American Jewish journalists generally have been recruited in passive/unconscious identification with Israel is, as I’ve said here before, a legitimate issue. The suppression in the American Jewish community of any alternative discourse to Zionism—well, thanks to the AJC, the bridges are being dynamited…
Related posts:
- John Judis Scooped Joe Klein on ‘Dual Loyalty,’ But You Can’t Find His Piece on TNR Site
- The New Republic Raises Dual Loyalty Issue, Re Israeli Arabs
- Former ‘60 Minutes’ Star Joins List of Those Alleging Dual Loyalty Re Israel
- ‘JPost’ addresses dual loyalty issue in American Jews
- Why I Talk About Dual Loyalty
{ 12 comments }
Here is a must-read commentary on Iran, AIPAC and what the New York Sun calls the ATM for American politicians:
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/02/enforced-orthodoxies-and-iran.html
"…So, according to The New York Sun (and the sources it cites): (1) financial support from groups like AIPAC is indispensable for presidential candidates; (2) the New York Jewish community of "influential" donors is a key part of the "ATM for American politicians"; (3) the issue which they care about most is Iran; and (4) they want a hawkish, hard-line position taken against Iran. And the presidential candidates — such as Clinton and Edwards — are embracing AIPAC's anti-Iran position in order to curry favor with that group.
If any public figure made those same points, they would be excoriated, accused of all sorts of heinous crimes, and forced into repentance rituals (ask Wes Clark). But this is what the New York Sun reported on Thursday.
…It is simply true that there are large and extremely influential Jewish donor groups which are agitating for a U.S. war against Iran, and that is the case because those groups are devoted to promoting Israel's interests and they perceive it to be in Israel's interests for the U.S. to militarily confront Iran. That is what the Sun and the Post have made clear.
There is just no point in denying that or pretending it is not the case, and in any event, the way in which these groups have ratcheted up their explicit anti-Iran advocacy has made it impossible for these facts to be concealed any longer (and, as I have noted before, neoconservatives have been increasingly arguing that American Jews of all political stripes are compelled to support the Bush administration because of its supposedly "pro-Israel" policies — a claim grounded in the very "dual loyalty" theories which they claim to find so offensive and outrageous when advanced by others)."
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Here is the original New York Sun article:
http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=47843
Enjoy!
BTW, thanks to Ben for posting the link to Glenn Greenwald's blog a couple of weeks ago.
Alan, you guys, Phil included seem to thank every article is stuning, important, remarkable. Do you spend all your waking hours scouring the internet for this shit. The NY Sun is on sale at most news stands. I know you think that aipac has its tentacles, well everywhere, ah if only it was true. But of course that's exactly the thing I would say has a member of the cabal I suppose.
I looked at the follow-up NY Sun article, "Imagining a War With Iran"
"Iran will respond with …. attacks against American troops inside Iraq ….
"Tehran's most lethal weapon is manpower. From its army, it can marshal several hundred thousand troops along its borders with Iraq and Afghanistan to pressure American forces in those countries …..
"Two Iraqi Shiite militias allied with Iran, the Badr Brigades and Mahdi Army, led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and Moqtada al-Sadr, respectively will launch large-scale attacks on American troops inside Iraq.
"Together, Messrs. Hakim and Sadr command some 80,000 to 100,000 men, who are armed, funded, and trained by Iran."
– It looks like The Sun has got it figured out the same way as Col. Lang, but the difference is the value (or lack of it) attached to the American troops now present in the region.
Back to 'Imagining War'
"In an all-out war, the basic American military tactic will be air attacks, naval blockades, offshore bombardments, and the destruction of oil and power infrastructures and Iran's naval presence in the Persian Gulf."
– Another important throw-away line from the NY Sun. Any interruption in the flow of oil anywhere in the world will, at this time of peak oil energy crisis, cause a world-wide economic depression with oil prices per barrel over $100 and gas prices here $6, $7, $8 and up per gallon.
And the reason the US would undertake to do this military attack on Iran is for what?
I made myself feel better by going back to the NY Sun article and reading the commentary. Out of a dozen comments, only two resonated with 'imagining war'. Here's an example of the majority reaction to this piece:
(title)"This Strikes Me As Simplistic"
Reader comment on article: Imagining A War With Iran
Submitted by Chasli, Feb 2, 2007 13:05
"It seems to me the author here is grossly simplifying this whole scenario. If the US is isolated in the world because of its Iraq fiasco, it would be even more so by an invasion of Iran. As far as I can tell there is no other country that thinks that an invasion would be reasonable — except of course for Israel. A US invasion would be widely condemned internationally and most certainly by the UN. Domestically, while the democrats have been hesitant to de-fund the efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is just no way they would fund an invasion of Iran. While the article touches on the certainty of Iranian terrorism in the Gulf region, it doesn't consider the possibility of Iranian terrorism in the US. There are many many Iranians living here in the US and it goes without saying that many are Iranian agents. The potential for terrorist havoc here at home would be very real. While the price of oil was indeed contained during the Iran-Iraq War, given the huge increase in oil demand since 1988 especially from India and China I find it presumptuous to think that the price of oil after an Iranian invasion could be contained at $75. What I am saying is that your scenario doesn't come close to taking into account all that an invasion of Iran would entail. It would give a whole new meaning to "imperial overstretch." It would be ugly beyond anything you apparently can imagine."
– I don't think that imagining peace is any more unrealistic than imagining war at this point.
Here's the link:
http://www.nysun.com/article/47946
The vulnerability of the long, thin supply lines is of major concern to military planners.
Most poeple don't realize that once supply lines are compromised, armies vanish or surrender. See WWII and encirclement tactics (Eastern Front) that forced repeatedly the surrender of huge armies which had still weapons, ammunition and the willing to fight but no fuel and nothing to eat or drink.
It's a nightmare scenario.
Here is a pessimistic assessment of all this by the originator of Fourth Generation War theory:
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How to Lose an Army
Plow deep into Iraq and dare Iran to strike.
by William S. Lind
Lose a war, lose an election. What else did the Republicans expect? That is especially true for a war of choice, which is to say a war we should not have fought. It is difficult to imagine that, had Spain defeated the U.S. in 1898, the Republicans would have won the election in 1900.
What does the Democrats victory mean for the war in Iraq? Regrettably, not what it should, namely an immediate American withdrawal from a hopelessly lost enterprise. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, both of whom now want to get out, desire to go into the 2008 election as the party that lost Iraq, which is how taking the lead for withdrawal could be painted. Instead, both parties in Congress and the White House are likely to agree only on a series of half-measures, none of which will work. We will stay bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire for another two years, as the troops caught in Operation Provide Targets continue to die.
A more critical if less obvious question is what do the results of the election mean for a prospective attack on Iran? On the surface, the Democrats seizure of both houses of Congress would seem to be good news. Having won their majorities because the American people want out of a war, they ought to be reluctant to jump into a second one.
Regrettably, that logic may be too simple. Because an attack on Iran will be launched with no warning, the Bush administration will not have to consult Congress beforehand. Congress could take the initiative and forbid such an attack preemptively (no funds may be expended ). But in an imperial capital where court politics count far more than the nations interests, Democrats may prefer to risk a second war, and a second debacle, rather than open themselves up to a charge of being weak on terrorism. The Democrats approach to national-security issues through the fall campaign was to hide under the bed and ignore them as much as possible. That worked politically, so they are likely to stick with it.
The Bush administration, for its part, will be tempted to do what small men have done throughout history when in trouble: try to escalate their way out of it. The White House has already half-convinced itself that the majority of its troubles in Iraq stem from Iran and Syria, a line the neocons push assiduously.
The departure of Donald Rumsfeld, which was greeted in the Pentagon with joyful choruses of Ding-dong, the witch is dead, may help to avert an invasion. His successor, Robert Gates, has no background in defense and is therefore likely to defer to the generals, for good or for ill. In this case for good, as the generals emphatically do not want a war with Iran. But for Gates to block White House demands for an attack on Iran, he would have to threaten to resign. Is he the sort of man to do that? Thats not how bureaucrats build their careers, an observation that holds for the generals as well.
The elephant in the parlor is, of course, the fact that Israel wants an attack on Iran, and for Republicans and Democrats alike, Israel is She Who Must Be Obeyed. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ran to Washington as soon as the election was over, and the subject of his discussions with President Bush is easy to imagine. Who will do the dirty deed and when? Iran has already announced that it will consider an attack by Israel an attack by the U.S. as well and respond accordingly, so the difference may not much matter.
That response should concern us, to put it mildly, for that is where a war with Iran and the war in Iraq intersect. The Iranians have said that this time they have 140,000 American hostages, in the form of U.S. troops in Iraq. If either Israel or the U.S. attacks Iran, we could lose an army.
How could such a thing happen? The danger springs from the fact that almost all the supplies our forces in Iraq use, including vital fuel for their vehicles, comes over one supply line, which runs toward the south and the port in Kuwait. If that line were cut, our forces might not have enough fuel to get out of Iraq. American armies are enormously fuel-thirsty.
One might think that fuel would be abundant in Iraq, which is (or was) a major oil exporter. In fact, because of the ongoing chaos, Iraq is short of refined oil products. Our forces, if cut off from their own logistics, could not simply fuel up at local gas stations as German Gen. Heinz Guderians Panzer Corps did on its way to the English Channel in the 1940 campaign against France.
There are two ways, not mutually exclusive, that Iran could attempt to cut our supply line in Iraq in response to an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. The first would be by encouraging Shiite militias to which it is allied, including the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades, to rise up against us throughout southern Iraq, which is Shiite country. The militias would be supported by widespread infiltration of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who have shown themselves to be good at this kind of thing. They are the people who trained and equipped Hezbollah for its successful defense of southern Lebanon against the vaunted Israeli army this past summer.
The Shiite militias already lie across our single supply line, and we should expect them to cut it in response to Iranian requests. We are already at war with the Mahdi Army, against which our forces in Iraq have been launching a series of recent raids and air strikes. A British journalist I know, one with long experience in Iraq, told me he asked the head of SCIRI, which controls the Badr Brigades, how he would respond if the U.S. attacked Iran. Then, he replied, we would do our duty.
Iran has a second, bolder option it could combine with a Shiite insurrection at our rear. It could cross the Iran-Iraq border with several armored and mechanized divisions of the regular Iranian Army, sever our supply lines, then move to roll us up from the south with the aim of encircling us, perhaps in and around Baghdad. This would be a classic operational maneuver, the sort of thing for which armored forces are designed.
At present, U.S. forces in Iraq could be vulnerable to such an action by the Iranian army. We have no field army in Iraq; necessarily, our forces are penny-packeted all over the place, dealing with insurgents. They would be hard-pressed to assemble quickly to meet a regular force, especially if fuel was running short.
The U.S. militarys answer, as is too often the case, will be air power. It is true that American air power could destroy any Iranian armored formations it caught in the open. But there is a tried-and-true defense against air power, one the Iranians could employ: bad weather. Like the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, they could wait to launch their offensive until the weather promised a few days of protection. After that, they would be so close to our own forces that air power could not attack them without danger of hitting friendlies. (This is sometimes know as hugging tactics.) Reportedly, the Turkish General Staff thinks the Iranians can and will employ this second option, no doubt in combination with the first.
Perhaps the greatest danger lies in the fact that, just as the French high command refused to consider the possibility of a German attack through the Ardennes in 1940, Washington will not consider the possibility that an attack on Iran could cost us our army in Iraq. We have made one of the most common military mistakesbelieving our own propaganda. Over and over, the U.S. military tells the world and itself, No one can defeat us. No one can even fight us. We are the greatest military the world has ever seen!
Unfortunately, like most propaganda, its bunk. The U.S. Armed Forces are technically well-trained, lavishly resourced Second-Generation militaries. They are today being fought and beaten by Fourth-Generation opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can also be defeated by Third-Generation opponents who can react faster than Americas process-ridden, PowerPoint-enslaved military headquarters. They can be defeated by superior strategy, by trick, by surprise, and by preemption. Unbeatable militaries are like unsinkable ships: they are unsinkable until something sinks them.
If the U.S. were to lose the army it has in Iraq to Iraqi militias, Iranian regular forces, or a combination of both, cutting our one line of supply and then encircling us, the world would change. It would be our Adrianople, our Rocroi, our Stalingrad. American power and prestige would never recover. Nothing, not even Israels demands, should lead us to run this risk, which is inherent in any attack on Iran.
There is one action, a possibility opened by the Democrats electoral victory, that would stop the Bush administration from launching such an attack or allowing Israel to do so. If our senior military leaders, especially the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would go public with their opposition to such an adventure, the new Democratic majority in Congress would have to react. The public that put it in office on an antiwar platform would compel it to answer or lose all credibility. While the Joint Chiefs would infuriate the White House, they would receive the necessary political cover from the new Democratic Congress. The potential is there, for the generals and the Democrats alike.
For it to be realized, and the disaster of war with Iran to be averted, all the generals must do is show some courage. If the Joint Chiefs keep silent now and allow the folly of an attack on Iran to go forward, they will share in full the moral responsibility for the results, which may include the loss of an army. Perhaps we should call it Operation Cornwallis.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_12_18/article.html
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Lind
War Games look equally bad:
"September 2004
The Atlantic Monthly magazine commissions retired military officers, intelligence officials, and diplomats to participate in a war game scenario involving Iran. The three-hour war game deals strictly with how an American President might respond, militarily or otherwise, to Irans rapid progress toward developing nuclear weapons. Its main objective is to simulate the decision-making process that would likely take place during a meeting of the Principals Committee in the event that Iran ignores the deadline set by the IAEA to meet its demands. Kenneth Pollack, of the Brookings Institution, and Reuel Marc Gerecht, of the American Enterprise Institute, both play the role of secretary of statePollack with a more Democratic perspective and Gerecht as more of a Republican. David Kay plays the CIA director and Kenneth Bacon, a chief Pentagon spokesman during the Clinton Administration, is the White House chief of staff. Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, serves mostly as National Security Adviser, but plays other roles as well. He is also the person who designed the game. During the game, Israels influence on the administrations Iran policy is highlighted, with Pollack noting at one point, [I]n the absence of Israeli pressure how seriously would the United States be considering the use of military force against Iran? One of the largest concerns raised, shared by all of the participants, is that a US attack on Iran would provoke the Iranians to interfere in Iraq. [O]ne of the things we have going for us in Iraq, if I can use that term, is that the Iranians really have not made a major effort to thwart us … If they wanted to make our lives rough in Iraq, they could make Iraq hell. At the conclusion of the three-hour exercise, it is apparent that the players believe that the games scenario offered the US no feasible options for using military force against Iran. [Atlantic Monthly, 12/2004; Guardian, 1/18/2005]"
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=us_plans_to_use_military_force_against_iran&iran_general_topic_areas=us_force_against_iran_predictions
You've heard the expression ZOG, no doubt …
Rice Briefs Jewish Groups as Palestinians Make Deal
Says U.S. Wants To Create Political Horizon, But Wont Pressure Israel
Nathan Guttman, Forward, Feb 09, 2007
http://www.forward.com/articles/rice-briefs-jewish-groups-as-palestinians-make-dea
Washington Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Thursday with leaders from major Jewish organizations to discuss the latest developments on the Israeli-Palestinian front. The meeting took place minutes after a formal announcement was made in Mecca regarding the agreement reached on a Palestinian national unity government.
Rice, who had yet to read the new Palestinian platform, said that the United States was still insisting that Hamas accept all three conditions set forth by the Quartet: recognizing Israel, renouncing terror and accepting existing agreements with Jerusalem. She told the Jewish leaders that even if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sits in a unity government with Hamas, America would continue viewing him as a partner for negotiations. At the same time, Rice added, the United States would not meet with P.A. ministers aligned with Hamas.
As she responded to questions from representatives of Jewish organizations who attended the meeting, Rice detailed her goal of providing the Palestinians with a political horizon. She said that the goal of identifying a final destination, as she called it, is to eliminate misunderstanding between Palestinians and Israelis and to improve the atmosphere. According to several participants, Rice stressed the need to show the Palestinians that the key to achieving an independent state is in the hands of Abbas, not Hamas.
She also assured participants that the United States would not apply any pressure on Israel and would not come up with its own suggestions for the political horizon once negotiations begin. Rice is sponsoring a February 19 meeting between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
She was very reassuring, said one of the Jewish leaders who attended the meeting.
Rice also addressed the issue of Iran, saying that Teheran is vulnerable to international pressure; the international pressure on the Iran, she added, should continue. Contrary to the Russian view, Rice said, the United States believes that the pace of the actions against Iran should be picked up, because of the developments in its nuclear program.
The meeting, which took place at the State Department, lasted 45 minutes and was attended by leaders and Washington representatives of 15 major Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League, the United Jewish Communities, Jewish Council of Public Affairs, Americans for Peace Now, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Hillel, and the Republican Jewish Coalition, as well as Agudath Israel of America, Chabad, the Orthodox Union nd representatives of the Reform and Conservative synagogue movements.
Ah kameraden Rowan, you must be sorry you missed those great days with the einzatsgruppen. Babi Yar, Ponar, marching behind the army to the Volga. What great days they were, right.
BP's mutterings notwithstanding, I marvel at the level of discourse here and the insight provided by Philip and those contributing to the discussion. Their reference material is top-notch as well. Many thanks to you all.
The Israelis intend to destroy Iranian culture, they have no interest in democracy or regime change and other hollow pronouncements. A brutalized and impoverished Iran, like Iraq and the Occupied Territories, is the golden goal. They will get it but there will be decades of blowback in the US. I pray that American Jews, the only people with any possible influence, will vigorously agitate for less bloody and sadistic policies. Hubris never prevails.
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