The Foreign Affairs attack on Walt and Mearsheimer establishes a pattern. Elite opinion in the U.S. is gravely dismissive of the authors. Leslie Gelb in the New York Times. Walter Russell Mead for the Council on Foreign Relations. David Remnick in the New Yorker. I’m sure the Washington Post also pilloried them, I’m blanking on the review right now. Remnick had a funny/bitter line–From what these authors write you’d think that if we just ended the Palestinian issue Osama bin Laden would go back into the family construction business. Funny. Hey, why not try it. Then we could finally catch the bastard.
If you go on Amazon you get a completely different response. 59 out of 93 reviews are 5-star, the top. 454 people found "helpful" a review calling the book "Stunning." While 16 readers found helpful a review that dubbed M&W "Arab propagandists." That’s the divide. Note that the pro-Israel faction is small. This is dangerous sociology: the pro-Israel people are gathered in the elitist turrets, ready to release boiling oil on the masses. David Brooks saw this earlier this year with his analysis of realist isolationist populists versus globalist interventionists. (Wouldn’t mention Israel, though!)
M&W are themselves members-in-good-standing of the elite. Maybe members-in-bad-odor now! According to his bio, Mearsheimer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. I imagine former Harvard Dean Walt is, too, though his bio is silent. Why isn’t the CFR having Walt & Mearsheimer to a forum at their panelled sock on the East Side? The issues aren’t important enough?
A year ago the censors were asleep at the wheel, and CFR ran a positive item about Walt and Mearsheimer’s original paper. Foreign Affairs’s Middle East guy, L. Carl Brown, kvelled (that’s Yiddish, for gushed):
"May the storm kicked up by this article rage on. The role of pressure groups and lobbies in determining U.S. foreign policy is important. The U.S.-Israeli connection is important. The hardheaded analysis that Mearsheimer and Walt so cogently present cries out for careful consideration. It just might set in motion a useful paradigm shift in the United States’ Middle East policy."
Foreign Affairs promptly unshifted that paradigm shift by running a letter from Martin Gross about as long as the original review suggesting that W&M are antisemites, and noting stiffly, that the review "contains conclusions that materially differ from well-known public information." You’re right, Mr. Gross. That’s what we’ve got to be afraid of–well-known public information!
Related posts:
- Legendary ‘NY Review’ Hasn’t Gotten Around to Walt & Mearsheimer, Now Out for a Year
- Do the Goyim Get to Register an Opinion Re Walt/Mearsheimer?
- Walt & Mearsheimer Edge Into the Mainstream
- Why do they hate us? (bin Laden says: Read Walt, Mearsheimer, and Carter)
- AIPAC should invite Walt and Mearsheimer to a debate at its spring policy conference
{ 2 comments }
The sympathetic popular response to M&W owes a lot to the issue of what were the reasons behind 9-11. I think Americans always sensed that — as much as they'd like to believe it — the story that "they hate our freedom" just wouldn't wash. But this was the central tenet of the Zionist line and was strictly enforced by everyone from Friedman to Krauthammer. All attempts to discuss a linkage to policy in Palestine were met with screams of "antisemitism" (starting with British Foreign Minister Jack Straw's comments immediately after the bombings). As a result, we were denied any meaningful discussion of the reasons behind our disaster.
Now M&W come along and insist that Americans be given the actual words of Al Qaeda explaining their motivation. And the link to Zionism is so blatant that the behavior of the Friedmans et al. can't be explained as a mere difference in interpretation. It seems more like a direct attempt to deceive.
(M&W's earlier response to critics, "Setting the Record Straight" is probably the best short summary of everything we know on the subject of "why they hate us.")
http://www.israellobbybook.com/Setting_the_Record_Straight.pdf
pp 16-17
"This is dangerous sociology: the pro-Israel people are gathered in the elitist turrets, ready to release boiling oil on the masses." Very good point.
The scary thing is, it didn't take a long time to go from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich. The Germans were very militaristic, true, but a very civilized and evolved people as well. Many had become poor very quickly, however. Look at the economy in this country now, and the effect that globalization has had on many people's jobs.
The French Revolution evolved more slowly, but I see that many of the neocons have Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake" attitude, when it comes to viewing people unlike themselves. How many of them have sent sons or daughters to Iraq? How many of them care to send one?
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