The best evidence of the new consensus is the presence of Robert Wright at the Atlantic. Here’s a very positive writer who did nothing on the Israel/Palestine question for years but who cares deeply about religious/political questions and he’s suddenly in it and up to the hub, because he recognizes the importance of this issue to our national security, our moral standing, and probably world peace too… And he’s not going to be intimidated. It’s thrilling in a Frank Capra kind of way.
I’m excerpting the beginning of his big post on Obama, the lobby and Iran. The piece delivers on the promise of these paragraphs, and it ends with talk of Obama’s “slightly pathetic submission” to the lobby, and a dollop of Wright’s American optimism. Yes we can lick the lobby.
The most undercovered story in Washington is how President Obama, under the influence of election-year politics, is letting America drift toward war with Iran. This story is the unseen but ominous backdrop to next week’s Moscow round of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
The basic story line, pretty well known inside the beltway, is simple: There are things Obama could do to greatly increase the chances of a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, but he seems to have decided that doing them would bring political blowback that would reduce his chances of re-election.
The good news is that Obama’s calculation may be wrong. The blowback he fears–largely from Bibi Netanyahu, AIPAC, and other “pro-Israel” voices–is probably less forbidding than he assumes. And the political upside of successful statesmanship may be greater than he realizes.
I believe this is a new consensus: outspoken Americans are actually building a new understanding in the global discourse, that the United States is hamstrung by the special relationship with Israel.
More evidence. Steve Walt has been smeared countless ways by the neoconservatives, but if you get outside their sphere, he’s a leader. He’s in Tokyo; Japanese academics and a Japanese thinktank invited him over to tell them about the Israel lobby!
I had a lengthy meeting with a group of Japanese scholars yesterday morning and delivered a lecture on the impact of the Israel lobby on Obama’s Middle East policy yesterday afternoon.
Dershowitz is in the White House, but Rob’t Wright is in the Atlantic and Walt is in Tokyo. We’re going to win.
P.S. David Bromwich beat Wright with the same title in Huffington Post last week four months back: Obama’s Drift Toward War With Iran. And he made some of the same points. “To whom has he delegated the matter of Iran? Dennis Ross above all — the member of the DC permanent establishment who is most reliably associated with the Israel lobby.” More to come.
Good catch Phil. The Wright article is well worth a complete read.
He points to the insanity of demanding a complete halt to Iranian enrichment, which of course is guaranteed by the NPT. There is a link to the Clinton testimony in the article.
Here is one quote from the article that struck me. It is the conclusion.
It is difficult to believe that only a few years ago it was verboten to mention the lobby in the mainstream media. The Iran story has totally shattered what was left of that taboo. The problem is that the increased exposure does not seem to have weakened the lobby’s power.
One must ask: how many dead americans and iranians must we have to guarantee Obama his 2nd term?
RE: “There are things Obama could do to greatly increase the chances of a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, but he seems to have decided that doing them would bring political blowback that would reduce his chances of re-election.” ~ Wright
MY COMMENT: I have decided that come hell or high water I will not be voting for Obama this November!
Jill Stein for President – http://www.jillstein.org/
Well, I’m still hard to persuade about this. I’d suggest that if Obama wanted war with Iran he would have cried havoc and released the dogs already so that the immediate economic damage (which he must consider and fear) would be safely behind him amid a glow of real or apparent victory before the voting machines whirred into life. There are no major speeches making thunderous threats. The other western nations, which this time would all be highly reluctant, are not being prepared. In the ME, at least the wider beyond-Palestine ME, we have evidence that there is, but for American intervention, a rough balance of power between Israel and Iran, which was why the Battle of the Tree a couple of years ago, ideal pretext that it was, was rapidly calmed down by both sides. Has the balance really swung in favour of Israel since then?
Well, I could be proved wrong at a week’s or a moment’s notice. Really hope I’m not.
“I believe this is a new consensus: outspoken Americans are actually building a new understanding in the global discourse, that the United States is hamstrung by the special relationship with Israel.”
This reminds of something Steve Clemons wrote on TWN a long time ago. It was a sort of ‘ cryptic’ piece, actually it was very cryptic, about a unnamed group of Americans who were becoming ‘ a loose confederation’ (as Walt describes the Israel lobby) of people opposed to the Israel influence in America. He was also bemoaning the fact in that piece that WASP don’t encourage their children to go into politics or government careers, said they were shirking their duty by not being more involved in their country’s governance.
This article at TWN was before Carter’s book and people like, Freeman, Hagel, W&M and etc. started coming out on Israel and the Lobby and I have wondered since as we have seen more ‘coming outs’ on Israel if there was some initial agreement or ‘connection’ among the Israel -US critics, some communication or support going on. It would stand to reason that like minded people would form some connection with each other for support, particularly in a cause where they are going to be breaking thru something like the Israel taboo. It also stands to reason that unlike the Zionist, they wouldn’t want to be seen as a organized or public group because of the Jewish relationship to Israel and anti semite accusations around Israel criticism.
However I think now the Israel issue is becoming more like open warfare between the pro and con Israel camps because the zios pushed it to that level with all their character assassinations and trying to lay all Israel criticism off on anti semitism.
Also I wonder who established the topic of the Israel Lobby for Walt’s presentation to the Japanese academics. Was this a academic lecture circuit type appearance and just tied to his book or did the Japanese specifically request he speak about the Israel Lobby influence in the US?
It was common back in the run to Iraq to hear Arab leaders and other national officials make statements about ‘the Jews controlling the US’ but they were regarded as anti semitic rants. I am sure Walt isn’t going to present the Lobby as Jewish control of the US, he will take great pains not to, I doubt he will even refer to Zionism, but someone of his stature speaking about Israel’s influence on US policy to ‘foreign audiences’ does take the US Israel problem/discussion to a new level. Does he hope that academics understanding the Israel web in US politics will influence or reinforce what foreign government’s officials no doubt already understand about it and influence their reactions to or cooperation with the US?