Robert Merry, editor of the National Interest, has a very forceful piece attacking the idea of a war with Iran and saying that it’s time for Israel and the U.S. to get a divorce. Notice especially here the undercurrent of resentment at “ethnic-group,” “parochial” politics driving US policy. This is aimed right at the Israel lobby and the issue of conservative Jewish influence. The American discourse is waking up, the DNC platform charade has played a role. The Walt and Mearsheimer thesis is now mainstream, and watch as the Establishment begins to align itself with that understanding, rather than continue to beat it with a club.
Consider first the likely consequences of a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran—the Syrian civil war exploding into a region-wide sectarian conflict; destabilization of such nations as Bahrain, Jordan and Lebanon; obliteration of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement; a new Intifada in the occupied Palestinian lands; expanded terrorist activity against the West; a doubling or tripling of oil prices; a likely economic meltdown in Europe and China, with huge subsidiary damage to the U.S. economy. All of these things easily could be triggered simply by an Israeli attack on Iran; all of them likely would be worse if America got dragged into the resulting Israeli-Iranian conflict.
Second, what kind of country would America be if it ceded its sovereignty in matters of war and peace to a tiny ally that seems bent on manipulating American decision making by manipulating American domestic politics? It’s one thing to have Israel thwart America’s efforts to foster a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on Israel’s perception of its own interests; it’s quite another to allow Israel to pull the United States into a war that the American people are not prepared for and that likely would severely harm America’s economic and geopolitical interests…
All of this argues for the American president—either Obama or his successor—to separate his government starkly from the Israeli government on the matter of an attack on Iran. But what about the political backlash? It would be fierce, as anti-Iran hawks and friends of Israel throughout America go on the attack. The pro-Israel lobby would mobilize, and evangelical Christians would swarm into political action like angry hornets. Journalists would speculate widely that the president had destroyed his political standing with Jewish voters. But all this would miss the big picture….
The president would win that argument, but first he would have to demonstrate the fortitude to take it forcefully and deftly to the American people.
Such a political victory in turn would transform U.S. relations with Israel. The conventional wisdom in Washington is that interest-group politics, and particularly ethnic-group politics, drive events. That’s often true, but not when a national consensus emerges that runs counter to the parochial interests of particular groups. As Woodrow Wilson once wrote, “If [the president] rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible.”
Last night it struck me that it’s time for Obama to give “The Race Speech,” the speech that honestly discussed racial politics during the ’08 campaign, but about the Israel lobby. If he did so, Americans, including most American Jews, would be on his side.
we’re about 90% there already.
Yup, and Mr. Merry points it out, although subtly. Still, he’s going to pay for it.
Not because he’s a non-Jew. Those days are since long passed. The biggest targets are Jews these days(like Beinart).
But National Interest represents the realist side, and they are no longer WASPish Rockefeller Republicans. They are now across the parties too, just like the neocons.
And they’re winning under Obama. The Bush years were the coming out party for the neocons and we’re healing every since.
If Romney wins, I doubt they’ll get the same leeway. The U.S. is simply much more in debt and they’ll face far stronger resistance.
Also, a lot of liberal Jews are not going to silently abide the communal dictat of standing by Adelson at every turn like Dershowitz and the other establishment figures command.
An Adelson nexus in Washington and Jerusalem will ‘permit’ a lot of liberal Jews, especially the NYT kind of mainstream liberal Jews, to finally speak out.
Will Obama give that speech that Phil wants? Give me a break.
He’d go to prison for racial incitement.
And frankly I’m not sure most people are sophisitcated enough to get it.
The power of the Israel lobby(and even more so, of Jews) is still a hushed topic, it’s swept under the rug. Even among Jews.
A better way to put it would be to make a speech about Jewish hardline donors, but Obama can’t do that because the Adelson-esque donors exist in his party too, like Haim Saban.
He can’t bite the hand that feeds him.
No, reform has to come from outside the establishment.
So far, it’s mostly brave WASPs like Mearsheimer, Robert Wright of the Atlanctic and now Merry.
They are not nearly as irrelevant as people think, but they’re disorganized and as always, just too damn nice to tell it like it is. They don’t have a tradition of what Merry calls ‘ethnic politics’. They believe in the protestant tradition of individualism.
What I think will push the change is minorities, especially young, educated minorities.
A few days ago I checked the right-wing funded Times of Israel’s most commented threads. Many of them were dedicated to the DNC platform flaps.
The most commented thread had over 300 comments, a big number for a relatively small site like that. The most liked comments were from non-Jews, people with Indian last names who were basically telling the Rockefeller Republican/realist lines about Israel but they were coming from the left.
Those are the people we saw on display at the recent DNC conventions.
They had nothing to do with the Holocaust(and if you think of it, the vast majority of WASPs in America did neither, most of their grandparents fought against Hitler yet they are still silent because of the Holocaust, weirdly enough).
They are educated, they grew up during the Bush wars and their view of Israel is not some kind of propaganda view. They read blogs, they’re skeptical consumers of the MSM news.
They know who pushed for Iraq, who’s pushing for Iran now. They see Israel as it is, not how romantic Jews would delude themselves to make it look.
And they’re speaking out. What the Zionist establishment going to do? Attack minorities for wanting peace and preferring America to nationbuild here at home?
Also, don’t underestimate the optics of largely old, rich white Jewish men (Republican or Democrat) lashing out at a younger, minority president for failing to be enough subservient to them and their bigoted notions.
A lot of those educated minorities can identify with Obama in a way they can’t with Alan Solow, Dershowitz, Hoenlien, Adelson, David Harris or Abe Foxman.
The Republican party is in complete thrall of the neocons. Their embrace of Wall St has meant a lot of money from Zionist hedge fund guys like Singer, Loeb, Steinhardt and the rest of them. The same guys who fund Kristol’s media empire and his tight control of the converstive media(to ensure the right candidates come to the fore).
The spring will come from the educated, liberal classes, many of whom are now minorities. Asians have swing distinctly towards the Democrats from being a 50/50 group. So have Hispanics.
It’s ironic, because the hardlining of the Republican party has meant the ouster of the Rockefeller Republicans. It’s often a story told of social issues(abortion etc) but I think it’s even more an issue of Israel. A lot of those guys were Arabists. And after fall of Communism the neocons did a wide purge of National Review under the pretext of ‘social extremism’(!), so the WASP arabists were purged for their views of Israel in equal manner, if not more, than on social issues.
And since then, the GOP has attracted less and less minority votes.
It’s ironic that the neocons are constantly pushing pro-minority outreach since they are themselves in large part responsible for the hardright moves of the party, it’s abandonment of intelligent foreign policy(and with it, it’s moderation on domestic issues).
A freed Mitt Romney would attract far more minority votes, if he wasn’t shackled by his neocon donors and his need to get the support of Bill Kristol and the others.
The elder Bush won a majority of Asian votes. He got quite a lot of hispanics.
But those Republicans are now purged. They’re also the most intelligent ones. They’re now in places like the National Interest, publishing very intelligent articles but have no influence.
So the Democratic party has gotten a lot of those swing votes instead.
And Obama’s been a Rockefeller Republican in many ways.
Skeptical towards Israel, moderate towards the Middle East, focused on co-operation and having a balanced fiscal approach at home(the elder Bush raised taxes to balance the budget, which got him voted out but helped Clinton avoid a lot of tough budget choices).
That’s probably also why the neocons hate Obama so much. He’s a WASPish Rockefeller Republican at heart; which shouldn’t be a surprise. He was raised in a middle-class white surrounding, both in his home and in his community.
He may have Jewish advisors on political issues, but he initially chose a Rockefeller Republican as his secretary of defence(Bob Gates), he chose a moderate, non-Wall St economist(Alan Kreuger) as his top economic advisor when he got tried of the pro-Wall Street Larry Summers, and he’s stuck by Geithner(a mistake in my opinion) who has nonetheless gotten more leftwing as time has gone on.
So on policy issues he’s far closer to a Republican type the neocons thought they had killed off decades ago.
Oops :)
just curious if anyone else noticed obama reference the UK as our ‘closest ally’ in his speech last night. i am surprised he hasn’t caught crap for that yet.
Israel is not officially an ally because we don’t have treaties with it. So we talk about special relationship, shared values and “no light between” our policies.
thanks rusty
The national interest cats have been writing that essay for years. Phil Giraldi is owed royalties from Merry’s essay.
It’s time for Barry to make the “israel lobby speech”? Dude, Phil, brother, what fckin planet do you reside on? When Wilson wrote that, there hadn’t been a 50 year national disinformation campaign designed to confuse and obscure the “national interest” – If Barry made that speech now, he would be in effect saying, “I, along with every other national politician, official and pundit, have been LYING TO YOU FOR DECADES, and not just about this, but about a great many things”
That’s what you don’t seem to grasp, Phil. In many ways Israel is the thread that if pulled, undoes the whole sweater. And you think the guy who is now wearing the sweater is going to pull the thread? Shee-it.
All Obama or any President needs to do in a speech on how ‘committed’ they are to Israel is detail the ‘entire history’ of US support for Israel.
Everything we have done starting with Truman. How we went against the advice of all our own intelligent and military and State Department officials ‘all just to help the Jews establish Israel’. Every conflict with Arabs we materially supported them in, everything we have spent financially, diplomatically, what we have sacrificed domestically and in other ME relationships important to the US, the special tax entitlements even that we give people for donating money to Israel, how we have specially protected the Jews security with Homeland security funding, how the US took the Arab oil embargo hit for Israel war in the 70′s even though it cost us economically, how we ship Israel US fuel even though our own prices are so high here, and so on.
It would be a “how in the world can you doubt our support after all this America and Americans have sacrificed for Israel ” speech . LOL… just heap on the examples of all the ways we have supported Israel.
And the “unintended “..(wink,wink)…results of a speech revealing all the details of US support for Israel like that on the US public?
It would create the kiss of death for any politician or party to continue demanding support for Israel from Americans.
Everyone knows politicians lie about almost everything. It would be the courage to come clean that would bring new and/or renewed support, from across the political spectrum.
But you’re right about the sweater analogy. There would have to be some thought out follow-thru. Though even there it is entirely conceivable that one event of truth telling, with positive results, would lead to an almost self-perpetuating cascade of positively-reinforced truth telling. People are hungry for it. It wouldn’t fall on deaf voter ears.
Agreed, Ritzl. But let’s not pretend a moment like that would be anything less than revolutionary – it would change the whole game. I’m not sure Phil appreciates that.
Yeah, I noticed that. Doubt it was an accident. Hard to argue against too.
And what got into Bob Merry? He’s always been smart, extremely disciplined and productive, kind of understated, guy. This was boldly awesome.
The Diane Rehm show just mentioned the God/Jerusalem language vote. No one talked about how that 2/3rds claim being bunk. But hey it is being discussed. Chris Hayes bravely went out on the truth limb.
What kind of a country would the US be if it gave up on
empire ? Maybe there could be more focus on education. There might be less violence long term.
Zionist Jews had better enjoy the last few years of top level influence. It hasn’t been very good for Jews though, has it ? What runs through all the bad news coming from Israel now is that it is almost always better to attempt to understand and to communicate than to resort as a default to violence. I feel so sorry for all the moderates in Israel.
Given the speaking abilities of those like Clinton and Obama and a few others—they could start reversing the political tactic of pandering to niches and ethnic attitudes with a message that everyone is either part of whole or out in the cold.
Politicking now is promising everyone their own individual cake and not just a slice of the cake.
It easier to pander instead of lead. Who is the last President that could be defined as a actual ‘leader’…as in leading the public for the nation. Eisenhower, maybe Kennedy?
“Politicking now is promising everyone their own individual cake and not just a slice of the cake.”
Robert Paul Wollf made a similar criticism. He pointed out that if the political system is arranged so that it concentrates on meeting the specific demands of specific groups, it will not address those problems of the overall public interest
which are not the specific concerns of the groups.
“it’s time for Obama to give “The Race Speech,” the speech that honestly discussed racial politics during the ’08 campaign, but about the Israel lobby.”
From your lips, Phil, to Obama’s ears. Eloquently parsing the different interests and passions, showing that he listens and hears and understands, and can make sense of it all in the long arch of American history, shine daylight all over the differences in position among the Likudniks, the Beiteinus, JVP, J Street, whatever is left of realism and moderation in Israel, and coming down firmly on the side of justice – “Let justice come down like water, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” – is what it will take to close the deal on my vote. It’s in his wheelhouse, he could hit it out of the park. So far he’s seemed the craven weakling around Netanyahu’s bully – the opposite of “backbone of steel.” He obviously forced this platform change to placate the bullies, a tool to the Lobby. Romney knows Netanyahu, and is not as naive as W. was. Romney talks as if he will be a willing lackey to the Likudnik dictates, but I don’t know whether to believe it. Even W woke up, and Romney goes in with far more competence than W. In my mind, Obama needs to show he will be stronger in dealing with Israel than Romney’s etch-a-sketch would be, which means stop being craven in front of the crazed bully.
…And thus the entire world trembles. Everyone has seen the influence of a bunch of thugs to the halfwit who once lead the empire, not so long ago. We’ve seen the fate of Iraq. We look at Afghanistan.
Then it stops. It’s been a long way, but it ends.
I have a dream.
All in a sudden, to begin with 310 million American people, little less than 7 billion people perceive that the world can’t be blackmailed by those hooligans, any more.
As a matter of fact, the situation we’re in, is a clear anachronism in the third millennium, and survives solely because the US – whose leaders have been mislead by a bunch of warmongers – plays dirty in the Middle East scenario.
But – it’s perceivable – we’re dealing, by this time, with a gang of zombies.
RE: “Last night it struck me that it’s time for Obama to give ‘The Race Speech,’ the speech that honestly discussed racial politics during the ’08 campaign, but about the Israel lobby. If he did so, Americans, including most American Jews, would be on his side.” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: He wouldn’t dare, because the mainstream/corporate media is “in the tank” for Israel and AIPAC.
SEE: “CNN and the Business of State-Sponsored TV News”, by Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, 9/05/12
SOURCE – link to commondreams.org
Lyon who?
Amber Lyon
Israel is a cancer on Obama’s Presidency. It has diminished Obama’s credibility as someone who not only supports equality and fair play but who is a living symbol of those ideals.
“The president would win that argument, but first he would have to demonstrate the fortitude to take it forcefully and deftly to the American people.”
Does anyone hold out hope that, if re-elected, Obama will rise to the occasion and make this case? Personally, I’m very skeptical.