Jack Ross recommends Iowa Republican Jim Leach's speech at the Democratic convention. "He said a lot of
things no Democrat will say, like how we're occupying a part of the
world that doesn't take well to western occupation. Most significant
was his praise for the good Republican Eisenhower – after praising him
for getting us out of Korea, he then mentioned Suez!"
Ross also praised Biden in a note he sent me this weekend:
"triangulate" between the peace camp/realists and the Dennis Ross's. Biden is another matter entirely, as I think he will have the
unique ability to triangulate in vital ways on American foreign policy
generally. He's tight with the Brookings crowd, but he's more then
enough of a realist (or at least not not a realist) to know that the
empire is finished. He says all the right things to Brookings and the
Georgia Lobby, but he knows perfectly well why we can't be in an
adversarial relationship with Russia.
I'm confident that this applies to the Middle East as well. I vividly recall that either during or just before the height of the Second Intifada
in 2002, he was on the interview show Bob Novak used to share with
either Mark Shields or Al Hunt, and responding to some crazy quote from
Netanyahu, Biden said "Bibi's a good friend of mine but he's just plain wrong".
Shields
and Hunt, incidentally, also tend to share Novak's pro-Arab sympathies; I'll never forget Shields loudly upbraiding Kate O'Beirne of the National Review: "We're talking about Ariel Sharon, not Albert Schweizer!".
I've come to the conclusion that the attack-dog traits and realist fear of history in Biden are more valuable than the realist-isolationist sympathies of Jim Webb. Biden will be the American Talleyrand, who goes to the Congress of Vienna
(most likely in this case, Teheran) to get the best deal America
possibly can, and a pretty darn good one at that. And this is the back door by which there can be justice in
Israel/Palestine.
Weiss again: I like the analysis, as I like Biden, though he is a bloviator pol. Note this youtube of him declaring himself to be a Zionist… But that's what triangulators have to do I guess.
