One thing I haven't mentioned from the Yale debate last week of John Mearsheimer's argument that we end the special relationship with Israel was, Where was the left? The rightwing was pro-Mearsheimer. So were the Progressives, humorously. The sole Arabist in the debate was an Independent. Another Independent was pure lobby, as was the Conservative party–the neocons.
Well, the Left was pure Chomsky, and it argued against Mearsheimer.
David Porter said that while he could quarrel with nothing Mearsheimer said about Israel's behavior, he disputed the cause: "Israel's problems with the Middle East often derive from our problems in the Middle East." We invade countries, we bomb Arabs. We do "crazy things" on our own every day. They're just imitating us.
Mearsheimer summed up Porter neatly. He's saying, "Israel is basically our Rottweiller." Yes, the U.S. does foolish things in the Middle East. But our "special relationship" with Israel is one dimension of the problem, and an important one. Let's go after it.
I thought of Porter today when I read the great Noam Chomsky's a piece on Counterpunch about the U.S. support for Georgia vis-a-vis Russia. He takes the Porter line, and so he never even mentions the neocons and Israel, both players in the Georgia debacle, and seems to dismiss the idea of the Israel lobby as an "irrelevancy." You will see that he treats U.S-Georgia-Russia in strict and classic imperialist terms:
the
Clinton doctrine that Washington has the right to use military force to
defend vital interests such as “ensuring uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies and strategic resources”… derives from standard principles formulated by high-level
planners during World War II, which offered the prospect of global
dominance. In the postwar world, they determined, the US should aim “to
hold unquestioned power” while ensuring the “limitation of any exercise
of sovereignty” by states that might interfere with its global designs. …
The
goals are deeply rooted in stable institutional structures. Hence they
persist through changes in occupancy of the White House, and are
untroubled by the opportunity for “peace dividends,” the disappearance
of the major rival from the world scene, or other marginal
irrelevancies.
That I think is a clear reference to the Theory of Faction and religion that you get on this blog: that the Israel Lobby and neoconservatives have played havoc with the American national interest out of concern for a foreign state. I think Chomsky has made himself somewhat irrelevant in this debate by failing to see this. He is a highly logical man with a materialist view of history. Notwithstanding his own Zionist phase as a young man, he doesn't seem to see religion as an important factor in society or international relations. Chomsky's a seer, I've been gazing at his star since I was a kid, and am honored to have an email of his on this blog. That said, it was fascinating to me how little attention Porter got at the Yale debate. People went right past his argument. They know religion is a significant factor; they have grown up amid the orthodoxies of identity politics.
