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High Cost – Low Odds

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091109walt

By Stephen M. Walt

Deciding what to do in Afghanistan requires a hard-nosed assessment of the costs of the war, the alleged benefits of victory and the likelihood of success.

Stephen M. Walt: Staying in Afghanistan will cost many more American soldiers’ lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Is it worth it?

We know the price will be high. The United States has spent more than $223 billion on the Afghan war since 2001, and it now costs roughly $65 billion annually. The actual bill will be significantly higher, however, as these figures omit the replacement cost of military equipment, veterans’ benefits and other war-related expenses. Most important, more than 850 US soldiers have already been killed and several thousand have been seriously wounded.

And we are not close to winning. The Obama administration admits that the challenges are “daunting,” and a recent pro-war report from the Center for American Progress said success will require “prolonged U.S. engagement using all elements of U.S. national power” for “as long as another ten years.” Success also requires creating an army and police force larger than the Afghan government can afford, which means Kabul will need US assistance indefinitely….

Stephen M. Walt rät Barack Obama dazu, seine außenpolitischen Berater schon jetzt damit zu beauftragen, einen “Plan B” zu erstellen, denn:

I’d bet that all of the following statements are true in 2012.

1. There won’t be a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel will still be occupying the West Bank and controlling the Gaza Strip. More and more people are going to conclude that “two states for two peoples” is no longer possible, and that great Cairo speech will increasingly look like hollow rhetoric.

2. The United States will still have tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan. Victory will not be within sight.

3. Substantial U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq (relabeled as “training missions”), and the political situation will remain fragile at best.

4. The clerical regime in Iran will still be in power, will still be enriching nuclear material, will still insist on its right to control the full nuclear fuel cycle, and will still be deeply suspicious of the United States. Iran won’t have an actual nuclear weapon by then, but it will be closer to being able to make one if it wishes.

5. There won’t be a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

6. Little progress will have been made toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. The United States and Russia may complete a new strategic arms agreement by then, but both states will still have thousands of nuclear warheads in their stockpiles. None of the nine current nuclear weapons states will have disarmed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still unratified three years from now.

Nebenbei wettet er gegen einen ausgeglichenen Haushalt, Reformen des globalen Finanzwesens, einen reformierten UN-Sicherheitsrat und hält die Schließung von Guantanamo Bay für unwahrscheinlich.

Kurzum: Außenpolitisch lässt er Obama in den nächsten vier Jahren eigentlich keine Erfolge feiern.

Stephen M. Walt

Stephen M. Walt, einer der beiden Autoren des so umstrittenen wie brillanten Werkes The Israel Lobby, äußert sich enttäuscht über US-amerikanische Reaktionen auf den Goldstone-Report. Freilich, so räumt Walt ein, hat auch er noch nicht Zeit gehabt, das Dokument in Gänze zu lesen, doch dies müsse wahrscheinlich auch gesagt werden über jene, die

- despite Goldstone’s impeccable credentials (former member of South Africa’s Constitutional Court and chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Bosnia and Rwanda) and his strong Zionist convictions -

ebendiesen  Goldstone so rasch und zügig abgeurteilt hätten.  Doch es ist gerade die Obama-Administration bzw. UN-Botschafterin Susan Rice, die nach Walts Dafürhalten ein schwaches Bild abgegeben haben:

Israeli PM Netanyahu hasn’t been doing Obama any favors of late, and the release of the report would have been a golden opportunity for Obama to play a little hardball and remind him that stiffing your principal patron has a price. And the Administration didn’t even have to endorse the report; all they had to do was refrain from criticizing it.

In other words, what if U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice had said something like this: “Richard Goldstone is a respected jurist with considerable experience on these issues, and the report contains disturbing information about the actions of both Hamas and Israel during the fighting last year. It deserves to be carefully read, because it demonstrates how important it is to achieve a lasting peace in the region and why the president is committed to that goal.” The message to Netanyahu would have been clear: If you want diplomatic cover from us, we’ll need more cooperation from you than we’ve been getting.

Es scheint, als habe die Obama-Adminstration in der Angelegenheit Goldstone eine wertvolle Chance verpasst. Und aus Walts Beschreibung des Juristen Goldstone als einwandfreien Menschenrechtsexperten mit pro-israelischer Grundüberzeugung lässt sich ableiten: Mit der Dämonisierung Goldstones hat sich Israel bzw. hat sich die totalitäre Fraktion innerhalb des globalen Israel-Fanclubs ein fettes Eigentor geschossen. Diplomatisch und propagandistisch wird die Angelegenheit Goldstone für Israel ein immer größeres Desaster!

Die amerikanische Regierung muss endlich zusehen, dass die Euphorie ob der von Obama spätestens am 4. Juni in Kairo  proklamierten Wende in der US-Nahostpolitik nicht in abgrundtiefe Enttäuschung umschlägt.

Stephen M. Walt, The Washington Post, Sep 20, 2009

Like so many of his predecessors, President Obama is quickly discovering that persuading Israel to change course is nearly impossible.

Obama came to office determined to achieve a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. His opening move was to insist that Israel stop building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — a tough line aimed at bolstering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and persuading key Arab states to make conciliatory gestures toward Israel. These steps would pave the way for the creation of a viable Palestinian state and the normalization of Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors, and also help rebuild America’s image in the Arab and Muslim world.

Continued >>

Like so many of his predecessors, President Obama is quickly discovering that persuading Israel to change course is nearly impossible.

Obama came to office determined to achieve a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. His opening move was to insist that Israel stop building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — a tough line aimed at bolstering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and persuading key Arab states to make conciliatory gestures toward Israel. These steps would pave the way for the creation of a viable Palestinian state and the normalization of Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors, and also help rebuild America’s image in the Arab and Muslim world.

Unfortunately, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has no interest in a two-state solution, much less ending settlement expansion. He and his government want a “greater Israel,” which means maintaining effective control of the West Bank and Gaza. His response to Obama’s initiative has ranged from foot-dragging to outright defiance, with little pushback from Washington.

This situation is a tragedy in the making between peoples who have known more than their share. Unless Obama summons the will and skill to break the logjam, a two-state solution will become impossible and those who yearn for peace will be even worse off than before.

Netanyahu initially claimed in early June that the Bush administration had assured Israel that “natural growth” of the existing settlement blocs was permissible — an assertion that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other officials promptly denied. Netanyahu further declared that 2,500 housing units under construction would be completed. He then made a minor concession after Obama’s June address to the Muslim world in Cairo, slipping a single reference to a “demilitarized Palestinian state” into an otherwise uncompromising speech at Bar-Ilan University. The onerous conditions that Netanyahu demanded of such a state made it clear that he was merely tossing Obama a bone to avoid clashing with a then-popular U.S. president.

Netanyahu’s stance hardened as Obama’s approval ratings slipped. In July, after U.S. officials tried to halt an Israeli plan to convert an old Arab hotel into 20 Jewish apartments in Sheik Jarrah — an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem — Netanyahu told his Cabinet that “Jerusalem is not a settlement, and there is nothing to discuss about a freeze there.” Underscoring the point, Israeli authorities expelled two Arab families in Sheik Jarrah from homes they had inhabited for 50 years.

Then last month, an unnamed “senior U.S. official” told reporters that peace talks might resume without an agreement to halt all settlement construction, and Netanyahu reiterated that he opposed a complete freeze. A few days later, Israel authorized construction of hundreds of additional housing units in the West Bank. In response, the White House merely said that it “regretted” this action, adding that the “U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is and will remain unshakeable.” Three days later, the Israel Lands Administration issued tenders for 468 new apartments in East Jerusalem. And just a week ago, Netanyahu announced that a complete freeze on settlement building “will not happen” and that construction in Jerusalem “would continue as normal.”

Why is Netanyahu defying Obama so openly? Because he has long been committed to the dream of a “greater Israel,” and the only Palestinian state he might accept would be an archipelago of disconnected enclaves under de facto Israeli control. His Cabinet is even more hard-line, which means his government would collapse if he made meaningful concessions. Furthermore, attempting to remove a substantial portion of the 300,000-plus settlers living in the West Bank could trigger a violent reaction within Israel, possibly even putting Netanyahu at risk of suffering the fate of former primer minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1995.

Some observers say that Netanyahu’s decision to authorize new housing units is merely a sop to his right-wing colleagues and that he will eventually agree to a temporary freeze on settlements and serious negotiations with the Palestinians. But even if he does, history suggests that any pledge to stop settlement expansion would be meaningless. Previous Israeli governments also promised to halt settlement building, most recently in the 2003 “Road Map” agreement that set a formal timetable for Middle East peace. Yet despite these promises, the number of settlers has more than doubled since the early 1990s and has grown by about 5 percent annually since Israel formally accepted the “Road Map” in May 2003.

Nor is settlement expansion the work of a handful of rebellious religious extremists. Labor and Likud governments have backed this enterprise with economic subsidies, essential infrastructure and military protection, as well as an array of roads, checkpoints and security barriers. In demanding a freeze, Obama is attempting to get Israel to halt a project that its major political parties have pursued for more than 40 years. And even though Israel receives more than $3 billion each year from the United States, his efforts to halt expansion and achieve a two-state solution will probably fail.

Why is Obama letting Netanyahu thwart his efforts? To begin with, the president has too much on his plate — the economic crisis, the health-care battle, Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear problem — so the attention he can devote to Israeli-Palestinian peace is limited.

And then there is the Israel lobby. The good news is that there is a new pro-Israel organization, J Street, which is committed to the two-state solution and firmly behind Obama. The bad news is that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other defenders of the status quo remain powerful, and they will surely oppose any attempt to pressure Netanyahu. In May, for example, AIPAC drafted a letter warning Obama to “work closely and privately” with Israel. It garnered 329 signatures in the House and 76 names in the Senate. During the August recess, 56 members of Congress visited Israel, and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that it was a mistake to make settlement construction the key issue and that there was a “significant difference” between settlements in the West Bank and those in East Jerusalem.

If Obama tries to make aid to Israel conditional on a settlement freeze, Congress will simply override him. Putting real pressure on Israel risks alienating key politicians and major Democratic fundraisers, as well as Israel’s supporters in the media, imperiling the rest of Obama’s agenda and conceivably his prospects for reelection. Moreover, several of Obama’s top advisers, such as Dennis Ross, are enthusiastic supporters of America’s “special relationship” with Israel and would almost certainly oppose using U.S. leverage to force Israeli concessions. Obama and special envoy George Mitchell are negotiating with one hand tied behind their backs, and Netanyahu knows it.

If tangible progress toward a viable Palestinian state does not happen soon, however, Abbas and other moderate Palestinians will only be weakened and radical groups such as Hamas only strengthened. Obama’s commitment to two states for two peoples, and his declaration in Cairo that “it is time for these settlements to stop,” will sound hollow. Israel will be stuck repressing millions of angry Palestinians and will increasingly resemble an apartheid state. As former prime minister Ehud Olmert put it in 2007, failure to achieve a two-state solution will force Israel into a “South-African style struggle.” And if that happens, he warned, “Israel is finished.”

Obama said in Cairo that a two-state solution is “in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest and the world’s interest.” He’s right, but it’s not the rest of the world that needs to get behind this vision. It is the Israelis who have to be convinced, and that will take sustained U.S. pressure. To succeed, Obama must use his bully pulpit to explain to the American people that the two-state solution is by far the best outcome for Israel and that time is running out. If he does not get that message across, he will become the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents who tried to end this conflict — and failed.

Stephen M. Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University, is co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” and a contributing editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

by Stephen M. Walt 

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day [nb: in BRAZIL, Valentine's Days happens on the 12th June ]. As a public service, I would like to remind FP readers of the important insights that international relations theory can provide for people in love.

To begin with, any romantic partnership is essentially an alliance, and alliances are a core concept on international relations. Alliances bring many benefits to the members (or else why would we form them?) but as we also know, they sometimes reflect irrational passions and inevitably limit each member’s autonomy. Many IR theorists believe that institutionalizing an alliance makes it more effective and enduring, but that’s also why making a relationship more formal is a significant step that needs to be carefully considered.

Of course, IR theorists have also warned that allies face the twin dangers of abandonment and entrapment: the more we fear that our partners might leave us in the lurch (abandonment), the more likely we are to let them drag us into obligations that we didn’t originally foresee (entrapment). When you find yourself gamely attending your partner’s high school reunion or traveling to your in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner every single year, you’ll know what I mean.

Realists have long argued that bipolar systems are the most stable. So if any of you lovers out there are thinking of adding more major actors to the system, please reconsider. As most of us eventually learn, trying to juggle romantic relationships in a multi-polar setting usually leads to crises, and sometimes to open warfare. It’s certainly not good for alliance stability.

IR theory also warns us that shifts in the balance of power are dangerous. There’s an obvious warning here: relationships are more likely to have trouble if one partner’s status or power changes rapidly. So that big promotion that you both celebrated may be a good thing overall, but it’s likely to alter expectations and force you and your partner to make serious adjustments. The same is true if one of you gets laid off. Bottom line: it can take a lot of patience and love to work through a major shift in the balance of power within a relationship.

Even the best relationships have their bumpy moments, of course, because even human beings who love each other deeply can have trouble figuring out what the other person wants and why they are acting as they are. IR theorists have written lots of smart things about misperception, and it’s good to keep some of them in mind. We tend to see our own behavior as constrained by our circumstances, for example, while attributing the behavior of others to their own attributes and wants. “I’m doing this because I have to, but he’s acting this way because that’s just who he is!” This sort of perceptual bias is potent recipe for conflict spirals, something IR theorists have long warned about. A small disagreement occurs, and each person’s attempt to defend their own position starts to look like an aggressive and unjustified attack. And so we discover another core IR concept: escalation.  

I’m hoping a few readers are nodding their heads in agreement at this point.

Which brings me to an especially helpful IR concept: appeasement. The term has been unfairly denigrated since Munich, but it is a critical strategy for preserving any romantic relationship. And if you don’t believe me, ask my wife, who made me put this paragraph in.

So maybe learning some IR theory can actually help your love life. If it does, and you’re lucky enough to find the right person, and then you might decide you want to institutionalize the relationship by getting married. (This assumes that you’re straight, of course, or fortunate enough to live in a part of the world that recognizes the rights of gay people to marry as well).

And then the two of you might also decide to mobilize your combined resources and grow your own alliance network — i.e., have kids — either via the traditional method or by adopting. If you do, you’ll get to learn about a whole new set of IR concepts, like deterrence, coercion, salami tactics, and overcommitment. But that’s another set of problems, and maybe I’ll wait till Father’s Day to blog about them.

Source: Foreign Policy

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard University.

xxx

There’s an interview with Stephen Walt, of Mearsheimer and Walt fame, here It’s mainly a potted version of the thesis propounded in the articles and book he wrote with Mearsheimer; that the pro-Israel lobby in the United States is inordinately powerful and that its activities are harmful to the United States and Israel.

Referring to the war between Israel and Hezbollah two years ago he says,

The [pro-Israel] lobby supported Israel’s strategy of attacking Hezbollah, instead of looking for another solution to the conflict.

So it was Israel that attacked Hezbollah. No mention of Hezbollah having gotten the ball rolling by crossing an international border to murder and kidnap and and later launching thousands of rockets at northern Israel.

With regard to Iraq, the whole idea of invading it and overthrowing Saddam was the work of the neoconservatives, of whom some are Jews and some are not, who form part of the hard line element of the pro-Israel lobby.

The invasion of Iraq was the work of a sub-group of the pro-Israel lobby. No other actors or considerations were involved. Glad to have that cleared up.

Now things get a bit weird,

They [the pro-Israel lobby] unsuccessfully pressured Clinton and Bush, during his first term, to go after Saddam. After the 11th of September they were able to persuade Bush that it was a good idea, something they hadn’t previously been able to do.

Maybe it was just a slip of the tongue, or maybe the translator screwed up but it seems to pretty odd to have a supposed expert on the USA’s foreign policy getting basic information wrong.

Referring to the role of AIPAC he says,

If a candidate [for the presidency of the United States] doesn’t get its support he’s going to find it difficult to get elected because American Jews are big contributors to campaigns.

All of them, without exception.  And no American Jew is capable of making up their own mind when it comes to making campaign contributions. They just wait for AIPAC to issue a nihil obstat for a candidate and immediately get out their cheque books.

Asked about the relationship between the pro-Israel lobby and the press he says,

There’s this long standing idea that the Jews control the press and it’s not one I agree with.

Good to hear that, Stephen.

However, there are a lot of pro-Israel people in the press and they write and comment accordingly.

Truly amazing. People writing things in accordance with what they believe.

Furthermore, there are organisations within the [pro-Israel] lobby that look at everything that’s published and exert pressure for information favourable to Israel to be put out and they get angry when anything critical is published.

If so much of the press is pro-Israeli you’d wonder why there’d be any necessity to exert pressure on anyone. And there’s also the question of what he means by ‘exerting pressure’. It sound’s pretty bad. Could it mean threats of violence? Actual violence? Throwing people out of their jobs? I suppose not but I’d like to know what he does mean. And the most amazing bit comes at the end; people who support Israel get angry when they see something in the media that they think is unfair or inaccurate. Simply astonishing.

And then he says,

It’s not that the [pro-Israel] lobby controls the press, it’s that it works very hard to make sure that Israeli affairs are correctly covered. This isn’t healthy because it means we can’t have a conversation about American foreign policy.

I suppose that that I should read this as charitably as possible and interpret ‘correctly’  as meaning ‘correctly from its point of view’. It improves matters a bit but not much as it still means that Walt thinks pro-Israel lobby has such an influence over the press as to entirely stifle public debate on foreign policy in America. If it has influence like that I wonder why he bothers saying that that he doesn’t think the pro-Israel lobby controls the press.

You could argue that I have been a bit harsh on Walt here because I have translated comments from Spanish orignially made in English and they may not precisely represent his views and you could also argue that this is a newspaper interview and it doesn’t require the interviewee to produce the same level of discursive precsion as they would in an academic article. Ok, but still…

All of Stephen Walt’s 10 unpleasant truths about the Iraq War are important, but I’ll single out the tenth point for quoting:

10. The Iraq debacle reflects a broader pattern of failure among key American institutions. Although primary responsibility for the war rests with Bush, Cheney, and the neoconservatives who conceived and sold it, other important U.S. institutions performed poorly as well. Congress never debated the war in a serious way and it continued to back Bush’s policies long after their failure was apparent. Mainstream media institutions like the New York Times and Washington Post smoothed the path to war by parroting the administration’s sales pitch and giving abundant space to pro-war cheerleaders. Even more remarkably, mainstream media organizations continue to rely on the same “talking heads” and inside-the-Beltway pundits whose judgment has proven consistently wrong since 2002. The implication is deeply troubling: if Americans do not learn from this experience and hold those responsible accountable, the Iraq debacle will not be our last.

We would all be in a much better position if the neocons and the Bush administration really did bear sole responsibility for the Iraq debacle. But Walt is right to point to the complicity not only of Congress but also of the supposedly “liberal” mainstream media, which showed no skepticism toward the war at all. Quite the contrary: the New York Times‘ Judith Miller was indispensable in whooping up the case for war, and the Washington Post did not exactly acquit itself honorably, either. The rot in American institutions goes beyond the neocons and the Bushies — though they’re quite bad enough. And in John McCain — a longtime favorite of the mainstream media — Republicans have found a candidate who will be even worse than Bush.

Un grosso scandalo editoriale sta scuotendo gli ambienti politici, accademici e l’opinione pubblica americana. Due importanti politologi, John J. Mearsheimer dell’Università di Chicago e Stephen M. Walt, della John F. Kennedy School of Government, presso Harvard, hanno pubblicato sulla London Review of Books un pamphlet intitolato “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” (http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf) che critica fortemente la politica estera di Washington, che sarebbe influenzata da gruppi di pressione pro-Israele. L’argomento è molto spinoso. Questo genere di considerazioni solleva molte reazioni di pancia acrimoniose anche in un paese come gli States che non ha vissuto direttamente la propaganda contro le “lobby ebraiche e i complotti demogiudeoplutocratici”. In realtà, come ha osservato Zbigniew Brzezinski, uno dei massimi esperti di politica internazionale, dalle pagine di Foreign Policy, il lobby etnico è un fenomeno molto radicato negli States e, in passato, si è rivelato decisivo nello sviluppo inclusivo del sistema politico e sociale americano. Il problema della ricomposizione degli interessi nel perseguimento di una politica comune e virtuosa se non per tutti, almeno per la maggioranza degli americani, è e resta, però, comunque una debolezza del sistema politico americano.

Mearsheimer e Walt parlano chiaro e parlano una lingua, soprattutto, conosciuta dai principali accusati. Si riferiscono, infatti, ai neocon sostenendo che gli interessi di questi gruppi di pressione semplicemente non corrispondono agli interessi strategici e diplomatici degli USA in un’ottica realista. Secondo gli autori, le lobby israeliane sono i deus ex machina della guerra in Iraq e sono fra chi più “spinge” per la guerra con l’Iran. La politica estera americana, improntata ad un aprioristico appoggio della politica di Israele in Medioriente, così come i tre miliardi di dollari annui di sovvenzioni, gli sconti sulla vendita di armi e i 34 veti nel Consiglio di Sicurezza ONU contro le risoluzioni critiche di Israele a partire dal 1982, non sono più giustificabili, in un’ottica di realpolitik, a partire dalla scomparsa dell’URSS. Con la fine della Guerra Fredda, vengono a mancare le condizioni di un appoggio incondizionato ad Israele. Mearsheimer e Walt giungono provocatoriamente a sostenere che financo la scomparsa di Israele, per quanto moralmente inaccettabile, non potrebbe comportare un problema per l’Impero americano. Le lobby israeliane, proseguono gli autori, hanno convinto l’opinione pubblica americana che gli interessi dei due paesi coincidono, quando, invece, non è più così. Ugualmente deprecabile è la tesi che Israele sia moralmente superiore rispetto alla controparte palestinese in virtù del fatto che è una democrazia occidentale. Mearsheimer e Walt ritengono che ogni protagonista del conflitto mediorientale si sia comportato in modo moralmente deprecabile; quindi ogni considerazione circa chi sia il buono o il cattivo è assolutamente improponibile. La politica estera si deve fare su un’esatta ponderazione degli interessi, non in base ad assunti non verificati. Gli autori, sia chiaro, non mettono in discussione il diritto di Israele a sopravvivere: ma il canale privilegiato che Gerusalemme ha con Washington è ingiustificabile.

Dietro questa etichetta di “lobby israeliana”, per gli autori, non c’è una categoria ambigua e ominicomprensiva, ma una serie precisa di think thank e advocacy coalition che hanno partecipato al progetto neoconservatore; come il Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), che ha arruolato personaggi come Dick Cheney e Paul Wolfowitz o l’American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

L’attacco dei due accademici ha, intanto, colpito nel segno, sollevando un vespaio di polemiche ed un intenso dibattito pubblico: che è, alla fine, quello che i due autori volevano. La forza del pamphlet, infatti, è quella di essere opera di autori non minimamente sospettabili di posizioni anti-sioniste sulla scia di scomodi intellettuali di sinistra come Noam Chonski. Quanto questo, o altri scandali come le pressioni delle associazioni dei petrolieri o dei costruttori di armi, possano portare ad una riforma del rapporto fra il Campidoglio e K Street (NdA, la strada di Washington dove hanno sede le lobby), è tutto da verificare.

Alessio Postiglione

Lisa has reminded me of Jeffrey Goldberg’s excellent review of the  M & W  screed to which I had not previously paid adequate attention and one of whose principle merits is the connection it makes between the book and earlier antisemitic tendencies in America politics; Lindbergh, Father Coughlin and all that.

Reading this paragraph,

Not so, say Mearsheimer and Walt. The number of anti-Semites in Europe, they write, is “small and their extreme views are rejected by the vast majority of Europeans.” They do not deny, though, that “there is anti-Semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist.” This is a bizarre and foul passage, its foulness easily clarified by a simple act of substitution. Imagine Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing the following sentence: “We would not deny that there is some racial prejudice among whites, some of it provoked by the misbehavior of African Americans, and some of it straightforwardly racist. ” Mearsheimer and Walt are the sort of scholars who think that if you wish to understand racism, study blacks, and if you wish to understand anti-Semitism, study Jews. They are chillingly unaware that such views are complicit with the prejudice that they claim to abhor.

put me in mind of this  documentary in which the scumbag of a judge says he is not prejudiced against Moroccans rather he is “postjudiced”, his dislike of them is based on experience of how they really are.

While the need for careful refutation of stuff like M & W’s book is obvious I sometimes grow weary of debates about Israel’s right to exist, the supposedly excessive power of Jews and such like. By entering into debate with racists you are hard put to avoid accepting that they have a prima facie case but if you don’t then the foulest myths and lies go unanswered.

 By Milton Viorst | Truthdig | Posted on Oct 4, 2007

Longtime journalist and Middle East expert Milton Viorst examines John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt’s controversial new book about the Israel lobby and its influence on American foreign policy.

About 30 or so years ago, when I first began to write of my concern that Israel was embarked on a course that would lead only to recurring wars, or perhaps worse, I received a letter from Abraham H. Foxman, then as now the voice of the Anti-Defamation League, admonishing me as a Jew not to wash our people’s dirty linen in public.  I still have it in my files.  His point, of course, was not whether the washing should be public or private; he did not offer an alternative laundry.  His objective was—and remains—to squelch anyone who is critical of Israel’s policies. 

In the ensuing years, Foxman and a legion of like-minded leaders, most but not all of them Jewish, have been remarkably successful in suppressing an open and frank debate on Israel’s course.  In view of Israel’s impact on America’s place in the world, it is astonishing how little discussion its role has generated.  As a practical matter, the subject has been taboo.  John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, professors of political science at the University of Chicago and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, respectively, have challenged this taboo in their new book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Foxman, in an effort to discredit them, has written a rejoinder in his book “The Deadliest Lies: The Jewish Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control.”

RELATED LINKS The original article that inspired the book can be found on the London Review’s Web site.  The letters it provoked along with Mearsheimer and Walt’s reply are well worth reading.  The essay also prompted a response by, among others, Christopher Hitchens on Slate.  Some months later, the London Review of Books sponsored a debate at Cooper Union in New York City, which can be viewed here. Also, be sure to read this interview with the authors.

The controversy over Mearsheimer and Walt’s views has been going on since March of last year, when they first presented their argument in the London Review of Books.  In their essay, they contended that support of the magnitude that the United States gives Israel might have been justified during the Cold War but is not defensible, “on either strategic or moral grounds,” under the conditions that currently prevail in the Middle East.  America’s unconditional backing, they argued, is harmful to its own interests and possibly even to Israel’s, and it is made possible only by the influence of the Israel lobby over U.S. foreign policy.  The article touched a sensitive chord among many of Israel’s defenders, generating a furor.  Now Mearsheimer and Walt have written a book which, while more comprehensive at nearly 500 pages, recapitulates the original themes.  Foxman acknowledges basing his book-length reply on the article, so impatient was he to proclaim its authors guilty of “distortions, omissions and errors.”

The late social critic Irving Howe, deeply committed to Israel himself, used to argue that Jewish leaders like Foxman depend for their status on ceaselessly trumpeting the dangers faced by the Jewish people, and particularly by Israel, from a hostile world.  These leaders, Howe insisted, exploit the scars which inquisitions, pogroms and the Holocaust have left on the collective Jewish psyche, scars which distort Jewish political judgment.  Foxman is no doubt sincere in agonizing over the dangers that Jews have historically faced.  But Howe argued that these dangers had become a vested interest for the leaders of Jewish organizations, making an open and honest debate all but impossible in American Jewish circles and in America’s political culture generally. 

Foxman does not quite accuse Mearsheimer and Walt—though other disapproving critics do—of being anti-Semitic.  But he uses intimidating language nonetheless, pointing to a “level of quiet, subtle bigotry—an attitude that may not run to the actual hatred of Jews but that assumes that Jews are somehow different, less respectable, less honorable, more treacherous, more devious than other people. … [I]t’s only natural that people who exhibit this kind of bias against Jews should look a little askance at the special relationship that exists between American Jews and the nation of Israel.”

One can admit the legitimacy of Foxman’s warnings on anti-Semitism and still ask for the evidence of “subtle bigotry” in the Mearsheimer-Walt text.  I found none, unless the reader accepts the premise that anti-Semitism is present in any scrutiny of relations between the U.S. government and American Jews, or the Israel lobby.  Foxman says the authors’ objective is to make Israel into a “pariah” state, though nothing that they write reveals such a goal.  On the contrary, Mearsheimer and Walt recognize lobbies—all lobbies—as a legitimate part of the American political system, existing to shape or shift policy in the interest of the various causes they serve.  Foxman, backed by quotes from such dubious authorities as Dennis Ross, an ex-U.S. ambassador and a vigorous defender of official Israeli views, seeks to attribute something sinister to their motives.

Without question, Mearsheimer and Walt have written less a work of political science than a brief for their position.  There is nothing wrong with that, as long as they maintain the standards of scholarship incumbent on their craft, which exhaustive footnotes of more than a hundred pages suggest strongly that they do.  Some of their critics, ill at ease with the charge of anti-Semitism or “subtle bigotry,” have accused them of being “unbalanced,” in omitting the sins of “the other side.” By their nature, briefs are not balanced, but in this case the accusation seems doubly contrived.  Assuming that the Palestinians or radical Muslims are “the other side,” the critics can scarcely claim that the literature is not already overflowing with negative evaluations, readily at hand in any library or bookstore.  The objective of Mearsheimer and Walt is to break new scholarly ground, which is what academics are supposed to do.  Their findings will come as no surprise to those familiar with American political institutions, but, judging by the reverberations of the Foxman line, they have ignited panic by daring to put so much of the available material on the public record.

That is not to say that Mearsheimer and Walt do not leave a great deal of room for disagreement: for example, their contention, presented in a discussion of Israel’s role in instigating the invasion of Iraq, that “absent the lobby’s influence, there almost certainly would not have been a war.” Surely the American decision to invade Iraq, like most of history’s grand events, arose out of a confluence of causes, no single one of which would have sufficed to bring it about.  Here are just a few of those causes: oil, the rebound to 9/11, President Bush’s relations with his father, concern over free navigation in the Persian Gulf, a sense of Christian mission, the Pentagon’s hunger for Middle East bases to provide “forward thrust” for American power.  Moreover, many in decision-making circles swallowed Bush’s claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and a few may even have believed that we had a moral duty to liberate Iraqis from Saddam’s heartless tyranny.  Though we know now there were no WMD, much less plans to improve the life of the Iraqis, each of these considerations played a part in generating the momentum to invade. 
As for the Israel lobby, no doubt it weighed in during the deliberations.  Israel’s fears of Iraq, though exaggerated, were surely real.  But the lobby’s power was only marginal on President Bush and his entourage of neocons who long before had made up their minds.  On this matter, the authors overstate their case.  The Israel lobby was a player in the discussion on going to war, but there is little evidence to regard its role as decisive.

Indeed, it is not clear whether Mearsheimer and Walt fully understand what the Israel lobby is.  At its apex, of course, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Washington-based organization whose power strikes fear in the executive branch and, even more so, in Congress.  AIPAC is complemented by a constellation of satellites, among them the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the American Jewish Committee and Foxman’s own Anti-Defamation League.  Their agenda seeks not only to assure Israel’s survival but to pursue particular partisan policies.  They function, in effect, as the U.S. arm of Likud, serving Israel’s right wing in rejecting the exchange of land for peace with the Arabs, in standing up for the Jewish settlements that blanket the territories conquered in 1967, in condoning the mistreatment of the Palestinians of the occupied lands, whose life grows more onerous each day. 

But Mearsheimer and Walt go on to add to their taxonomic mix such groups as Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and the Tikkun Community, on the grounds that they also support Israel.  They do, of course, but their values are precisely the opposite of the AIPAC coalition’s.  They argue for peace with the Arabs, while casting doubt on the hard-line position—encouraged by the Bush administration—that only military superiority will guarantee Israel’s security.  Their point of departure, to be sure, is not so much America’s strategic interests as Zionism in the old-fashioned sense, i.e. the survival of a humane, secular and democratic Jewish state.  But their politics lead them to conclusions about relations with Israel’s U.S. patron that are much like those of Mearsheimer and Walt. 

These groups are much smaller than the AIPAC coalition, and have far more modest budgets, but most polls suggest their goals are consistent with the vision held by a majority of American Jews.  Despite the ceaseless efforts of Foxman and his allies, many Jews who have thought hard about how best to assure Israel’s survival have rejected the call to march in lock step with Israel’s hard-liners.  I would add that Mearsheimer and Walt, by calling the AIPAC alliance the “Israel lobby” or the “pro-Israel lobby,” perpetuate a misnomer in all but ignoring the peace groups.  It would be more accurate to call AIPAC’s coalition the “right-wing Israel lobby,” which might at least provoke Israel’s friends, Jewish and non-Jewish, to examine whether AIPAC’s effort might not actually be harmful to Israel’s long-term well-being.

What is impossible to dispute is that the AIPAC coalition, by its own standards, has been hugely successful, starting with imposing a kind of political omerta in the consideration of Israeli policies.  Its promotion of silence zeroes in heavily on Congress, whose members seem especially vulnerable to its muscle.  A prominent senator once told me he long ago gave up arguing against AIPAC’s orthodoxy and now signs on to anything it puts on his desk.  Over the decades, AIPAC has used the money at its disposal to influence electoral campaigns that have defeated more than a few senators and congressmen who have had the temerity to break the taboo.  Their loss has served as a lesson that intimidates the rest. 

But money is not AIPAC’s only weapon.  Brilliantly organized, AIPAC counts on sympathizers nationwide to deluge Congress, as well as the media, with its messages.  It is an adage of democratic politics that intensity of feeling trumps the sentiments of passive majorities, as revealed by polls.  In this, AIPAC is not alone.  The gun lobby is another example.  The producer of an evening news program in which I made a critical remark about Israeli policy informed me that the next morning the station had received a record number of denunciatory e-mails.  He has since stopped inviting me on the show. 

Today, a campaign is being waged against Rep. James Moran, an anti-war Democrat from Virginia, who has occasionally questioned Israel’s course.  Moran, said to hold a “safe” seat, dared in a recent interview on Iraq to say that “Jewish Americans as a voting bloc and as an influence on foreign policy are overwhelmingly opposed to the war. …  But AIPAC is the most powerful lobby and has pushed this war from the beginning. … Their influence is dominant in the Congress.” Then, in a zinger, he added that AIPAC’s members were often “quite wealthy,” a characterization that makes Jews wince.  Moran’s words elicited attacks by both Republicans and Democrats, demonstrating not that he had conveyed any falsehood but that neither political party, with an eye to the next election, is willing to provoke AIPAC’s ire.

Yet, even taking money and organization into account, there remains something of a mystery about the influence that AIPAC and its allies wield.  In contrast to AIPAC, the gun lobby is routinely called upon to defend itself.  But AIPAC’s task, it seems, is easier, because non-Jews, no less than Jews, unquestioningly accept its marching orders.  Why, when it comes to AIPAC, do so many Americans abandon the skepticism they apply to other interests within the political spectrum?  Europe is much less accommodating to Israel.  AIPAC, naturally, blames the difference on Europe’s anti-Semitism, though—apart from Europe’s Muslims, who start with political grievances against Israel—there is little evidence to support its theory.  Mearsheimer and Walt credit AIPAC’s skillful manipulation of the system, but the search for an answer needs more. 

Perhaps the answer has something to do with America’s being the most religious, the most Christian, the most church-going society in the Western world.  Once upon a time, deeply held Christian faith could be taken as a measure of hostility to Jews; that certainly is the case no longer.  If anything, American Christianity—led by but not exclusive to evangelicals—seems to take the biblical promise of a homeland for the Jews as a test of its beliefs and a commitment of its own.  This commitment goes beyond guaranteeing Israel’s existence.  It provides a body of sympathy for Israel’s hard line, and for the economic aid and weaponry that the United States dispatches to support it.

Unfortunately, the pro-peace segment of the American Jewish community does not have a parallel lobby.  It has a few organizations, with dedicated adherents.  Its members try to persuade the American Jewish community that reaching out to the Arab world, and particularly to the Palestinians, is better for Israel than perpetual war.  AIPAC does its best to de-legitimize them, but they hang in stubbornly, though they are barely a whisper in the debate over Israel’s course.  Despite the polls suggesting that many Jews agree with them, the influence of the peace groups is no threat to AIPAC’s pre-eminence.  It is ironic that without Foxman and the like-minded critics who echo him, the Mearsheimer-Walt book might well have vanished with barely a ripple.  Instead, their shrill voices have propelled it onto best-seller lists.  Whether the book’s success means, however, that the American people and the politicians who lead them are readier than before to seriously consider the issues that it raises is still far from clear. 

Milton Viorst, a former correspondent for The New Yorker, has written six books on the Middle East.  His most recent is “Storm from the East: The Struggle between the Arab World and the Christian West.”

Breaking the Taboo: Why We Took On the Israel Lobby

Posted on Oct 4, 2007

israellobbybook.com

“The Israel Lobby” authors John J. Mearsheimer (left) and Stephen M. Walt.

Eric Chinski, the editor of John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt’s provocative new bestseller, asks the authors whether their book is good for the Jews and good for America.  This interview originally appeared on the Web site of the publishing house Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Why did your article “The Israel Lobby,” which was published in the London Review of Books in 2006, provoke such heated discussion around the world? James Traub wrote in The New York Times Magazine: “ ’The Israel Lobby’ slammed into the opinion-making world with a Category 5 force.” How would you describe the reaction?

The article received enormous attention because it challenged what had become a taboo issue in mainstream foreign policy circles, namely the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. Middle East policy. We did not question Israel’s legitimacy and explicitly stated that the United States should come to Israel’s aid if its survival is at risk, but we did argue that pro-Israel groups in the United States were encouraging policies that were ultimately not in America’s national interest. Although the views we expressed are often discussed openly in other democracies—including Israel itself—they have rarely been set forth in detail by mainstream figures in the United States. The article was also of great interest to many readers because it has become increasingly obvious that U.S. Middle East policy has gone badly awry. Although a number of groups and individuals either mischaracterized our views or attacked us personally, many other readers agreed that such an examination of the lobby’s role was long overdue.

Why did you feel the need to follow up the article with your book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”? What more is there to say?

Writing a book provided an opportunity to present a more nuanced and complete statement of our views, and also allowed us to address some of the responses to the original article. Although the article was long by magazine standards, space limitations forced us to omit several key issues and to deal with other topics more briefly than we would have liked. Events like the 2006 Lebanon war had not occurred when the article was published, and additional information about other episodes—such as the U.S. decision to invade Iraq—had since come to light. Thus, writing a book allowed us to refine our analysis and bring it up to date. 

In particular, the book presents a more detailed definition of the lobby, an extended discussion of its development and rightward drift over time, an examination of the role of the so-called Christian Zionists, and an analysis of the controversial issue of “dual loyalty.” We also offer a more detailed description of the various strategies that groups in the lobby use to advance their goals within the U.S. political system. The book also addresses the widespread belief—as illustrated by Michael Moore’s documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11”—that oil companies are the real driving force behind America’s Middle East policy, and explains why this view is incorrect.

Finally, our original article did not offer much in the way of positive prescriptions, but the book outlines a new approach to U.S. Middle East policy that would better serve U.S. interests and, in our view, be better for Israel as well. To that end, it also identifies how the influence of the lobby might become more constructive, for the good of both countries.

What is the extent of American financial, diplomatic, and military aid to Israel, and how does it compare with other states’?

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. economic and military assistance, having received more than $154 billion in U.S. aid since its creation in 1948, and it currently receives roughly $3 billion in direct U.S. assistance every year, even though it is now a prosperous country. The United States also consistently gives Israel diplomatic support, and consistently comes to its aid in wartime, as it did during the 2006 war in Lebanon. Most important, U.S. support for Israel is largely unconditional: Israel receives generous American assistance even when it takes actions that the U.S. government believes are wrong, such as building settlements in the Occupied Territories. As former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once remarked, U.S. backing for Israel is “beyond compare in modern history.”

Isn’t America’s special relationship with Israel based on strong strategic and moral arguments? Isn’t it important for the United States to have an ally that shares our values in a region dominated by extremism and enemies of America?

Israel is not the strategic asset to the United States that many claim. Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold War, but it has become a growing liability now that the Cold War is over. Unconditional support for Israel has reinforced anti-Americanism around the world, helped fuel America’s terrorism problem, and strained relations with other key allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The United States derives some tangible strategic benefits from its close security partnership with Israel, but it pays a high price for them. On balance, it is more of a liability than an asset.

Similarly, the moral case for unconditional U.S. support is not compelling. Israel is a democracy, but no other democracy gets the same level of support that Israel does—and so unconditionally. There is a strong moral case for Israel’s existence, which is why we support a Jewish state in Palestine and believe the U.S. should come to its aid if its survival is jeopardized. But many of Israel’s policies—especially the continued occupation of the West Bank and its refusal to allow the Palestinians a viable state of their own—are at odds with key U.S. values. Viewed objectively, the early Zionists’ behavior during the founding of the Jewish state and Israel’s later behavior toward the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors undermine the myth of Israel as victim and the Arabs as aggressors. 

The strategic and moral rationales for unconditional U.S. support have grown weaker since the end of the Cold War, yet U.S. support has continued to increase. This anomaly suggests that some other factor is at work.

Why do you focus on Israel and not on other U.S. allies?

We focus on Israel’s policies in this book not because we have any animus toward Israel or because we regard its behavior as worse than other states’. Rather, we focus on it because the United States has long focused so much of its financial, diplomatic, and military attention on Israel. Israel is often said to deserve this support because it supposedly acts better than other states do, but we show that this is not the case. It has not acted worse than other states, but neither has it acted significantly better. Regrettably, uncritical U.S. support has led to policies that are harmful to the United States and Israel alike.

If the strategic and moral rationales don’t account for the exceptional backing of Israel, what does?

The pro-Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and groups that actively works to push American policy in ways that will benefit Israel. It is not a cabal or conspiracy, or a single, hierarchical organization with a central leadership and total unanimity of views. Rather, it is a set of groups and individuals who all favor steadfast U.S. support for Israel but sometimes disagree on certain policy issues. Prominent groups in the lobby include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and pro-Israel think tanks like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Leading individuals in the lobby include the heads of these various organizations, as well as neoconservatives who served in the Bush administration like Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and David Wurmser, some of whom are closely associated with hard-line pro-Israel think tanks and conservative politicians in Israel, or Christian Zionists like John Hagee of CUFI and … Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

Religious and ethnic identity does not define who is part of the lobby, as it includes gentiles as well as Jewish-Americans. It is the political agenda of an individual or a group, not ethnicity or religion, that determines whether they are part of the lobby. Thus, the Israel lobby is not synonymous with American Jewry, and “Jewish lobby” is not an appropriate term for describing the various groups and individuals that work to foster U.S. support for Israel. These groups and individuals sometimes disagree on particular issues but they are united in their belief that the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel should not be substantively questioned. They are not all-powerful and they do not “control” U.S. foreign policy. Rather, they form a powerful special interest group, which over time has acquired considerable influence over U.S. policy in the Middle East. 

What are the strategies the lobby uses to influence the policymaking process and public discourse about Israel and its relationship with the United States?

The Israel lobby uses the same basic strategies that other interest groups employ. It pushes its agenda in Congress by supporting friendly candidates and legislators with votes and campaign money and by helping to frame legislation; by getting sympathetic individuals appointed to key policy positions in the executive branch; by monitoring the media and pressuring news organizations to offer favorable coverage; and by writing articles, books, and op-eds designed to move public opinion in directions they favor. These various strategies are as American as apple pie, and there is nothing illegitimate about them. Yet it ought to be equally legitimate to examine and discuss how the Israel lobby works to push its agenda in government, and to debate whether its influence is beneficial, the same way that one might examine other interest groups like the gun lobby, the farm lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby, the energy lobby, and other ethnic lobbies (e.g., Cuban-Americans, Indian-Americans, Armenian-Americans, etc.).

Do you think the Israel lobby’s tactics sometimes go beyond acceptable interest-group politics?

Unfortunately, yes. Although most of the lobby’s tactics are legitimate forms of political participation, some groups and individuals in the lobby also try to silence or marginalize opponents and critics by smearing them as anti-Semites or self-hating Jews. This sort of response was evident in the personal attacks directed at Jimmy Carter for writing a controversial book about Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, and in the efforts of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League to prevent the historian Tony Judt from giving a lecture on the Israel lobby to a group in New York City. True anti-Semitism is loathsome and should be firmly opposed, but using this sort of accusation to silence or marginalize critics is antithetical to the principles of free speech and open debate on which democracy depends.

Why is it so difficult to talk about the role of the Israel lobby?

Primarily because of the many centuries of anti-Semitism in the Christian West, which culminated in the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. Given this long history of sometimes violent persecution, Jewish Americans (and many gentiles) are understandably sensitive to any argument that is critical of Israel or of the political influence of groups in which Jews are central participants. This sensitivity is compounded by the memory of bizarre conspiracy theories of the sort laid out in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a notorious anti-Semitic tract that was discredited long ago. Such paranoid views remain a staple of neo-Nazis and other fringe groups, however, which reinforces Jewish sensitivities even more. Given this history, some people are likely to suspect that anyone who criticizes Israel is in fact questioning its right to exist, or that anyone who examines the political influence of the Israel lobby is questioning the loyalty of pro-Israel individuals or accusing them of some sort of illegitimate activity. We explicitly reject these anti-Semitic notions, but given past experience, we understand why it is easier to talk about the influence of other special interest groups than it is to talk about the Israel lobby. 

What is the lobby’s impact on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East?

In Part II of the book, we show how the lobby has encouraged the United States to take Israel’s side in its long struggle with the Palestinians, and made it more difficult for the United States to help bring this conflict to a close. The lobby—and especially the neoconservatives within it—also played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, although other factors (such as the September 11 attacks) were also critical in making the decision for war. The lobby has successfully pressed the Bush administration to adopt a more confrontational stance toward Syria and Iran, and encouraged it to back Israel to the hilt during the 2006 war in Lebanon. 

Why are these policies not in America’s national interest?

Backing Israel’s harsh treatment of the Palestinians has reinforced anti-Americanism around the world and almost certainly helped terrorists recruit new followers. U.S. and Israeli policy also led directly to Hamas’ growing popularity and its victory in the Palestinian elections, which made a difficult situation worse and a long-term peace settlement even more elusive. The Iraq war is a strategic disaster that has damaged America’s standing and strengthened Iran’s regional position, and now provides other terrorists with an ideal training ground. The Lebanon war enhanced Hezbollah’s position, weakened the pro-American Siniora government in Beirut, and further tarnished America’s image throughout the region. A hard-line approach to Iran helped bring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power but failed to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and threatening Syria led Damascus to stop helping the United States against al Qaeda. None of these developments has been good for the United States.

What is the impact on Israel’s long-term interests?

U.S. aid has indirectly subsidized Israel’s attempt to colonize the Occupied Territories, a policy that many Israelis now see as a strategic and moral disaster. Yet the lobby has made it effectively impossible for Washington to convince the Israeli government to abandon this misguided policy. The lobby’s influence has also made it harder for the United States to persuade Israel to seize opportunities—such as a peace treaty with Syria, the 2002 Saudi peace initiative, or full and complete implementation of the Oslo agreements—that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the number of enemies it still faces. The invasion of Iraq—which Israel and the lobby both supported—turned out to be a major boon for Iran, the country many Israelis fear most. And by pressing Congress and the Bush administration to back Israel’s ill-conceived response to Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, the lobby unwittingly facilitated a policy that damaged Israel significantly.

Do you think the upcoming 2008 presidential campaign will provide a chance for the Israel lobby’s influence to be discussed?

Regrettably, no. The candidates will undoubtedly disagree on a wide array of domestic and foreign-policy issues: health care, education, taxes, the environment, what to do in Iraq, how to deal with a rising China, etc. But the one issue on which there will be virtually no debate is the question of whether the United States should continue to give Israel unconditional backing. Even though almost everyone recognizes that U.S Middle East policy is a disaster, no serious candidate is going to suggest anything other than steadfast and largely unconditional support for Israel. Indeed, all the major candidates (Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Obama, Romney, etc.) have already expressed their strong and uncritical backing for Israel, even though the campaign is just getting underway. Not only is this situation bad for the United States, it is also not good for Israel. The United States would be a better ally if its leaders could make support for Israel more conditional and if they could give their Israeli counterparts more candid and critical advice without facing a backlash from the Israel lobby.

What in your view should the U.S.-Israel relationship look like? What should the lobby’s role be?

The United States has three strategic interests in the Middle East: maintaining the flow of Persian Gulf oil to world markets, discouraging the spread of WMD, and reducing anti-American terrorism from this region. It is also committed to Israel’s survival, but on moral rather than strategic grounds. Instead of garrisoning the region with its own troops or attempting to transform the entire region, the United States should act as an “offshore balancer.” The United States does not need to control the Middle East itself; it merely needs to prevent any hostile power(s) from controlling the region. To do that, Washington should strive to maintain a balance of power in the region and intervene with its own forces only when local actors cannot uphold the balance themselves, as it did when it liberated Kuwait in 1991.

As part of this strategy, the United States would begin to treat Israel like a normal state, rather than as the 51st state. Israel is nearly 60 years old, increasingly prosperous, and now officially recognized by the vast majority of the world’s nations. The United States should deal with it as it does with other democracies: backing Israel when its policies are consistent with U.S. interests, but opposing it when they are not. And the United States should use its considerable leverage to fashion a durable two-state solution, as it is the only outcome that is consistent with U.S. values and with the long-term interests of both America and Israel.

Achieving this shift will require overcoming the opposition from the most powerful groups in the lobby, like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents. This goal can be achieved if there is a more open debate about the lobby’s role in shaping U.S. policy, more widespread awareness of Israel’s history and behavior, and a candid discussion within America’s pro-Israel community. Instead of trying to weaken or counter the lobby, one may hope that moderate pro-Israel organizations will become more influential, and that the leading organizations realize that the hard-line positions they have espoused in the past have been counterproductive. If these groups can bring their impressive influence to bear in more constructive ways, U.S. policy will be more in line with its national interests, and better for Israel too.