I know I'm chipping away at your cherished beliefs here, and it's probably fruitless, but I think those beliefs are a major diversion from efforts to stop the war (and prevent the next war).
I told you I opposed the war. I am not providing the neocons with a "fig leaf." There are a dozen reasons to criticize them. But I have yet to see enough evidence to convince me that this was primarily a "War for Israel." Of course Israel and its interests were a factor, but it seems to me that claims that Israel and the Jewish lobby were the main reason we went to war are based mostly on a determined, oddly frenzied effort to grasp at a few pieces of evidence and base a case on them. You apparently need to believe this. Please ask yourself why...
Richard Clarke was another harsh critic of the war who was on the scene in the first Bush Administration. In his book, he says Israel was one of about six or seven factors that entered into the Administration's calculations; he doesn't give it more weight than, say, the need for oil or a desire to give American troops an alternative base to Saudi Arabia. Or a desire by Cheney and Rumsfeld to "send a message" to the world that the U.S. would have no inhibitions about using military force after 9/11.
Sure, the neo cons' ideological fantasies about a New Middle East were percolating in the Administration and they added some fuel to the fire. And sure, Sharon and his Israelis welcomed the war.
But have you read all the books that have been published recently by reporters who did extensive interviews with officials both inside and just outside the inner sancta of the first Bush dministration? I have. In "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks or "Cobra II" by Gordon and Trainor, Israel and its interests barely come up as fators in the decisionmaking process. Are those reporters and all of the former officals they spoke to (many of them furious with the Bushies) just "suppressing" the truth and providing a fig leaf?
The only Administration insider Mearshemer and Walt quote from is Phillip Zellikow, a State Dept. official, who said in a pre-war speech that Saddam's WMDs mainly threatened Israel But Zellikow has since written that he had no special knowledge of the Administration's motives and he was not commenting on them in his speech.
Again, this crackpot theory is a diversion. And it's just wrong.
Amused and Must Read,
I know I'm chipping away at your cherished beliefs here, and it's probably fruitless, but I think those beliefs are a major diversion from efforts to stop the war (and prevent the next war).
I told you I opposed the war. I am not providing the neocons with a "fig leaf." There are a dozen reasons to criticize them. But I have yet to see enough evidence to convince me that this was primarily a "War for Israel." Of course Israel and its interests were a factor, but it seems to me that claims that Israel and the Jewish lobby were the main reason we went to war are based mostly on a determined, oddly frenzied effort to grasp at a few pieces of evidence and base a case on them. You apparently need to believe this. Please ask yourself why...
Richard Clarke was another harsh critic of the war who was on the scene in the first Bush Administration. In his book, he says Israel was one of about six or seven factors that entered into the Administration's calculations; he doesn't give it more weight than, say, the need for oil or a desire to give American troops an alternative base to Saudi Arabia. Or a desire by Cheney and Rumsfeld to "send a message" to the world that the U.S. would have no inhibitions about using military force after 9/11.
Sure, the neo cons' ideological fantasies about a New Middle East were percolating in the Administration and they added some fuel to the fire. And sure, Sharon and his Israelis welcomed the war.
But have you read all the books that have been published recently by reporters who did extensive interviews with officials both inside and just outside the inner sancta of the first Bush dministration? I have. In "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks or "Cobra II" by Gordon and Trainor, Israel and its interests barely come up as fators in the decisionmaking process. Are those reporters and all of the former officals they spoke to (many of them furious with the Bushies) just "suppressing" the truth and providing a fig leaf?
The only Administration insider Mearshemer and Walt quote from is Phillip Zellikow, a State Dept. official, who said in a pre-war speech that Saddam's WMDs mainly threatened Israel But Zellikow has since written that he had no special knowledge of the Administration's motives and he was not commenting on them in his speech.
Again, this crackpot theory is a diversion. And it's just wrong.