A Costly Friendship

[Rhiannon12866]

08/28/03: (The Nation) Much of the talk in Europe these days--in newspaper offices, at dinner parties, in foreign ministries--is about how the United States and Britain were conned into going to war against Iraq, or perhaps how they conned the rest of us into believing that they had good reasons for doing so. It is now widely suspected that the war was a fraud, but who perpetuated the fraud and on whom? Were Bush and Blair fed fabricated intelligence, or did they knowingly massage and doctor the intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq so as to justify an attack? Everyone agrees that Saddam Hussein was a monster, but the military invasion to depose him is seen by many, and certainly on this side of the Atlantic, as illegitimate and unprovoked, and a blatant violation of the UN Charter, setting an unfortunate precedent in international relations. Henceforth, in the jungle, only might is right.

Various intelligence and foreign affairs committees of the British Parliament and the US Congress have started inquiries into how the decision to go to war was taken--when, why and on what basis. But it will require a superhuman effort to penetrate the murky thicket of competing government bureaucracies, spooks, exiles, defectors and other self-serving sources, pro-Israeli lobbyists, magazine editors, think-tank gurus and assorted ideologues who, in Washington at least, have a massive say in the shaping of foreign policy.

How did it all begin? An important part of the story, though not the whole of it, is the special relationship between the United States and Israel. Warren Bass's important and timely book Support Any Friend, written with candor and firmly rooted in primary sources, takes us back to the diplomacy of the 1960s, and to what he argues were the beginnings of today's extraordinarily intimate alliance between the two countries. It is in effect the story of how Israel and its American friends came to exercise a profound influence on American policy toward the Arab and Muslim world. Bass believes it all began with JFK. It is an interesting thesis and he argues it well, although in my view the US-Israeli entente actually began with LBJ, after Kennedy's assassination.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4566.htm

[rini]

1. From your mouth to G-ds ears!

I only wish we Jews had the power you so graciously bestow upon us. BTW, when are you going to rail against the WASP majority who actually rule this country?

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Huh?!

I don't know which article that you are replying to, but it's certainly not to the one I posted. I realize that it's a little long, but it is necessary to read the entire article to understand the point this author, and I did not write this, is making. It was not intended as a ``rail'' against American Jews or you, in particular, but an analysis as to how the neocons within the administration, and their reliance on the dubious ``intelligence'' provided by Ahmad Chalabi's INC, has managed to shape current foreign policy. It is true that some neocons are Jewish, but Dick Cheney and, especially, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld (who is of German descent) are at the forefront of this movement and are those who are guiding Bush*s questionable decisions regarding the Middle East. Rumsfeld chose to base his decisions regarding war with Iraq on the word of exiled informants, rather than intelligence gathered by the CIA or State Dept. There are a lot more salient points, but they are all made within the article.

[The Magistrate]

3. The Only problem With This Article, Mem'Sahib

Is that its author ignores real motivations, which are personal, and political.

The first motivation is a blend of princely pique, and desire to show up the father. The elder Bush lost the election of '92 largely because he had failed to press the war on to Baghdad and destroy Hussein's regime: this is why the approval he gained by that war dissolved at the polls. Both the son, and the retreads from the elder's administration restored to power along with him, intended from the start to undo this earlier failure.

The second motivation was a determination to corrupt the political process in our own country, to attempt to focus the attention of the people away from the corruption and economic failure of the administration's policies by foreign adventure, and secure the ability to label un-patriotic any opposition by mainstream political figures to the administration. The Afghan seam had rather played out, for this purpose, and something new was needed. Matters have, to some degree, played out a little differently than these reptiles expected they would, but that is more the result of their hubris and ignorance than anything else.

So the question of faulty intelligence particularly is quite beside the point. The decision was made on wholly different grounds, and the intelligence selected, distorted, and even outright fabricated, to advance the end already decided on. Similarly, the various intellectuals who glow in the self-flattery that their big ideas have influenced the men in power are merely little cabooses on a big train: the only thing they really did was see the train going down the track, and attach themselves to it in good time. Israel's position in the matter is similarly peripheral, and more a following in the wake than a piloting of the channel.

[Darranar]

4. There was a third motivation...

The attack on Iraq was opne of the first steps of the neocon imperialists to secure American domination of the world. Since when it comes to domestic policies they favor the corporations over basically everyone else, that translates to American corporate control over the entire world.

PNAC must be stopped.

[The Magistrate]

5. Do Not Be Decieved, Sir

Those fellows are legends in their own minds: the actions of the government owe nothing to their little fantasias. Intellectuals are not even a tail to wag a dog, but only fleas upon its mangy hide.

[Darranar]

7. They are in the government...

so I don't see your point.

[The Magistrate]

8. Mostly In Advisory Roles, Sir

In other words, without any power save that of their patron. Those who hold office, such as Rumsfeld, can hardly be accused of deep thought.

What so many hyperventilate over as P.N.A.C. is simply garden variety imperial expansion, which occurs in all imperiums, and for which the justifications are taken off the shelf as needed. All governments expand, to the limit of their capability to do so: this is as old the Chinese saw, hoary by the early Han, that "There is but one sun in the sky: there can be but one ruler of men."

[Darranar]

9. None of them can be accused of deep thought...

a central problem.

The US government has a tremendous capability to expand; another problem.

I do think that the Bush Administration's foreign policy is, in part, attempting to make the world safe for very large-scale globalization and multinational corporations. That is the true motivation behind the PNAC, not "national security" as their propaganda-filled website claims. (Yes, there are some "intelelctuals" among them who have fooled themselves into thinking that their plan benefits everyone, but that's due more to arrogance then truth.) It also, of course, fits in with Bush's disasterous economic and domestic policies, which strongly benefit those corporations.

[bemildred]

6. Some interesting bits.

I was wondering if it would get any coherent responses because
of the "Jews rule the World" flavor here and there, which put me
off a bit, but I kept reading. Thank you for that.

This seems to be part of a massive thrust and parry we can expect
now, with some trying to cover their butts and others trying to
slash their knickers away. The Nation seems eager for the fray.

A more interesting question, in my opinion, is what the consequences
of the developing debacle in Iraq will be. The potential seems
enormous, we have blown up the dam without first digging a new
channel. I suspect nobody knows. Order is precious and rare, and
once gone, laborious to reconstruct. One of the striking things in
reading Mr. Fromkin was the sense that the leaders at the time
did not actually understand what was going on - Churchill seems a
notable exception for having some idea - and that strikes me as very
similar to the situation now.

[The Magistrate]

10. Your Mention Of Mr. Fromkin Is Apt, My Friend

"A Peace To End All Peace" is worth the read, especially now. Ignorance, in the combination of knowing nothing, and knowing things that are not so, is an especially marked feature of the current administration, and of its followers.

My usual prediction is that things will continue as they are: my faith in inertia as the chief fact in human affairs is deep. Even chaos has self-sustaining qualities.

[bemildred]

11. Inertia is indeed a dominant force in the World's affairs.

As Mr. Newton pointed out some time ago.

The thing is that, as you know, historical "adjustments" work
themselves out over decades, and longer periods. We are already
far from the status quo ante in Iraq, and a return to that
state seems unlikely. Even a return to Baath control seems
improbable at this point; at the least it would require considerable
effort exerted over time.

It seems similarly improbable that Mr. Bush and his minions will
all of a sudden start dealing with the situation rationally, that
would require an admission of how dumb they have been. Thus we
can expect to continue on the current path, towards disorder in Iraq
and bankruptcy at home, for the time being.

In Iraq there would seem to be three general solutions: a "failed
state", partition, or a Shiite dominated state. All are problematical,
the last seems most likely to have consequences further afield. I
suppose a fourth would be that we succeed in installing a stable
secular puppet regime, but I find that implausible.

In the USA there will be consequences, but I cannot see it rising
to the level of institutional change at this point, something like
the devolution of Britain into an ordinary nation is more like it.
Lowered expectations, a rising tendency for other nations to quietly
ignore the dictates of Washington. One can see this already as
a trend of some decades duration. Perhaps a reversal of the last
twenty-some years of voter apathy and oligarchic rule will happen.

The overall point is this, we have destabilized the situation, there
is no likelihood of a return to the previous state, there was
a good deal of pent-up energy in the old system, and things are
likely to remain unstable for some time yet. This may well lead to
destabilization elsewhere in the region. It's not like the network
of alliances that precipitated out as WWI, but it would seem sufficient
to put the Middle East into play. If I had to hazard a guess, I would
expect the trend to continue in the direction of booting out the
infidel and restoring the 'self-determination' of the local peoples,
as seen in Afghanistan, Iran, the Caucasus, etc. in other words the
continued erosion of the arrangements made by the colonial powers.

What the new arrangements might look like, who can say?