I'm afraid I continue to find the position that Israel is controlling US foreign policy to be fundamentally implausible; moreover it puts one in very bad company, and you see people around you perusing the "Protocols".
- The argument that Perle et al are Likudniks first and proposed the Iraq war to the Israeli government first doesn't convince me. Maybe that's why they as individuals want the war, but it's not adequate explanation for why the US would be following their policy prescription and not someone else's.
- The argument that US politicians have to do the bidding of right-wing Zionists in order to court the Jewish vote and get elected is also unconvincing and is basically mistaking effect for cause. You can answer that one on a lot of different levels, for example that the Black vote is ten times the Jewish vote but it never led the US to invade South Africa.
The idea that Israel is the master and the US the misled and deluded servant is not uncommon in the Middle East. I think a lot of it is wishful thinking, analogous to the "good tsar misled by evil ministers" delusion of 100 years ago. If it were true, then all sorts of evils could be alleviated by somehow disenthralling the US elite from the Israeli spell. If it were not true, if the forces leading to war on and oppression of the Arab and Muslim nations are inherent in the US economic system, then only the overthrow of that system can alleviate those evils for ever. But it isn[t, and they are, and only it can.
Lou Paulsen Chicago