>> So given that the pillars of the US foreign-policy establishment are themselves divided over whether Israel is a strategic asset
>>
>
> Really? THe not-an-asset side seems very small. How do you see the balance of forces?
>
Well, it's hard to be precise since the whole problem is that anyone who wants an important job has to be circumspect about their views. For example, readers of the NYRB will be familiar with Robert Malley, now an articulate opponent of the Lobby. Well, he was the director of Middle East affairs in the Clinton White House. But were his views as openly known then? I doubt it.
Rather than characterizing the two groups as "asset" and "liability," I would divide them this way. On one side are those in the Lobby; that means those who, whether inside or outside the government, actively work to ensure US policy doesn't move toward what Chomsky calls the "international consensus," and who work with the institutions of the Lobby (AIPAC, WINEP, JINSA, etc.) Then there are the (open or discrete) opponents of the Lobby: those who believe that the Lobby itself is a major problem with US foreign policy because it blocks any attempt to hold Israel to the same standard as any other client. Note: just because someone is an opponent of the Lobby doesn't mean they're willing to end their career by trying to do something about it.
By this standard, much of the foreign policy establishment is made of Lobby opponents. They may even be a numerical majority; they probably make up the majority of the career foreign service. But in no recent administration have they held the balance of power over the key Mideast policymaking jobs. Some examples of opponents: Brent Scowcroft; James Baker (who the establishment recently turned to when they wanted to force Bush to wind down the Iraq war); Colin Powell (recent Sec State); Richard Haass (head of CFR; recent director of policy planning at State); the guys at the Nixon Center; apparently our current Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, who selected Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council (Blair was one of the innermost, topmost imperialists as CINCPAC, a very politically/economically/militarily important post); Robert Malley (Clinton's NSC Mideast director). There are others I have my suspicions about, like some of the people who took top jobs but came out of the foreign service - Thomas Pickering, Nicholas Burns, Christopher Hill, Karl Eikenberry.
By the way, Obama's current director of policy planning at the State Dept, Anne-Marie Slaughter, wrote a response to a Stephen Walt essay (about foreign policy in general, not directly about the Lobby) in the Boston Review in 2005. On Israel, Walt of course said the US should totally reorient its policy 180 degrees, etc. Slaughter, of course, didn't agree (otherwise she wouldn't be in this job), but I found her reasoning interesting. Instead of just saying our Israel policy is great, she said:
> Second, Walt’s prescriptions regarding American policy toward Israel
> focus on the importance of international legitimacy but completely
> ignore the necessity of domestic legitimacy. He argues, and I agree,
> that American foreign-policy goals with regard to combating terrorism,
> nuclear proliferation, political oppression, and economic stagnation
> in the Arab Muslim world all depend on progress in resolving the
> Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In a nutshell, the United States has no
> legitimacy with the vast majority of Muslims as long as it is visibly
> seen to be supporting the occupation and oppression of the
> Palestinians. Walt’s solution is for the United States to pressure
> Israel into offering the Palestinians “a viable state,” and if the
> Israeli government refuses, or “if it tries to impose an unjust
> solution unilaterally,” “then the United States should end its
> economic and military support. Consistent with the strategy of
> offshore balancing, the United States would pursue its own
> self-interest rather than adhere to a blind allegiance to an
> uncooperative ally.”
>
> Walt can’t be serious. No American politician could possibly implement
> such a strategy. Indeed, here is one issue on which it is hard to find
> a finger width’s of difference between Hillary Clinton and Karl Rove.