On 2010-08-08, at 1:34 AM, SA wrote:
> 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.
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> 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.
It's also probably safe to assume that the ranks of those who want to see some loosening of the US embrace of Israel have grown since the Mearsheimer-Walt piece on the lobby appeared in the LRB in early 2006 - that is to say, before the Israeli military's poor performance against Hezbollah in the war on Lebanon; the failure of sanctions or Israeli threats of military action to stop Iran's nuclear program; the spread of Islamist insurgencies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia; and Israel's further political isolation in the wake of its assault on the civilian population of Gaza as well as the rise of the far right in Israeli politics committed to annexation of the West Bank and ethnic cleansing. All of these developments have prompted a reappraisal of whether Israel is still the asset it has historically been in the conduct of US foreign policy - a reappraisal which, it seems to me, would have transpired whether or not there were an Israel Lobby resisting it.
I also found interesting Anna Marie Slaughter's criticism of the M-W thesis, which SA quoted, particularly her dismissal of their suggestion that the US end its economic and military support of Israel consistent with a strategy of "offshore balancing". It's true, as she writes, that "no American politician could possibly implement such a strategy", but unclear whether she attributes this to the influence of the lobby.
My own view, of course, is that the refusal to contemplate a complete cessation of military and economic aid to Israel has less to do with fear of domestic pressure from Jewish and Christian Zionists than with US strategic interests. Such a move, from the POV of the US, would not result in an "offshore balancing" but in an new imbalance of power in the region in favour of Iran and the Islamist movement which would be much more detrimental to US interests than it's current support of Israel. This doesn't, however, preclude the US threatening Israel at critical junctures with more limited suspension of military, financial, diplomatic or other forms of support unless Israel complies with US demands. Israel typically complies. This happened notably under Eisenhower in 1956 following the Suez invasion, but also under Ford in 1976 initiating the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai, under Reagan in 1982 limiting the Israeli incursion in Lebanon designed to wipe out the PLO, and more tentatively under the timid Obama administration earlier this year with regard to curbs on settlement expansion. So there is room to squeeze Israel, notwithstanding the existence of the Lobby, in order to satisfy wider US policy objectives - but well short of throwing it to the wolves, which would be in conflict with those same objectives.