Global Paradigms

The Liberty & Power blog on the History News Network had an interesting discussion on the Mearsheimer & Walt piece on the Israel Lobyy . These comments by Aster Francesca caught my attention: I don't trust M&W at all. This piece presents all the classic elements of anti-semetic conspiracy theory- Jews with vast financial power secretively manipulating 'our' society. Now, there's nothing in the article which is prima facie anti-semitic and M&W scrupulously just lay out a factual case which just *happens* to coincide with the world as viewed according to the hoariest old hatreds and stereotypes. What makes me very suspicious of the authors is that they must know this, and yet write their piece in the cute, dissembling dispassion of academic postivism as if they are totally oblivious to the cultural resonance of their theory. They give a few 'we are not antisemitic' statements, scrupulously portray their concepts and generalisations as particular,...

And I mean it. I'm sick and tired reading about "More retired Generals call for Rumsfeld's Resignation" . First, where were these guys when the decision to go to war were made? Why didn't they resign, protest, etc. if they thought that the strategy pursued by Rumsfeld would fail and endanger their troops? These are not Profiles in Courage in any way you look at it. Moreover, as military commanders they were responsible for everything that has taken place in Iraq -- the successes and the screw-ups. Then there is the issue of civilian control over the military. I cannot stand Rumsfeld and am opposed to his policies. But this guy is in charge, selected by the president and confirmed by Congress and I really don't care what the men and women in uniform -- or those who retired from service -- think about this war. If they want to change policies, they should run for office. And finally I can already see what would happen if Rumsfeld is fired. The neocon spin would ...

Matthew Barganier has drawn my attention to James Taranto's rants in The Ugly Side of Libertarianism which probably should be re-titled, The Ugly Side of Neo-libertarianism , by which I refer to the pro-war libertarians who dominate now much of the blogsphere in the form of the war-bloggers. Matt Welch has challenged these guys with his The Pro-war Libertarian Quiz:How far are you willing to go to win the War on Terror? . There's is a element of cognitive dissonance run amok in the pro-war libertarian agenda: They are so, so angry at the Bushies for taking steps to resrict our civil libertaies, as though the Patriot Act, etc. has nothing to do the war. They are so, so pissed off at rising spending by the federal government,etc., as though that has nothing to do with increasing defense spending, that is, the war. They are so, so frustrated with growing protectionisn, "isolationism,' etc., as though that doesn't reflect the nationalist fervor unleashed by the Bus...

Since posting my previous item on Iran-U.S. in which I speculate about an the confrontation with Iran turning into a Cuban-Missile-Crisis, David Ignatius published a commentary in The Washington Post titled "An Iranian Missile Crisis" in which he basically makes the same argument. Zbigniew Brzezinski is quoted in the piece making some excellent points: Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, makes a similar argument about Iran. "I think of war with Iran as the ending of America's present role in the world," he told me this week. "Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world." Brzezinski urges President Bush to slow down and think carefully about his options -- rather than rushing to stop Iran's nuclear program, which by most estimat...

It's been happening all week. In every conference, lunch, email exchange, phone conservation I've been asked about Sy Hersh's article in the New Yorker about President Bush's plan to attack Iran, including by using tactical nuclear weapons, to prevent it from developing a nuclear military capability. I've published several long analyses ( here and here )and short commentaries ( here , here , here ,and here ) on U.S.-Iran calling on the administration to do a Bush-going-to-Iran a la Nixon-going-to-China, that is secret talks leading to a bilateral diplomatic bargain on several issues, including the nuclear one. I've also stressed that only a direct U.S.-Iran accord could make is possible to stabilize Iraq. And that in case, Israel's nuclear military power would serve as the main deterrence to potential Iranian capability. I've also predicted that a combination of domestic political pressures in both countries as well as strategic considerations are boun...

Midge Deceter: Neocon Goddess Andrew Bacevich: Conservative foreign policy intellectual A few years ago (quite a few, as a matter of fact), I was (s)elected as the --- please, don't laugh! -- Shadow Secretary of State of the libertarian Party (and no, I didn't get a "shadow chauffeur" not to mention any "shadow salary"), so when my party organized a conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, I accepted their invitation for the weekend hoping that I'll, well, get lucky. And I had this fantasy of cool and easy libertarian gals who would be fighting with each other over who would have the honor of spending Saturday night with their Secretary of State... What can I say... Most of the attendees in the event were aging nerdy males plus two of three aesthetically-challenged females and they all ended up spending Saturday night arguing over where and when Alissa Rosenbaum (Ayn Rand) and Nathaniel Branden had made out for the first time. And believe me, the Mormom ni...

Pic from Time magazine Some of the critics of the Bush Administration's Iraq War/foreign policy insist on portraying Condi Rice as the "good guy/gal" in the administration, the anti-Cheney/Rumsfeld, if you will. This attitude stems probably from an infatuation with a media star, an interest in demonstrating that "we are not really Bush Administration haters," as well as from a politically-correct-driven concern about bashing a powerful Africa-American/female public figure. I've been arguing that the Lady is a Light-Weight and that she has been a total dissaster both as a National Security Advisor and a Secretary of State. In fact, she is probably the worst Secretary of State in U.S. history (please, read my earlier columns for a explanation). In any case, Sidney Blumenthal has a great analysis of Condi in the Guardian The tethered goat strategy which details our chief diplomat's efforts to silence U.S. diplomats about the mess in Iraq.

The Cato Institute with which I'm affiliated as a research fellow in one of the leading pro-immigration think-tanks, while the American Conservative for which I write as a contributing editor wants to place restrictions on immigration. So... I've chosen a neutral forum, the Singapore Business Times to publish my analysis of the current immigration debate. There is no doubt that economics plays a role in this debate. It's not surprising that American businesses support a more open immigration policy and as a classical liberal I tend to sympathize with their position. But... it seems to me that much of the opposition to immigration in the United States and in Europe (with regard to Arab and Moslem immigrants) has to do less with economics and more with such core existential issues as national and cultural identity. One could use terms like "xenophobia" to dismiss concerns among Americans over the reality in which many Latino immigrants aren't assimilating into...

A victim of anti-Semitism? A victim of Racism? A few online pals emailed to ask me what I thought of Eliot Cohen's Yes, It's Anti-Semitic op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post in which the veteran neocon military thinker implies that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" is, well, anti-Semitic. If by anti-Semitism one means obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews; if one accuses them of disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments; if one systematically selects everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group and equally systematically suppresses any exculpatory information -- why, yes, this paper is anti-Semitic. I've commented in the M/W paper in earlier posts, and included some of my reservations. But "anti-Semitic?" I don't have time to do that. But I wish so...

I had the honor to address today members of the Liberty Caucus , a group of Congressmen who support political and economic freedom. The event took place in the office of one of my political heroes, Congressman (and Dr.) Ron Paul , the only libertarian Member of Congress. The meeting was private but to give you some idea of the sentiments I encountered you could check out this latest report about what Dr. Paul, and another member of the caucus, Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina (who attended the event today) were doing yesterday: In the House, Republican Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina, Ron Paul of Texas and Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland announced their support for a Democratic resolution that would force an immediate, 17-hour-long House debate on the war aimed at requiring a plan to get troops out. "There are those of us in both parties who want to meet our constitutional responsibility, and that is to discuss and debate the present and the future of our commitment i...

I just saw Sophie Scholl - The Final Days , very moving and inspiring German-made movie (and an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film this year). In the movie, Julia Jentsch plays the role of a valiant 21-year-old hero a member of the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance movement who stood up against the Nazis and denounced Hitler as a liar as she stood strong against the relentless challenges of Nazi interrogator Robert Mohr (played in the movie by Alexander Held). I remember the 1982 movie on the White Rose directed by Michael Verhoeven that made an impression on me and encouraged me to read about the subject. But since then records of Scholl's interrogation and incarceration that had long been unavailable were discovered in former East German archives, and the director of the new movie, Mark Rothemund and screenwriter Fred Breinersdorfer have been able to recreate in an almost semi-documentary style the last six days of Sophie's life, after she and her brother Hans (Fabi...

For some reason my earlier post which carried my analysis, "How to Handle Hamas: The Holy Land needs a more modest peace plan. Think Cyprus," which appeared in The American Conservative , April 10, 2006, "disappeared." So here it is again. Just click on the images below:

The director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute, Likud propagandist Meyrav Wurmser has published an analysis of the recent Israeli elections in the NRO ( Should I mention that she is also the wife of shady neocon/Likudnik figure, David Wurmser) which is so stupid -- as well as poorly writen (do they edit stuff at NRO?) -- that it deserves special attention by yours truly: Israel's recent elections occurred in the context of significant, even monumental ,["significant, and even monumental..." like "bad, and even horrible..."] questions facing the Jewish nation [and I thought that this was an election in which Israeli citizens, including more than 20 percent Arabs and at least 10 percent "others," that is, non-Jewish citizens vote. Do American-Jews belong to the "Jewish nation?" Is there an election in which members (citizens?) of the "Jewish nation" vote?] Israel faces grave threats from Hamas's ascen...

My analysis on How to Handle Hamas.The Holy Land needs a more modest peace plan.Think Cyprus which was published in The American Conservative (April 10, 2006) opens with the following. Google "respected pollster" and "Palestinian" and you'll get quite a few hits leading to Khalil Shikaki, who is described as "the most respected Palestinian pollster." This view is shared by Tom Friemdman and other journalists who regularly soundite the head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research -- whose institute has received funding from American Foundations and who has served as an adviser to the U.S. government. I go on to suggest that there is one major problem in leading respectability as a pollster: his polls. Shikaki conducted three crucial polls tht showed the moderate Fatah well ahead of the militant Hamas by a comfortable and growing margin on the eve of the Palestinian parliamentary elections in which Hamas won Big. The pro...

You're joking? Right? That flaming neocon/Likudnik? An Israel basher? Well, that's at least the way Bradley Burston describes Pipes in a column in Israel's Haaretz Online titled,"Daniel Pipes, a new kind of Israel-basher." Burston, an American who settled in Israel is responding to a commentary that Pipes published in the New York Sun titled, "Israel Avoids Victory." Like most of the neocons, Pipes is veteran chicken-hawk. The only wars he had taken part were the war of ideas (writing op-eds and appearing on television shows). But he is always ready to send American and Israeli soldiers to fight and die on the battle-field while advancing his grand geopolitical and ideals. Those who can't do, like to watch. The war in Iraq hasn't turned exactly as Pipes had expected. Never mind. It's time to move on. And what bothers Pipes now is that the Israelis aren't really manly enough to his taste. They're kind of wimps. Unlike General Pipes, ...

I started my day reading Justin Raimondo's report that Porfessor Stephen Walt was "kicked out" of his job as Harvard's Kennedy School dean in retaliation for co-authoring the controversial Israel Lobby paper on which I've written earlier . And the day ended with Steve Clemons reporting that the Dean of the Kennedy School has stated that there was no connection between Walt's stepping down as academic dean "at the natural end" of his term and the Israel Lobby paper (although Steve seems not to be entirely convinced and is waiting for direct communication from Walt). In between I received an email from someone "close" to the controversy who insisted that Walt wasn't fired. Well... whatever really happaned it seems to me that the assault on Walt and his co-author Mearsheimer are bound to produce a "chilling effect" on anyone who wants to conduct a serious and honest debate on U.S. policy in the Middle East. While I had some res...

The old foreign policy axis? The new foreign policy axis? Daniel McCarthy, one of the original young thinkers in the conservative movement has an interesting analysis of the Jacksonian insurgency , that is, the populist-nationalist backlash against Bush's foreign policy agenda over Iraq and other issues. I've discussed this pheonomenon, most recently here and here . Daniel is placing the Jacksonian sentiments, that have become quite obvious during the Dubai/ports debate, including among many Republicans, in the a larger historical context. He argues the what we are seeing now is the breakup of the political axis between the Jacksonians and the Wilsonians that evolved after 9/11. He seems to think that the pro-business Hamiltonians are now history and sees some signs of an emergence of a new axis between the Jacksonians and the Jeffersonians (left- and right-libertarians). All this discussion is based on Walter Russell Mead’s division of American foreign-policy thought into fou...

GREAT STUFF: Check out (hear) released NSA intercepts on Leo Strauss Stiftung: Hear NSA defeat PNAC security and intercept an Emergency PNAC Board Meeting. Listen in as PNAC and its agents discuss Kadima. Learn about Bibi's Fighting Retreat, hear the debate over Krauthammer's demand for SMERSH assassins against Fukuyama and Mearsheimer.And discover PNAC's secret weapon to turn the tide when all seems lost! Forcing through ferocious PNAC electronic security defenses amid the chaos of political warfare, hear the NSA peer into the inner most workings of the Cabal. And the following is a NSA Intercept Transcript (Partial) ========================================= TOP SECRET KIMBA TO GOLF SIX SIGMA COMUSSSECDC 3G/12/TRN/P24-3 SIGINT READY DELTA BEGIN TRANSCRIPT (signal distortion from target): Weekly Standard Phone In: (inaudible, explosions) Kadima has smashed through our lines everwhere. The electoral casualities are complete. We are facing total electoral wipeout. Bibi i...

Jesse Walker posted my "More on Israeli Elections" on Reason Online's very lively Hit and Run blog. As I suggested in an earlier post (on Mearsheimer/Walt Israel Lobby "thing") debates over Israeli policies (or elections for that matter) turn very quickly into shouting matches between "pro-Israelis" (so-called) and "anti-Israelis" (so-called). In general, American-Jews who are engaged in Israeli issues (most American Jews aren't) tend to be be more hawkish that the Israeli voters (which includes of course Arab voters). Indeed, Haaretz reported that: Likud won the mock elections held among Jewish voters abroad Tuesday, with 44 seats. Kadima came in second in the Jewish Agency-run election, with 33 seats. National Union-National Religious Party won 15 seats, and the Labor Party got 14. Some 8,500 Jews abroad, primarily young people and students, voted in the mock elections held at community centers and on college campuses in 85 countries....

Indeed, that would your geo-strategic forecast after reading Martin Jacques who contends that Imperial overreach is accelerating the global decline of America Interestingly enough, Jacques' main source for these gloomy predictions is no other than Republican Congressman Henry Hyde who seems to be a bit bearish when it comes to U.S. role in spreading democracy in the Middle East. This is from a very conservative guy who has been a leading supporter of W. on Iraq. Has he been reading The American Conservative instead of The Weekly Standard and The National Review ...? Highlight: Hyde alludes to a new "unformed" world and "a phalanx of aspiring competitors". On this he is absolutely right. The world is in the midst of a monumental process of change that, within the next 10 years or so, could leave the US as only the second largest economy in the world after China and commanding, with the rise of China and India, a steadily contracting share of global output. It w...