Global Paradigms

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...

Re my previous post (more on Israeli elections). It happens when you work on your blog at 2:00 am (that's early in the morning..) and you don't have an editor: Lieberma's part is "Israel BEITENU" and not "Israel SHELANU." "Beitenu" is "our home" in Hebrew. "Shelanu" is "ours." So... blame my mind for misprocessing info... SORRY!

The results of the elections haven't led me the change any of my earlier observations/predictions . But here three ideas to chew on: 1. All of Israel's PMs were part of the country's national security establishment. They were either ex-military generals, like Rabin or Barak or were involved in one way or another in defense issues, like Peres, Begin or Meir. Olmert is the first "civilian," a lawyer-businessman by profession to become a PM. This I think is going to have a major impact on the way Israel's national security/foreign policy is going to be managed. In a way, this will be the first Israeli PM who whose view of the Arabs hasn't been shaped by looking through the barrel of gun. 2. The elections have revived an ethnic split in Israeli politics which will now formalized along party lines. Hence the Labor party has now become the political home of Israel's low-middle class and poor "Mizrahim" (Middle Eastern Jews)who reside in Israel'...

I also saw over the weekend Joyeux Noel very moving anti-war French movie, directed by Christian Carion, which was an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. It depicts a true incident from Christmas, 1914, in which three armies -- British (Scots), French and Germans -- declared an unofficial armistice for a few days over the holiday season. They drank, shared food, buried their dead, talked, sang and exchanged addresses (Their governments later declared it an act of treason). In a way, it's more than just an anti-war movie. It's also a eulogy for the European civilization that was destroyed in the Great War and which never came back to life. It was the tragic opening of the violent and tragic twentieth century.

. In the new issue of the National Review Richard Lowry addresses "The ‘To Hell with Them’ Hawks" who he describes as "conservatives who are comfortable using force abroad, but have little patience for a deep entanglement with the Muslim world, which they consider unredeemable, or at least not worth the strenuous effort of trying to redeem" and wh "want to detach Bush’s Jacksonianism from his Wilsonianism." According to Lowry, this "tendency is problematic and, in its own way, as naïve and unrealistic as Bush at his dreamiest." In another conservative magazine, I've discussed the rising anger among conservatives over the Global Democracy project here and suggested why the plans to "democratize" the Middle East are unrealistic and are not advancing U.S. interests here . I think that the recent I-cannot-believe-this reaction in the U.S. and the West to the news about the Afghan man who had been facing the death penalty for converting...

I saw Spike Lee's Inside Man over the weekend and was thinking of writing something about it, but then I read Steve Sailer's review: Good movie. It's a heist flick with Clive Owen playing the genius bankrobber who takes 50 hostages, Denzel Washington as the NYPD negotiator who slowly figures out the bankrobber has memorized the police manual that he's been working from, and Jodie Foster in a supporting role as a shady fix-it lady for the rich powerful who is hired by the owner of the bank (Christopher Plummer) to prevent the bankrobbers from getting incriminating documents in the vault. Meanwhile, every ethnicity in New York is barking amusing insults at each other. My wife says, "It's 'Crash' with a plot." More Since Steve raised the comparison between Spike Lee and Woody Allen, let me just add that critics of the first have accused the black New Yorker of highlighting negative streotypes of Jews in some of his movies (notably the Jewish charact...

Remind me why the current parliamentary elections taking place in a small country in the Middle East with about six million citizens is probably receiving MORE coverage in the American media than a race for the Governorship of, say, New York or California? There was a time when the results of an election in Israel could have determined whether the U.S. would have been able to pursue the "peace process." Well, no peace processing is going to take place any time soon. If you want to know why read my recent analysis "How to Handle Hamas. The Holy Land needs a more modest peace plan. Think Cyprus," in The American Conservative which was posted earlier on this blog , in which I argued that the peace process is for all practical purposes dead. I suggest in my piece that all we can hope for under the current conditions is some sort of a separation between the two communities. I agree with what The Economist suggested in recent leader, "The remarkable survival of Kadi...

Karl Lueger: Anti-Semite John Mearsheimer: Critic of Israel Lobby I've received a few emails from online pals who were wondering based on my earlier posts whether I "support" or "approve" of the paper/article that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (M/W) had written about the Israel Lobby . Interestingly enough, I’ve never been asked whether I “support” or “approve” of articles by, say, Paul Krugman or Tom Friedman but whether I “agree” with this or that stuff published by this or that “public intellectual.” My usual response is that I agree or disagree with some or most of what these guys have to say (believe it or not, I actually agree sometimes with what Krugman and Friedman have to say). And, hey, I sometimes find myself disagreeing with some of the things I had written a day or two ago… That’s the nature of intellectual discourse. You approve of or support the platform of a political party, a policy proposal or a diplomatic agreement. Yet when it comes to d...

A Image from 2009? I've been trying to caution the war critics that when it comes to Iraq The End is Not Near and that they are departing the Reality-based community when they imagine that political pressure at home would force President Bush to start withdrawing troops from Iraq any time soon. I assume that after Bush told a news conference Tuesday that future U.S. presidents and Iraqi governments probably will have to decide when to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, everyone is finally facing the reality, that American troops will remain at war in Iraq at least through 2008 and beyond. If you still have any illusions, please read Tony Karon excellent Iraq is the 51st State posted on his Rootless Cosmopolitan blog. Here is a highlight: The U.S. isn’t about to walk away and leave the borders of the country with the world’s second largest known oil reserves prey to the whim of Tehran or Ankara or Damascus or anyone else. That may be why when Kerry challenged Bush on the campaign trai...