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New York, Thursday, May 28, 2004 The Bush Cabal and Iraq War
- Ethnic Response to CriticismEditorial The Ground
Shifts May 28, 2004  THE
ground shifted this week, subtly but critically, in
the ongoing debate over the role of Israel in
America's Iraq policy, one more step in the growing
insecurity facing Jews and the Jewish state in the
wake of the Iraq war.
As recently as a week ago, reasonable people
still could dismiss as antisemitic conspiracy
mongering the claim that Israel's security was the
real motive behind the invasion of Iraq. No longer.
The allegation has now moved from the fringes into
the mainstream. Its advocates can no longer simply
be shushed or dismissed as bigots. Those who
disagree must now argue the case on the merits.  What
changed this week, most importantly, was the entry
into the debate of the very respectable Anthony
Zinni, left, the retired Marine general
and former Middle East mediator. Appearing on CBS
News' "60 Minutes" last Sunday, Zinni said it was
"the worst-kept secret in Washington" that a group
of neoconservative thinkers had pushed for invading
Iraq in order to make the Middle East more
democratic -- and safer for Israel. "Everybody I
talk to in Washington has known and fully knows
what their agenda was and what they were trying to
do," Zinni said. And in saying it, he changed the
terms of the debate. He is not one to be waved
off.
Saying Zinni has a right to his views is not the
same as saying he's right. For our money, the idea
that a small group of bureaucrats and ideologues
effectively hijacked American policy and cooked up
a war is simplistic. Those who sought to topple
Saddam Hussein believed he was a threat both
to Israel and to America. Nobody was more committed
to removing that threat than George
Bush. Whatever else may be said of Bush, he has a
clear vision of the world -- perhaps too clear --
and he has been consistent in acting on it. He may
be driving America's ship of state "over Niagara
Falls," as Zinni put it, but he's doing it with his
eyes open. The notion that invading Iraq was a
neoconservative scheme, foisted on American
policy-makers for Israel's benefit, has been
simmering just beyond the borders of acceptable
politics since the Bush administration began
visibly preparing for war in the winter of 2003.
Though popular in Europe, the notion was
articulated in this country mainly by longtime
critics of Israel who could
easily be dismissed as
conspiracy theorists. The Israel link was mentioned
repeatedly in the major media -- "Meet the Press,"
the Washington Post -- as an idea that was
in play, but virtually no mainstream figure would
admit to believing it. Most of America took the
administration at its word that the drive to war
was motivated -- rightly or wrongly -- by a belief
that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction
and had ties to Al Qaeda. And here is the other shift in the debate. The
collapse of the two main justifications for war --
the weapons and the Al Qaeda link -- has left
Middle East democratization as the one believable
motive. Once that was established, it was only a
matter of time before the Israel question
resurfaced.  Zinni
is the second major Washington figure to make the
accusation publicly this month. Senator Ernest
Hollings, right, a South Carolina
Democrat with an unfortunate
history of ethnic slurs, said much the same
thing in a newspaper essay May 6 and was roundly
attacked for it. Both the Anti-Defamation
League and the American Jewish Committee
accused him of resurrecting age-old "Jewish
conspiracy" myths and demanded that he retract his
statement. Instead, Hollings rose on the floor of
the Senate on May 20, and repeated
his charge.
Zinni went public the following Sunday. He
didn't have the bully pulpit of the U.S. Senate,
but he had something at least as powerful:
credibility. A genuine Pentagon star, Zinni is a
former chief of the U.S. Central Command, in charge
of all American troops in the Middle East. He also
served as President Bush's special Middle East
envoy in the winter of 2002 and 2003, overseeing
Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy during the months
that Washington was preparing for war in Iraq. He's
not merely theorizing about how American policy was
formed; he was there. 
THE truth is, of course, that Zinni is partly right
-- but only partly. Securing Israel was one of the
war hawks' motives, but not the only one, probably
not even the main one. Saddam's regime genuinely
threatened the stability of the region, as the
United Nations Security Council had unanimously
agreed the previous fall. Other threats were
growing in seriousness, not least Al Qaeda, which
had struck in September 2001 and was seeking to
expand its reach. Then, too, the ideological
predilections of the Bush administration --
particularly its moral absolutism and its suspicion
of international agreements -- hampered its ability
to interpret these threats and shape an effective
response.
More than any other, it is that last factor --
the administration's unilateralism -- that has most
colored perceptions of Israel over the past year.
By going to war before he had exhausted all
diplomatic options, by failing to assemble a
genuinely international coalition, by failing to
line up moderate Arab support as his father did in
1991, Bush set in motion a catastrophic chain of
events that has left the world less stable than it
was before. The threat of terrorism has increased,
not declined. Movements that were separate and
distinct before the war -- Iraqi Baathism, Al Qaeda
fundamentalism, Palestinian nationalism -- are
making common cause more than ever, becoming the
global threat that we had imagined them to be.
Jewish institutions around the world have been
forced to fortify themselves like military
installations. And in the midst of all this stands
America -- alone against much of the world -- with
Israel by its side, more alone and threatened than
it was before. Rep.
Nita Lowey told the Forward this week
that because of Bush's policies, Jews are less safe
than they were. Stating that fact doesn't lessen
the responsibility of those who threaten and attack
Jews. It merely acknowledges the staggering
ineptitude of the administration in meeting those
threats. Bush surely didn't mean to make things
worse, but that's what he did. And now the greatest irony: As Americans become
bitter over these catastrophic events, they may yet
vent their anger on the oldest scapegoat of
all. The line between legitimate debate and
scapegoating is a fine one. Friends of Israel will
be tempted to guard that line by labeling as
antisemites those who threaten to cross it. They
already have begun to do so. But it is a mistake.
Israel and its allies stand accused of manipulating
America's public debate for their own purposes. If
they were to succeed in suppressing debate to
protect themselves, it only would prove the point.
Better to follow the democratic path: If there is
bad speech, the best reply is more speech. Besides, the fight already may have been lost.
Exposing antisemites can be an effective weapon
when it succeeds in shaming the bigots, or
isolating them. These days, as we learned from
Mel Gibson, those who stand accused of
antisemitism seem increasingly able to portray
themselves as victims -- as Hollings and Zinni
already have done. It is not Israel's enemies but
its friends that are isolated. That's another thing
that's changed. If this was a war to protect Israel, then heaven
shield us from our protectors. © The
Forward. 
on this
website... 
Senator
Ernest Hollings says Israel is behind Iraq war
The
full statement by the Senator
Jewish Congresswoman says
Bush's Policies are a Danger to Jews 
Our index
on the origins of anti-Semitism
 Website
comment: Only
a few Americans pushed for this war, but many more
came home in boxes ... 
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These
days, as we learned from Mel Gibson, those
who stand accused of antisemitism seem
increasingly able to portray themselves as
victims.
write to David
Irving