Following the end of the Cold War, neoconservatives eventually converged around a forceful, interventionist, unilateralist grand strategy designed to preserve American primacy while promoting free markets and democratization. While they remained wedded to these classical liberal goals, they rejected contemporary liberal methods of achieving these aims through multilateralism and international institutions. Instead, they argued for a vigorous unilateralism or a coalition of democracies willing to follow America’s lead. Despite the collapse of the USSR, they thought that the international arena remained a dangerous place, with the key threat being posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to revisionist “rogue” states that supported terrorism in areas of vital interest to the U.S., like the Middle East.67 By the end of the 1990s, one particular rogue state moved to the top of their agenda: Iraq. Saddam’s regime was founded on Ba’athist ideology with elements borrowed from both European fascism and Communism. Once again, neoconservatism was on a mission to combat totalitarianism.68 The historical “lesson” of Munich 1938 rang true for Iraq 2003.
Saddam’s Iraq was not the only neo-Fascist enemy identified by the neocons. Already in 1989, Commentary urged the U.S. to confront radical Islamism,69 and this call was echoed by leading Republican politicians, like Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich, who compared Islamic radicalism to Nazi and Communist totalitarianism.70 After 9/11 the neocons argued that the lack of democracy in the Middle East was a major underlying cause of Islamist terrorism.71 Once again, American foreign policy was about an absolute struggle against evil – this time against the totalitarian ideology of Islamic fascism– what Podhoretz termed World War IV.72 These ideas lay behind the Bush doctrine, which spoke of creating a “balance of power for freedom” against the “axis of evil.”
Populist nationalism73
Populist nationalism is based on a sharp distinction between the folk community – the American nation – and those outside it. This distinction is reinforced for many populist nationalists by fundamentalist religious beliefs that emphasize the unbridgeable gap between the “saved” and the “unsaved” – good and evil. In light of these sharp distinctions, populist nationalists view the international arena as essentially anarchic and violent. In such a setting, the U.S. can trust no other nation and must rely only on itself. Consequently, they advocate an assertive unilateralist approach that seeks to maximize American military power and keep it unbound by multilateral alliances and international organizations. For many populist nationalists, fundamentalist Protestantism informs a profound skepticism of human schemes to improve the world through international cooperation and the like, associated with liberal internationalism. The world cannot be redeemed by humanity, only by the return of Jesus. In war, populist nationalists support using force at the highest possible level of intensity to crush the enemy as quickly and decisively as possible. This is necessary, because the aim is not simply to disarm the enemy but to deter the enemy society from even thinking about going to war against the U.S. again. Honor plays a role in restraining the treatment of adversaries, but adversaries who are deemed to break their honor code – for example, terrorists – forfeit that consideration, irrespective of the demands of international law.
In the interwar period populist nationalists tended to be isolationist. With the Depression, which hit family farms in the South especially hard, they wanted government to focus on sorting out the domestic economy. What pushed populist nationalists to support American entry into World War II was not the immorality of Nazism, but rather the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Subsequently, their support for internationalism was sustained by a powerful sense of the threat posed to the United States by the Soviet Union. In the late 1940s some called for a preemptive strike on Moscow, while later on Barry Goldwater and others criticized containment as too defensive in nature, arguing instead for an offensive strategy of rollback. With the demise of the Soviet threat at the end of the Cold War, they retreated from internationalism, opposing intervention in Bosnia, but 9/11 led them to once again support activism abroad to combat the threat of Islamic radicalism and terrorism.
Grand Strategy in the Middle East and the Commitment to Israel
Because we share the same values, we also share many of the same adversaries … We know that Israel is America’s most ardent ally in the Middle East.
—Mitt Romney74
For the new conservative mainstream Israel is a Western-oriented democracy that shares with the U.S. common enemies and thus common interests.75 The Six Day War turned Israel into a “strategic asset” in their eyes. Subsequently, Israel came to be viewed as the front-line strategic ally in the struggle against Soviet totalitarianism.76
In this scheme, the peace process was viewed as, at best, a distraction from confronting America’s radical enemies. In fact, they were deeply skeptical toward the Oslo process. In 1996, they put forward a strategy which, as the title of a policy paper made clear, called for making a “clean break”77 from the peace process. It proposed that the U.S. work closely with the most moderate democratic and pro-U.S. countries in the region (Israel, Turkey, and Jordan) to “contain, destabilize and roll back” radical anti-U.S. forces (Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah), the aim being to forge a pro-American, pro-freedom balance of power. They also advocated removing Yasir Arafat and the democratic reform of the Palestinian Authority.78
After 9/11, Israel came to be seen as a key ally in the war on terror. The surge in populist nationalist support for Israel was reflected in the large rise in the number of Republicans sympathizing with Israel over the Palestinians: from in 60 percent in 2000 to 85 percent in 2010.79 They approved of Israel’s tough response to terrorism, which fitted their own preferences for U.S. policy. Critically, they viewed the U.S. and Israel as facing a common threat from radical Islamic terrorism and from Iran. Thus, when asked why America should have a military option for dealing with Iran when the threat is mainly directed against Israel, John McCain, the 2008 Republican candidate for the presidency, replied:
I think these terrorist organizations that they sponsor, Hamas and the others, are also bent, at least long-term, on the destruction of the United States of America … We’ve heard the rhetoric – the Great Satan, etc.80
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for president, went further, declaring:
The Iranian regime is unalloyed evil … [that] threatens not only Israel, but also every other nation in the region … [It] is the greatest immediate threat to the world since the fall of the Soviet Union, and before that, Nazi Germany … Stop thinking that a charm offensive will talk the Iranians out of their pursuit of nuclear weapons … Once an outstretched hand is met with a clenched fist, it becomes a symbol of weakness and impotence.81
Against this background, support for Israel, and its tough response to terrorism, has become something of a litmus test by which the new conservative mainstream judges political leaders. The more clearly you support Israel, the more you are viewed as a reliable American patriot.82
Although supportive of Israel, they could also be very critical when Israeli actions contradicted the strategic and ideological logic of their commitment. Thus, they took a very strong line against Israeli military sales to China.83 They were also opposed to foreign aid in general; indeed, the policy paper “A Clean Break” advocated ending civilian aid to Israel.
Ideology, Theology, and Underlying Sympathy for Israel
Aside from the strategic foundations of their support for Israel, neoconservatives and populist nationalists also share a special commitment to Israel. Neoconservative support for Israel has an emotionally Jewish side to it.84 Until the mid-1960s, Commentary was the home of liberal Jewish intellectuals who were ambivalent about their own Jewish identity and about Israel. However, in the period immediately preceding the Six Day War – when many felt Israel stood on the precipice of a second Holocaust – a strong sense of Jewish collective identity and a new assertiveness regarding the promotion of Jewish interests emerged
.85 For at the very time the neocons were speaking out about the dangers of Soviet totalitarianism and the New Left, Israel came under vicious attack in anti-Semitic Soviet propaganda, echoed in New Left anti-Zionism. The victims of the totalitarian Nazi Holocaust were now being targeted by the totalitarian Soviet Union and their fellow travelers. Still, Jewishness is not primarily responsible for neoconservative support for Israel. Many of the original leading neoconservatives were non-Jews, and they too were very pro-Israel – for example, James Q. Wilson, Daniel P. Moynihan, Michael Novak, Richard Neuhaus, William Bennett, George Weigel, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Actually, in the 1970s the core issue for neoconservatives was their opposition to both Kissinger and McGovern’s approaches to the Soviet Union, not Israel.86
For many populist nationalists there is a religious dimension to supporting Israel. They are evangelicals who believe that the Bible is the word of God, that God promised the land of Israel to the Jews, and that this promise is still valid. As explained in the previous chapter, from the second half of the nineteenth century onward, the theology of Restorationism – according to which Biblical prophecies predicting the return of the Jews to Palestine are viewed as the first step toward the Second Coming of Jesus – gained widespread support among conservative evangelicals. The Six Day War greatly boosted their support for Israel, because it seemed to fulfill biblical prophecy. Not only did Israel achieve a “miraculous” victory, it also gained control over a united Jerusalem, including the site of the ancient Jewish Temple that, according to their interpretation of biblical prophecy, needs to be rebuilt. The timing of this upsurge was especially significant politically, because it coincided with the demographic growth of evangelicals and their return to the political arena for the first time since the 1920s.
Against this background, in 2011, nearly two-thirds of white evangelicals thought that helping protect Israel should be a very important goal for U.S. foreign policy – virtually double the national average.87 The same outlook was expressed by many leading Republicans, including Sarah Palin,88 Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum, candidates in the 2012 primaries.89 Most powerfully, President George W. Bush, in a speech to the Knesset in 2008, declared that the State of Israel represents “the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David – a homeland for the chosen people.”90
Religiously inspired support for Israel is a major force in its own right; it is dealt with at length in a separate chapter. But aside from theology, it was also a matter of identity. Until the 1960s, populist nationalists’ white Christian conception of American identity was often tied to anti-Semitism, a fact that constrained identification with Israel. However since then, one symptom of the more inclusive shift in populist nationalism is the way its leaders now talk about America being a country built on a Judeo-Christian culture, rather than simply being a Christian country. The inclusion of Judeo as part of the quintessential national “us” makes more room for identification with the State of Israel. At the same time, Islam would appear to lie outside that definition: of all partisan-ideological groups, conservative Republicans have the least favorable view of Muslims.91
Final Status Issues: Supporting the Israeli Right?
Many evangelical populist nationalists are sympathetic to the territorially maximalist “whole land of Israel” ideology of Israel’s Far Right, which seeks to incorporate the West Bank into the State of Israel. Consequently, they tend to be supportive of Israeli settlements and oppose American pressure on Israel to compromise.92 Thus, Tom DeLay, the Republican whip from 1995 to 2003 and House majority leader from 2003 to 2005, spoke against trading land for peace, as did Rick Santorum.93 Mike Huckabee opposed the creation of a Palestinian state and supported the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza – as did Sarah Palin.94 Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) declared, “Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, ‘I am giving you this land’ – the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.”95 Most extreme, the former House majority leader Dick Armey supported the “transfer” of Palestinians from the West Bank as advocated by the fringe of the Israeli Far Right.96
Nonetheless, it is the tendency to favor Israel, rather than opposition to Israeli compromises per se, that stands at the core of the approach of populist nationalists who are not theologically committed to the settlements. For them the most important thing is not the details of any potential peace deal, but rather that the U.S. firmly takes Israel’s side in the diplomatic and political struggle over such a deal. As Mitt Romney put it in 2011:
Inexplicably, the United States [under President Obama] now places the burden on Israel to make still more unilateral concessions … We can encourage both parties in the conflict, but we must never forget which one is our ally… Keeping our word to our allies is a matter of honor, but it is also a matter of self-interest.97
As for the neoconservatives, Doug Feith has roots in the Revisionist Zionist movement, out of which grew the Likud. There were also strong ties between neoconservatives like Elliot Abrams and leading Likud figures that had spent extended periods in the U.S., especially Benjamin Netanyahu and Moshe Arens.98 However, these figures came from that part of the Likud that, while hawkish, was also firmly committed to the values of classical liberalism – just like the neoconservatives. Arens is well-known for his advocacy of the need for Israel to invest more in the integration of Israel’s Arab citizens, a position also advocated by the neoconservatives.99 Arens was also one of the first of the leading Likudniks to abandon the party’s “whole land of Israel” ideology100 – an ideology that the neoconservatives do not support. Thus Charles Krauthammer praised Netanyahu when he broke with Likud ideology by accepting the principle of partition in the late 1990s.101 While in 2006, the Weekly Standard expressed support for the centrist party Kadima’s election platform, which advocated a unilateral disengagement from most of the West Bank.102 Even before then, a senior editor at National Review, David Pryce-Jones, referred to the capture of the West Bank and Gaza as “a poisoned cup.”103 The outlier was Paul Wolfowitz, who was sympathetic to the Geneva draft peace agreement authored by figures from the Israeli Left and moderate Palestinians. It advocated Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank (with territorial swaps), and the division of Jerusalem.104 The rest of the neoconservatives rejected the Geneva plan. For many years, they opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. But the primary rationale behind this was strategic rather than ideological,105 and later on leading neoconservatives came to accept the eventual creation of a Palestinian state,106 excluding the Jordan Valley, which they considered vital for Israel security.107 They also opposed the division of Jerusalem, apparently as a result of their general identification with the Jewish state.108
Clearly, there are differences between populist nationalists and neoconservatives. Populist nationalists are staunchly nationalistic and conservative, while neoconservatives retain elements of liberal idealism. Populist nationalists are interested only in security, while neoconservatives are also concerned with democratization. Many populist nationalists sympathize with the Israeli settlement movement, while neoconservatives are willing to endorse Israeli withdrawals and the dismantling of many settlements. Nonetheless, both have been strong supporters of a vigorous offensive American grand strategy in the Middle East. Both identify with Israel and view it as an ally, both are committed to favoring Israel over other actors in the Middle East, and both were deeply skeptical of the peace process. They also put the overwhelming blame for the conflict and onus in peacemaking on the Arab side, while opposing Israeli concessions such as a return to the 1967 border and the division of Jerusalem. Overall, then, what unites them on Israel and the Middle East was more significant that what divides them.
Table 2.1 summarizes and compares the different approaches toward Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict among conservative elites.
Table 2.1. Elite Conservative Approaches
to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
* * *
Old conservative establishmentKissingerian realistsNew conservative mainstream
Subcomponents of each approach Arabist Realists, Paleoconservatives, Libertarians Pro-Israel Realists Neoconservatives, Populist Nationalists (inc. evangelicals)
Grand Strategy Defensive Balanced Internationalism Offensive
Resonant Historical Symbols Vietnam, Tet Offensive 1968 – Nazism, 1938 Munich Agreement
Roots of instability and anti-Americanism Arab-Israeli Conflict – “Linkage”
“Blowback” vs. U.S. “imperialism” Pro-U.S. moderates vs. Anti-U.S. radicals
The Arab_Israeli Conflict Page 7