Jewish neoconservatives have fallen hard for John McCain. It's not just unabashed swooner William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. McCain has also won over such leading neocon lights as David Brooks, the entire Podhoretz family, The Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz, and columnist Charles Krauthammer, who declared, in a most un-Semitic flourish, “He suffered for our sins.”4
Most important for the neoconservatives was McCain's advocacy of a policy of “rogue state rollback” that pointed to the enemies of Israel. McCain had been a member of the neoconservative Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was a leading senatorial sponsor of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which called upon the United States government to press for Saddam's elimination.5 Antiwar commentator Justin Raimondo sized up the fundamental reason for the neoconservative The Weekly Standard's political infatuation with McCain: “Never mind all this doubletalk about 'sacrificing for a cause bigger than yourself' – what the authors of this piece really mean to say is that this is a candidate who will not hesitate to lead his country into war.”1
Although Bush might not have been the neocons favorite candidate, upon his taking office, neoconservatives would manage to fill key positions in his administration in crucial areas involving defense and foreign policy. On Donald Rumsfeld's staff were Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith. On Cheney's staff, the principal neoconservatives included I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Eric Edelman, and John Hannah. (David Wurmser would come aboard, replacing Edelman, in 2003). Vice President Dick Cheney, who had long-time neoconservative connections, played a significant role in shaping administration foreign policy, in part by bringing in neoconservative staff.
Cheney had a key role in the Bush campaign and his selection as Vice-President was, as James Mann points out in his Rise of the Vulcans, “of surpassing importance for the future direction of foreign policy. It went further than any other single decision Bush made toward determining the nature and the policies of the administration he would head.”2
Although never identified as a neoconservative, Cheney was closely connected to the neoconservative elite. Prior to becoming vice president, Cheney had been a member of the board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and was a founding member of the neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Cheney's wife, Lynne, was a prestigious member of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute.
Cheney was in charge of the transition team between the election in November 2000 and Bush's inauguration in January 2001, and used that position to staff national security positions with his neoconservative associates. Columnist Jim Lobe writes:
It was Cheney's choices that prevailed in the appointment of both cabinet and sub-cabinet national-security officials, beginning with that of Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary. Not only did Cheney personally intervene to ensure that Powell's best friend, Richard Armitage, was denied the deputy defense secretary position, but he also secured the post for his own protégé, Paul Wolfowitz. Moreover, it was Cheney who insisted that the ultraunilateralist John Bolton be placed in a top State Department arms job – a position from which Bolton has consistently pursued policies that run counter to [Secretary of State] Powell's own views.1
Significantly, Cheney created a large national-security staff in his office, constituting a virtual National Security Council in miniature, which has had a major effect in shaping American national policy. Glenn Kessler and Peter Slevin, writing in the Washington Post, likened Cheney's office to “an agile cruiser, able to maneuver around the lumbering aircraft carriers of the Departments of State and Defense to make its mark.”2
Inside the Bush administration the neoconservatives would work to push the United States in the direction of making war on the Middle East enemies of Israel. As national-security analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison put it:
The issue we are dealing with in the Bush administration is dual loyalties – the double allegiance of those myriad officials at high and middle levels who cannot distinguish U.S. interests from Israeli interests, who baldly promote the supposed identity of interests between the United States and Israel, who spent their early careers giving policy advice to right-wing Israeli governments and now give the identical advice to a right-wing U.S. government, and who, one suspects, are so wrapped up in their concern for the fate of Israel that they honestly do not know whether their own passion about advancing the U.S. imperium is motivated primarily by America-first patriotism or is governed first and foremost by a desire to secure Israel's safety and predominance in the Middle East through the advancement of the U.S. imperium?3
The neoconservatives tried to make an attack on Iraq a key issue in the Bush administration from the very beginning. An influential figure was Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, who was described by TIME Magazine as the “godfather of the Iraq war”4 and designated “Man of the Year” by the Jerusalem Post.5 Similarly, Bob Woodward writes in his The Plan of Attack, “The intellectual godfather and fiercest advocate for toppling Saddam was Paul Wolfowitz.”1
According to Richard Clarke, former terrorism advisor in the Bush administration, Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives in the administration were fixated on Iraq rather than on the far more dangerous terrorist threat coming from al-Qaeda. When, in April 2001, the White House convened a top-level meeting to discuss terrorism, Wolfowitz considered Saddam to be a much more important subject than al-Qaeda, which had been Clarke's focus. According to Clarke, Wolfowitz said he couldn't “understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden.”2 The real threat, Wolfowitz insisted, was state-sponsored terrorism orchestrated by Saddam.3
In the early period of the Bush administration, Wolfowitz and his neo-conservative confreres were spinning plans for an American attack on Iraq. Wolfowitz maintained that the United States military could easily invade southern Iraq and seize the oil fields. This was styled as the “enclave strategy,” under which the American foothold in the south would supposedly provide support to the anti-Saddam resistance in the rest of the country to overthrow the dictator. As described by Bob Woodward, Secretary of State Powell rejected Wolfowitz's proposal as “one of most absurd, strategically unsound proposals he had ever heard.” Powell's opposition, however, did not stop Wolfowitz and the neoconservatives from continuing to plan an American attack on Iraq. Woodward writes that “Wolfowitz was like a drum that would not stop. He and his group of neoconservatives were rubbing their hands over ideas which were being presented as 'draft plans.'”4
Secretary of State Powell's resistance to the neoconservative war agenda underscores the fact, however, that prior to the September 11, 2001, terror events the neoconservatives, though influential, did not control American foreign policy. While Wolfowitz and the neocons were pushing for war against the allegedly dangerous Iraq, both Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice were saying that Saddam was no threat to anyone. At a news conference in Cairo, Egypt, on February 24, 2001, Powell said: “He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.” On May 15, 2001, in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Powell stated that Saddam Hussein had not been able to “build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction” for “the last 10 years.” America, he said, had been successful in keeping him “in a box.” On July 29, 2001, Rice replied to CNN White House correspondent John King: “But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.”1 It was only the terror events of September 11 that would give the neocons the opportunity to implement their war agenda.
As the Bush administration came into office in January 2001, press reports in Israel quoted Israeli government official
s and politicians speaking openly of mass expulsion of the Palestinians. The new Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon (elected in February 2001), had said in the past that Jordan should become the Palestinian state where Palestinians removed from Israeli territory would be relocated.2 There was increased public concern about demographic changes that threatened the Jewish nature of the Israeli state. Haifa University professor Arnon Sofer released a study, “Demography of Eretz Israel,” which predicted that by 2020 non-Jews would be a majority of 58 percent in Israel and the occupied territories.3 Moreover, it was recognized that the overall increase in population was going beyond that which the land, with its limited supply of water, could maintain.4
It appeared to some that Sharon intended to achieve expulsion through militant means. As one left-wing analyst put it at the time: “One big war with transfer at its end – this is the plan of the hawks who indeed almost reached the moment of its implementation.”1 In the summer of 2001, the authoritative Jane's Information Group reported that Israel had completed planning for a massive and bloody invasion of the Occupied Territories, involving “air strikes by F-15 and F-16 fighter bombers, a heavy artillery bombardment, and then an attack by a combined force of 30,000 men … tank brigades and infantry.” It would seem that such bold strikes aimed at far more than simply removing Arafat and the PLO leadership. But the U.S. opposed the plan and Europe made equally plain its opposition to Sharon's strategy.2 As one close observer of the Israeli-Palestinian scene presciently noted in August 2001,
[I]t is only in the current political climate that such expulsion plans cannot be put into operation. As hot as the political climate is at the moment, clearly the time is not yet ripe for drastic action. However, if the temperature were raised even higher, actions inconceivable at present might be possible.3
The September 11 atrocities created the white-hot climate in which Israel could undertake radical measures unacceptable under normal conditions. When asked what the attack would do for U.S.-Israeli relations, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blurted out: “It's very good.” Then he edited himself: “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” Netanyahu correctly predicted that the attack would “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon depicted Israel as being in the same situation as the United States, referring to the attack as an assault on “our common values” and declaring, “I believe together we can defeat these forces of evil.”4
In the eyes of Israel's leaders, the September 11 attack had joined the United States and Israel together against a common enemy. That enemy was not in far off Afghanistan, but was geographically close to Israel. Israel's traditional enemies would now become America's as well. Israel would have a free-hand to deal harshly with the Palestinians under the cover of a “war on terrorism.” Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation could simply be portrayed as “terrorism.” Conversely, America would clearly become the enemy of those who previously had focused on Israel.
It is important to recall that in the period before September 11, Israel had been widely criticized in the U.S. and in the Western world for its brutal suppression of the Palestinians. Israeli soldiers, tanks and helicopter gunships were regularly shown on the television battling with Palestinian youths armed with nothing more than sticks and stones. Israeli tanks bulldozed Palestinian farms and homes. Humanitarian groups complained that captured Palestinians were being tortured and abused in Israeli prison cells. The events of September 11 completely transformed this entire picture. In December 2001, the Christian Zionist Israel Report summarized the effect of the September 11 terrorist attack:
Today, Israel has the opportunity to wage total war against its terrorist enemies, with the American government sitting on the sidelines and the American people cheering from the bleachers. What has granted us this opportunity is not simply the horrific tragedy that occurred on September 11, but also the strategic doctrine that has been established in its wake. American-Israeli relations have undergone a sea change over the past three months. The bond of common values is now buttressed by shared experience, transforming our American friends into sympathetic brothers.1
For the neocons the horrific tragedy of 9/11 offered the extremely convenient pretext to implement their war agenda for the United States. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the neoconservatives began to push publicly for a wider war on terrorism that would immediately deal with Israel's enemies, beginning with Iraq. As neoconservative Kenneth Adelman put it, “At the beginning of the administration people were talking about Iraq but it wasn't doable. There was no heft. That changed with September 11 because then people were willing to confront the reality of an international terrorist network, and terrorist states such as Iraq.”2
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, there was internal debate within the administration regarding the scope of the “war on terrorism.” According to Bob Woodward's Bush at War, as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
raised the question of attacking Iraq. Why shouldn't we go against Iraq, not just al-Qaeda? he asked. Rumsfeld was speaking not only for himself when he raised the question. His deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz was committed to a policy that would make Iraq a principal target of the first round in the war on terrorism.1
Woodward continues: “The terrorist attacks of September 11 gave the U.S. a new window to go after Hussein.” On September 15, Wolfowitz put forth military arguments to justify a U.S. attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan. Wolfowitz expressed the view that “Attacking Afghanistan would be uncertain.” He voiced the fear that American troops would be “bogged down in mountain fighting …. In contrast, Iraq, was a brittle, oppressive regime that might break easily. It was doable.”2 In fact, Wolfowitz immediately envisioned a wider war that would strike a number of countries alleged to support “terrorism.”
[O]ne has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism. And that's why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign. It's not going to stop if a few criminals are taken care of.3
Though left unnamed, it would appear that a large percentage of the terrorist states Wolfowitz sought to “end” were Israel's Middle East enemies.
However, the neoconservatives were not able to achieve their goal of a wider war at the outset. Secretary of State Colin Powell was most adamantly opposed to attacking Iraq, holding that the war should focus on the actual perpetrators of September 11. (It might be added that this was how most Americans actually viewed the war.) Perhaps Powell's most telling argument was his allegation that an American attack on Iraq would lack international support. He held that a U.S. victory in Afghanistan would enhance America's ability to deal militarily with Iraq at a later time, “if we can prove that Iraq had a role” in September 11.4 Powell hardly hid his contempt for Wolfowitz's call for “ending states” with the retort that “We're after ending terrorism. And if there are states and regimes, nations, that support terrorism, we hope to persuade them that it is in their interest to stop doing that. But I think 'ending terrorism' is where I would leave it and let Mr. Wolfowitz speak for himself.”5
The Bush administration would thus initially target Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. That did not mean, however, that Iraq would not be a future target. On September 16, 2001, when asked about Iraq on NBC's Meet the Press, Vice-President Dick Cheney simply replied that Osama bin Laden was the target “at the moment … at this stage.”1 Very significantly, however, while the “war on terrorism” would not begin with an attack on Iraq, military plans were being made for just such an endeavor. A TOP SECRET document outlining the war plan for Afghanistan, which President Bush signed on September 17, 2001, included, as a minor point, instructions to the Pentagon to make plans for an attack on Iraq also, although that a
ttack was not yet a priority.2
In short, although the 9/11 atrocities psychologically prepared the American people for the war on Iraq, those horrific events were not sufficient by themselves to thrust America immediately into an attack on Iraq. To bring about the attack on Iraq it was necessary for the neoconserva-tives to push a lengthy propaganda offensive, which finally would revolve around the alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that threatened the United States. The fact that the neoconservatives were inside the Bush administration, and were in positions to manipulate and even fabricate the intelligence assessments regarding the alleged dire danger of Iraqi WMD, ultimately made the bulk of the American people, Congress, and even a rather ignorant President Bush amenable to the launching of an American attack.3 The WMD propaganda lies were definitely essential for the launching of war on Iraq, but it was definitely the 9/11 attacks that made the American people susceptible to the massive fear and hysteria over WMD that war propaganda whipped up.
Neoconservatives outside the administration beat the war drums for an attack on Iraq immediately after the 9/11 attacks. On September 20, 2001, the Project for the New American Century sent a letter to President Bush endorsing the war on terrorism and stressing that the removal of Saddam Hussein was an essential part of that war. They maintained that
even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism.
Furthermore, the letter opined that if Syria and Iran failed to stop all support for Hezbollah, the United States should also “consider appropriate measures against these known sponsors of terrorism.” Also emanating from the letter was the view that Israel was America's crucial ally in the war on terrorism and that therefore its actions should not be criticized. “Israel has been and remains America's staunchest ally against international terrorism, especially in the Middle East. The United States should fully support its fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism. We should insist that the Palestinian Authority put a stop to terrorism emanating from territories under its control and imprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel.” Among the letter's signatories were such neoconservative stalwarts as Bill Kristol, Midge Dector, Eliot Cohen, Frank Gaffney, Robert Kagan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, and Norman Podhoretz.1
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