| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:34 pm Post subject: Review of Transparent Cabal in Middle East Policy |
| Review of Transparent Cabal in Middle East Policy
Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:26 AM
From: "Stephen Sniegoski"
To: "Sniegoski, Stephen"
Friends,
Review of "Transparent Cabal" in "Middle East Policy"
I received permission to disseminate Thomas R. Mattair's review of my book from "Middle East Policy," Spring 2009, Vol. 16, Issue 1, pp. 146-149.
The review is mentioned on the following site:
http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol16/1toc.asp
And the pdf version can be found at my website:
http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/review.pdf
Main page: http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/
"Middle East Policy" is a major scholarly journal on foreign policy
developments in the Middle East. "Middle East Policy" is the journal of the
Middle East Policy Council, which until recently had been headed by Chas
Freeman. Before Freeman, its president was George McGovern.
I should point out that the review was based on a prepublication copy which listed a different publisher. The final hard copy book lists Enigma
Editions as the publisher and sells for less at Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Cabal-Neoconservative-National-Interest/dp/1932528172
While Mattair's review is largely favorable, he does take issue with my
contention that the Israeli Likudniks and the neocons sought the
destabilization and fragmentation of Israel's enemies.
In regard to almost every other argument in "The Transparent Cabal," I
provided overwhelming evidence, including the words of neocon-friendly
writers and the neocons themselves, for such things as the neocons'
existence; Jewishness; support for Israel; influence on government policy; support for war against Iraq, Iran, and other Arab states; and differences with the foreign policy establishment. There is also overwhelming evidence for Israel's support for the war on Iraq and advocacy of an attack on Iran. The evidence for the neocon and Likudnik support for the destabilization and fragmentation of Israel's enemies is not as obvious and direct as the proof for these other arguments, but it is still there. .
I think that I showed that such a fragmentation idea did exist among the
Israeli Right (and even on the mainstream) though this was not the only
geopolitical view of the Israeli elite. In regard to the neocons, I would
have to admit that only a few expressed this view explicitly but for others
it was implicit. For example, Ledeen claimed that destabilization had to
precede the change to democracy. However, Middle East experts rightly point out that such an approach would simply lead to destabilization and
fragmentation, as has been the case with Iraq. Few Middle East experts
actually believe that the Middle East countries would become unified
democracies. Certainly, Likudnik experts do not believe this and it is
highly questionable that most leading neocons really do either, considering their negative references to Arabs and Muslims who express opposition to Israel. As I show in "The Transparent Cabal," in speaking of democracy, the neocons do not mean either majority rule (anti-Israel groups have to be prevented from ruling) or freedom of speech (harsh anti-Zionist language should be banned)
Mattair acknowledges that "deductive reasoning would suggest that military action to overthrow an authoritarian government ruling over diverse ethnic and sectarian communities might very well lead to fragmentation." And this was explicitly pointed out by some Israeli Likudniks and neocons. Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that Israel would prefer being surrounded by weak, fragmented enemies than by strong, united ones. Finally, it should be noted that the neocon Middle East war agenda was opposed by the foreign policy establishment which saw stability as a preeminent goal.
In short, I think a cumulation of evidence-consisting of some explicit
statements, the actual impact of policies that induce destabilization and
fragmentation, and the interest of Israel in having weak enemies-provides
sufficient proof (by historians' standards) of a neocon/Likudnik
fragmentation goal.
_______________________________________________
Review of "The Transparent Cabal" by Thomas R. Mattair in "Middle East
Policy," Spring 2009, Vol. 16, Issue 1, pp. 146-149.
http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/review.pdf
The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel, by Stephen J. Sniegoski. Light in the Darkness Publications,2008. 440 pages, including notes and index. $24.95, hardcover.
Thomas R. Mattair, author of global Security Watch - Iran: A Reference
Handbook (Praeger Security International, 2008)
In this well-written, well-organized book, Stephen J. Sniegoski makes some compelling arguments about neoconservatives: (1) they were the driving force behind the Bush administration's war in Iraq, (2) their motivation was based on their belief that American interests in the Middle East are virtually identical with the Israeli Likud party's beliefs about Israeli interests in the region, and (3) these mutual interests lie in destabilizing Israel's adversaries and reconfiguring the environment rather than in the traditional American policy of stabilizing the Middle East. Others have plowed this same ground, but Sniegoski has marshaled a prodigious amount of evidence and added some new elements. He notes that these arguments have often elicited charges of anti-Semitism, particularly from neoconservatives themselves.
He points out, however, that they sometimes acknowledge being a largely
Jewish group, and he dismisses the charge of anti-Semitism by noting that
many Jewish Americans have made his basic arguments.
The author provides a good definition of neoconservatives: primarily Jewish individuals who began as liberals and leftists but migrated to the right in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They began to see McGovern and Carter Democrats and the Nixon and Ford Republicans as insufficiently devoted to anti-communism, military strength, interventionism and Israel and gravitatedfirst to Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA) and then to the Reagan Republicans. Again, Sniegoski is careful to cite Jewish authors who have offered the same definition. Moreover, he identifies the leading neoconservatives along with their intellectual inspirations, family and institutional connections, financial patrons, media outlets, Christian Right supporters, ad hoc groups, liberal and conservative pro-Zionist Jewish allies, and ties to Israel.
Sniegoski argues that, while the neoconservatives were the driving force for
the war with Iraq in 2003, the basic idea of offensive war to weaken
Israel's neighbors, induce regime change and reconfigure the region has been an element of Zionist thinking since Vladimir Jabotinsky in the 1920s. It was part of Ben-Gurion's thinking in the 1950s and has been ascendant among Likud leaders since their electoral victory in 1977. His claim that by "reconfiguration" Likudniks have meant destabilizing and fragmenting the region into a mosaic of weak ethnic and sectarian entities draws heavily - perhaps too heavily - on a 1982 article by Oded Yinon, who argued that the ongoing Iran-Iraq War would result in an ethno-sectarian division of Iraq, and also on a 1982 article in which Yoram Peri warned against this. After the unhappy consequences of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Sniegoski argues, Likud drew an important lesson: Such a war must not alienate Israeli public opinion and must be supported by the United States. Therefore, U.S. support for a stable Middle East, an uninterrupted flow of oil, and Arab-Israeli compromises for peace had to be changed.
The author effectively shows the similarity of Israeli Likudnik and
neoconservative thinking during the past two decades. The Reagan
administration supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War as a bulwark against the revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran. This concerned Israel, which viewed Iraq as a major adversary and thought even post-revolutionary Iran could be a potential ally. Israel and neoconservatives, particularly Michael Ledeen, promoted U.S. arms sales to Iran in 1985-86 as part of an ultimately unsuccessful effort at rapprochement. Sniegoski also recounts Israeli Likudnik and neoconservative concern when George H.W. Bush's administration continued to support Iraq for two years after the end of this war in 1988. This administration's effort to tie U.S. housing-loan guarantees for Soviet Jewish immigrants in Israel to a halt to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem was also a sore point. In fact, Israeli Labor party leaders and a wide range of Jewish Americans also shared these views. Sniegoski then asserts that Israel and the neoconservatives sought not only the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime but also the destabilization and ethno-sectarian fragmentation of Iraq as their favored outcome of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. He provides no evidence to support this, however. He does show that, when Israeli leaders - again including Labor leaders - saw
that Iraq was contained and shifted their concerns to an Iranian threat,
neoconservatives like Ledeen, who had argued for rapprochement with Tehran, quickly shifted to emphasizing an Iranian threat.
Sniegoski also does an excellent job of documenting the important role
neoconservatives played during the George W. Bush administration. They
insisted that Iraq was a greater terrorist threat than al-Qaeda and were
developing military plans for overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime in the earliest months of 2001. He also stresses the role they played after 9/11 in arguing that Iraq should be an initial target and later that Iraq, Iran and Syria should become targets soon after the first stage of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan was complete. They also argued that Israeli military actions against Arafat's Palestinian Authority should not be
criticized. Other questionable actions of the neocons are recounted:
* producing erroneous intelligence to support the war against Iraq
* opposing cooperation with Iran and Syria after 9/11, including the "grand
bargain"
* claiming that the United States faced a monolithic Middle Eastern
terrorist threat, not because of U.S. policies but because of the very
existence and values of the United States, and that the terrorist threat to
Israel was part of this threat and should be jointly confronted
* advocating democracy promotion to combat tyranny (not all neoconservatives
agreed with this)
* wanting to widen Israel's summer 2006 war with Hezbollah into Israeli
and/or U.S. military action against Syria and Iran
* opposing the December 2006 Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group recommendations to include Iran and Syria in regional efforts to stabilize Iraq
* opposing the gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq
* proposing and supporting Bush's "surge" of additional forces to Iraq in
2007
* criticizing the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate conclusion
that Iran had suspended a nuclear-weapons program in 2003
* calling continually for war against Iran and Syria.
Sniegoski also shows that, with a few possible exceptions, the positions and actions of the neoconservatives were in synch with Israel under Likud leader Ariel Sharon and Kadima leader Ehud Olmert. Israel may have initially thought that war against Iraq would be a mistake, in that Iraq was necessary to balance Iran, and that Iran should be the U.S. target after Afghanistan. However, Israel did support war against Iraq before Iran and Syria when it learned that this was the commitment of the Bush administration. It also advocated most of the rest of the neoconservative program for expanding the "global war on terror" through military action to bring about regime change in Iran and Syria.
One of the most interesting elements of this story, which has been told
before, is that a small group of neoconservatives and Israelis, including
Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Meyrav Wurmser, recommended to Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud government in 1996 that Israel engage in preemptive military action to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime as a first step in creating a more favorable regional environment for Israel, and that they explained how Israel could obtain U.S. support. This small group recommended the establishment of a Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, aligned with Hashemite Jordan. They also advised Netanyahu to weaken, contain and roll back Syria, particularly to break its influence in Lebanon. According to Sniegoski, Wurmser explained in subsequent writings that he envisioned a Hashemite Iraq with a weak central government and maximum autonomy for tribal, ethnic and sectarian communities. Wurmser also clarified that he sought regime change in Syria for the same purpose. This tends to support
the author's argument that fragmentation of neighboring states has been an Israeli and neoconservative objective. This goes beyond what one finds in Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Sniegoski also mentions some Israeli and American support for ethnic opposition forces in Iran and provides evidence of individual neoconservatives who proposed detaching Saudi Arabia's oil rich Eastern province. It is also clear that Netanyahu and others oppose returning the Golan to Syria, which means that Syria is already fragmented. However, much more evidence about a wider range of leading Israelis and neoconservatives, particularly inside the Bush II administration, would have been needed to make the case.
It might be difficult to provide sufficient evidence that neoconservatives
or Israeli Likudniks seek fragmented, powerless states surrounding Israel as a desired outcome - except for the fact that they are carrying out such a plan in the West Bank, which Likudniks and neoconservatives want to divide into non-contiguous enclaves. On the other hand, deductive reasoning would suggest that military action to overthrow an authoritarian government ruling over diverse ethnic and sectarian communities might very well lead to fragmentation. It would have helped, however, if Sniegoski had examined the positions of these individuals in 2002-03 on what Iraq might look like after Saddam. Did they foresee a weak central government and provinces with very extensive autonomy? It would also have helped if the author had examined their positions on Iran after regime change. Did they expect successful movements of ethnic separatism or autonomy? Which ones were seeking a
fragmentation of Lebanon as a result of the summer 2006 war?
Sniegoski argues that neoconservative claims about threats from Iraq and the possibilities for a flowering of democracy in the region have been
deliberate deceptions to mobilize public support. It is likely that some
individuals found democracy promotion to be a convenient idea; others may have merely been engaging in wishful thinking or underestimating the challenges. The neocons clearly did not accept the result of the Palestinian election in 2006. The recent election in Iraq seems promising, but the situation remains fragile.
Aside from whether Sniegoski proves his thesis about fragmentation, however, this is a very good book that will make readers think about the price the United States has paid for accepting and acting on the neoconservative agenda.
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I had arranged for good friend (Dr. Stephen Sniegoski) to appear on the 'American Dream' broadcast for Press TV (out of the D.C. bureau) about his 'The Transparent Cabal' book as such is linked near the top of the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2008/11/26/dr-stephen-sniegoski-discusses-his-transparent-cabal-book.php
Review of 'The Transparent Cabal' which appears at www.amazon.co.uk and at www.amazon.com
The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East,and the National Interest of Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2009/04/01/review-of-the-transparent-cabal-at-amazon-com.php
Freeman: Israel's policies destructive to US
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=90376
Chas Freeman slams 'destructive' Israeli policies
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=90342&ionid=351020202
Press TV (the Iranian channel) just did a 30 minute interview with Ambassador Freeman (but the 'American' media won't!) in New York (click on the 'Media Player' link at the following URL to watch such if interested further):
Exclusive Interview with Chas Freeman:
http://www.presstv.com/programs/player/?id=90443
Freeman: US run by Israel lobby
http://www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx?id=88235§ionid=3510203
Chas Freeman forced by Israel Lobbies to withdraw from NIC:
http://tinyurl.com/blabl8
Additional at http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM
Read George Washington's warning against the passionate attachment (like we have for Israel) at the bottom of http://www.astandforjustice.org
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