Wurmser–Cheney’s top Middle East advisor and author of a blueprint for de-Baathification and Shiite empowerment in Iraq–is one of only two significant Right Zionists who continue to serve in a key Bush administration post. If Wurmser leaves, Elliott Abrams will be “the last man standing.” There are plenty of other hawks (not least the vice president), but no major Right Zionist hawks who Meyrav Wurmser would consider part of what she calls “the family.”
The Dreyfuss story is certainly plausible, although I note that the blog post is a little vague about sources.
According to multiple sources, Wurmser will leave the office of the vice president (OVP) in August…
Wurmser’s departure is not totally a surprise. “He’s been looking for a way out for a year,” said a conservative friend of Wurmser’s…
Dreyfuss also appears to have original quotes from Meyrav Wurmser in response to the Helene Cooper New York Times story that helped put David Wurmser in the public crosshairs. Dreyfuss doesn’t say anything about the source of the quotes, but they seem to be exclusive:
Meyrav Wurmser, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute and David’s wife, ridiculed the stories from Clemons and the Times. “They are all categorically wrong, and there not one thing in those articles that is correct.”
Meyrav seemed to be hinting at her husband’s imminent departure in December 2006 when she predicted that, along with John Bolton’s departure from the UN, “there are others who are about to leave.â€
Ironically, my most recent post–written after Dreyfuss posted his report but before I saw it–mentioned Wurmser’s departure as a potential harbinger of a new, decisive, Right Arabist direction for US policy in Iraq.
I sincerely doubt that we have heard the last of factionalism regarding the future of Iraq.
I’ll believe it when Wurmser resigns…
If Wurmser is on his way out, can it be taken as a sign that Cheney has now abandoned his erstwhile Right Zionist allies and returned to the (very hawkish corner of) Right Arabist fold?
Does it mark the end of administration factionalism?
Maybe.
But I was probably way off the mark when I said that “we have heard the last” of such factionalism.
Why? Because Meyrav Wurmser has explicitly warned that once “the family” was out of the administration, they would not hesitate to speak out against the administration that–from their perspective–betrayed them.
We expressed ideas, but the policy in Iraq was taken out of neocon hands very quickly….
The State Department opposed the neocons’ stances… There was a lot of frustration over the years in the administration because we didn’t feel we were succeeding.
Now Bolton left (the UN – Y.B.) and there are others who are about to leave. This administration is in its twilight days. Everyone is now looking for work, looking to make money… We all feel beaten after the past five years… We miss the peace and quiet and writing books…
When you enter the administration you have to keep your mouth shut. Now many will resume their writing… Now, from the outside, they will be able to convey all the criticism they kept inside.
Maybe they’ll give Wurmser a medal of freedom–the primary currency of hush money for this administration, unless you are facing jail time–on his way out the door.
One note on the substance of US policy going forward:
In the same comment to this blog that alerted me to the Dreyfuss post, Bernhard (“b”) predicts a new direction for US policy in the Gulf.
[A] strategic decision against the Sunni’s and Saudi Arabia and pro-Iran…
This would be a surprising development, indeed.
Right Zionists like Wurmser, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Michael Ledeen, Michael Rubin, are the leading advocates for a pro-Shiite tilt combined with unrelenting war against both Arab nationalism and Sunni Arab religious radicalism.
Wouldn’t it be strange if the Bush administration finally made a truly decisive move in this direction at the very moment that the key architects of such a strategic shift departed the scene?
Cheney might seek warmer relations with the Iranian regime, but when he last advocated such an orientation, he did so as a “pragmatic” oil industry executive–and a Russia hawk determined to win Iran away from Russian influence in the Caspian. Neither of these positions would demand a “decision against the Sunnis and Saudi Arabia…”
Right Arabists are nothing if not loyal to the US-Saudi alliance. Some seek to contain Iranian power within a more or less formal regional security framework. Others can only be described as extremely hawkish on Iran.
Who is left within the administration who would or could overcome the significant influence of the traditional Right Arabist establishment and revolutionize the strategic orientation of US policy in the Gulf?
The Right Zionists were those revolutionaries. If Dreyfuss is correct about Wurmser’s departure, it would appear that the eclipse of the Right Zionists (in this administration, at least, if not in Congress or a future administration) is near complete.
Perhaps Elliott Abrams will try to use the administration’s upcoming Middle East conference to marginalize the Saudis.
Robert Satloff at the pro-Israel Washington Institute recently suggested as much.
In a fascinating passage outlining the terms of reference for the international meeting that the president said he will convene in autumn 2007, the president said he would invite “representatives from nations that support a two-state solution, reject violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and commit to all previous agreements between the parties.” While one assumes Bush would not call an international meeting merely to replicate the sort of modest neighborhood gatherings Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak periodically hosts in Sharm al-Sheikh, the only Arab countries that meet those terms today are Egypt and Jordan.
Was Bush sending a message to Saudi Arabia that its moment in the regional diplomatic sun, which reached its zenith with the abortive Mecca accords, had reached an end and that Washington would now only consider Saudi contribution positive if Riyadh meets these benchmarks? So far, White House spokesmen say no, there is no special message directed at Saudi Arabia in this passage. But reporters will be wise to revisit this language when invitations to the “international meeting” are delivered later this year.
So noted.
But there are plenty of other signs that even with regard to Israeli-Palestinian issues, the President may be drifting toward David Welch, the key Right Arabist with whom Abrams shares the Middle East portfolio.
Israel and the United States are also signaling willingness to discuss an issue Palestinians believe has long been neglected: settlement expansion.
“Unauthorized outposts should be removed and settlement expansion ended,” Bush said in his speech, his strongest call in years to contain settlements.
“This was a deliberate choice of words,” David Welch, the top State Department official dealing with the Middle East, said afterward.
With Wurmser out, any major anti-Saudi effort undertaken by Abrams at this late date will be a very lonely battle.
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