{"id":344,"date":"2014-09-22T09:22:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T13:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?page_id=344"},"modified":"2014-09-22T09:22:52","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T13:22:52","slug":"beyond-incompetence-washingtons-war-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?page_id=344","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Incompetence: Washington’s War in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyond Incompetence: Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s War in Iraq<\/em><\/p>\n

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Jonathan Cutler<\/p>\n

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If there is a central principle animating Noam Chomsky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s commentaries on US foreign policy, it is his affinity for Realpolitik analysis. As Chomsky argues in a recent interview<\/a>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our leaders have rational imperial interests. We have to assume that they’re good-hearted and bumbling. But they’re not. They’re perfectly sensible.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This methodological axiom presents some serious challenges for those trying to understand the US war in Iraq. With so much evidence of bumbling within the Bush White House, it is tempting to join the chorus of critics, led by the Democrats, who say that incompetence<\/em> is the defining feature of US foreign policy. Is it possible to tell the story of the US invasion of Iraq as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153perfectly sensible\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n

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Chomsky is adamant and he is right to warn against the idea that foreign policy elites are more fool than knave. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Consider the actual situation, not some dream situation\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 If we can enter the real world we can begin to talk about it… We have to talk about it in the real world and know what the White House is thinking. They’re not willing to live in a dream world.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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What, then, is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153actual situation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that led the Bush administration to make the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153perfectly sensible\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dif entirely imperialist\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddecision to invade Iraq and topple the regime of Saddam Hussein? Here, according to Chomsky, is the real<\/em> world:<\/p>\n

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“If [Iraq is] more or less democratic, it’ll have a Shiite majority. They will naturally want to improve their linkages with Iran, Shiite Iran. Most of the clerics come from Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 So you get an Iraqi\/Iran loose alliance. Furthermore, right across the border in Saudi Arabia, there’s a Shiite population which has been bitterly oppressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny. And any moves toward independence in Iraq are surely going to stimulate them, it’s already happening. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabian oil is. Okay, so you can just imagine the ultimate nightmare in Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6”<\/p>\n

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Chomsky isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t making this stuff up. One can get quick confirmation of Chomsky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s characterization of this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ultimate nightmare\u00e2\u20ac\u009d scenario from the key \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Republican foreign policy establishment\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfolks like Bush Sr., former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Secretary of State James Baker, and Colin Powell. When presented with a Shiite uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d opted to leave Saddam in power, rather than let the nightmare become reality. In a co-authored 1998 memoir, A World Transformed<\/em>, Bush Sr. and Scowcroft insist that they acted to preserve \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.489). In his 1995 memoir The Politics of Diplomacy<\/em>, James Baker recalls that he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153play into the hands of the mullahs in Iran, who could export their brand of Islamic fundamentalism with the help of Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shiites and quickly transform themselves into the dominant regional power\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.437). Colin Powell, in his 1995 memoir My American Journey<\/em>, is equally blunt. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we finish him off?… In March, the Iraqi Shiites in the south rose up in arms\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 But our practical intention was to leave Baghdad enough power to survive as a threat to an Iran that remained bitterly hostile toward the United States\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (pp.512, 516).<\/p>\n

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The problem is that fear of this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ultimate nightmare\u00e2\u20ac\u009d provided the rationale in 1991 for not<\/em> invading Iraq, or more precisely, not<\/em> promoting the political ascendance of the Iraqi Shiite majority. Chomksy argues that fear of the nightmare scenario will deter realists from supporting US withdrawal<\/em> from Iraq. But did the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d get us into Iraq? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may keep us in Iraq, but did the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d unleash Iraqi Shiite power by terminating Sunni Baathist political and military rule? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may, in fact, be sensible\u00e2\u20ac\u201dat least in a self-serving way\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut Scowcroft<\/a>, Baker<\/a>, and Bush Sr.<\/a> all publicly warned George W. Bush about the risks of unleashing the ultimate nightmare. Kissinger\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwho first floated the idea of seizing the Eastern Province from the Saudis in the mid-1970s, prior to the Iranian revolution\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwas explicit in a Washington Post Op-Ed<\/a>. The key to any move to topple Saddam, he insisted, was the contour of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the political outcome,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d especially insofar as Saudi Arabia would be unlikely to cooperate in the formation of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shiite republic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153would threaten the Dhahran region in Saudi Arabia, and might give Iran a new base to seek to dominate the gulf region.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Chomsky is at a loss to explain\u00e2\u20ac\u201din Realpolitik terms\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe 2003 decision by George W. Bush to invade Iraq and<\/em> empower the Iraqi Shiite majority.<\/p>\n

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Gilbert Achcar, like Chomsky, is inclined to stipulate the decisive role of Realpolitik in US foreign policy. Looking at the case of Iraq, however, Achcar makes an exception. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the case of Iraq, and in this case exclusively,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d writes Achcar in a 2004 CounterPunch article<\/a>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Bush administration has acted on ideological views so contrary to the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcreality principle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 that they could only lead into this major nightmare of U.S. imperial policy\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 History will probably record this venture as one of the most important blunders ever committed by an administration abroad from the standpoint of U.S. imperial interests.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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Chomsky and Achcar both agree that the general aim of the invasion was based on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realism.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As Chomsky says, the US would not have invaded Iraq \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if its main product was lettuce and pickles\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 If you have three gray cells functioning, you know\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the US invaded Iraq because it has enormous oil resources.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Likewise, Achcar is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fully aware of the very oily factors\u00e2\u20ac\u009d involved in US military intervention. However, Achcar insists that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153many of its concrete decisions\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dchiefly the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clumsiness of de-Baathification\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 [and the] dissolution of the Iraqi military\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201drepresented \u00e2\u20ac\u0153blunders\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wild dreams\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153crackpot idealists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who allow \u00e2\u20ac\u0153high-flying moral rhetoric\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to help guide foreign policy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in a way that stands in blatant contradiction to pragmatic needs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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For Achcar, the crucial decisions were not the ones that simply toppled Saddam Hussein but the ones\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmade in May 2003, at the start of the formal US occupation\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto actively undermine authoritarian Sunni minority rule in Iraq. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whatever the reason,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Achcar, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the fact is that Bush Jr. and his collaborators have acted for a while in conformity with their democratic proclamations.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d These decisions unleashed a major \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nightmare\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because they \u00e2\u20ac\u0153opened the way for the Iraqi people to seize control of their own destinies\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to the benefit of Islamic fundamentalist forces, somewhat on the Iranian pattern.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clumsiness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is particularly difficult to explain in the terms of Realpolitik since regime change\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwithout Shiite empowerment\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcould have been accomplished \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more effectively\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6had the Bush administration acted from a craftily Machiavellian perspective and managed to get hold of Iraq through an arrangement with the Iraqi army and other apparatuses of the Baathist state.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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If there is room for rapprochement between Achcar and Chomsky, it is because Achcar actually agrees that the familiar \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d crowd never would\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand never did\u00e2\u20ac\u201djettison craftily Machiavellian perspectives on foreign policy. Achcar insists, however, that on the key questions regarding the political outcome in Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u201dde-Baathification, military dissolution, and Shiite power\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe \u00e2\u20ac\u0153administration was divided.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Realists fought against all of these policies for post-invasion Iraq, favoring something more like a US-backed military coup that would result in a political outcome akin to Saddamism-without-Saddam and an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153arrangement\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with the Baathist state. There was, however, a rival faction within the Bush administration: the so-called neo-conservatives, vaguely defined as those who favored a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153crusade for bringing democracy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to Iraq. Neo-conservatives championed comprehensive de-Baathification and dissolution of the Sunni-led military establishment\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven if it meant empowering Iraqi Shiites.<\/p>\n

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Chomsky, however, seems not to have taken note of neo-conservatives or any factional battles within the Bush administration. In his many interviews on the war in Iraq, he rarely if ever says anything about neo-conservatives (a peculiar asymmetry in light of neo-conservative vilification of Chomsky<\/a>). His analysis posits not only Realpolitik, but a unified<\/em> actor. One of the great merits of Achcar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s analysis, by contrast, is his attention to the crucial split between neo-conservatives and realists in Washington.<\/p>\n

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Machiavelli for Zionists<\/em><\/p>\n

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Do neo-conservatives represent the antithesis of Realpolitik? Are neo-conservatives bumbling crackpot idealists who unwittingly opened Pandora\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s box in Iraq by substituting idealistic dreams of democracy ahead of realist Machiavellian statecraft? Indeed, Achcar suggests that the neo-conservative agenda for Iraq represents \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a typical case of self-deception.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Perhaps. Financial Times<\/em> columnist Samuel Brittan, in a typical attack on the neo-conservatives, published an October 2003 Realpolitik manifesto\u00e2\u20ac\u201dThis Is Not a Time for Boy Scouts<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u201din which he condemned neo-conservative zeal as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153almost indistinguishable from that of the liberal imperialists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who think foreign policy should be guided by morality. Another defender of Realpolitik, John J. Mearsheimer, dismisses neo-conservative theory<\/a> as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153essentially Wilsonianism with teeth.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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Some neo-conservatives welcome that depiction, if not the accompanying criticism. William Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan, two prominent neo-conservatives, insist that their book, The War Over Iraq: Saddam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tyranny and America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mission<\/em>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wears its heart on its sleeve\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.ix). They present a relentless critique of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a narrow realpolitik<\/em> that defined America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vital interests in terms of oil wells, strategic chokepoints and regional stability\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.viii). Even as they celebrate \u00e2\u20ac\u0153creating democracy in a land that for decades has known only dictatorship\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.ix), they make no mention of\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand seem utterly oblivious to\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe prospect of Iraqi democracy emboldening Shiites in Iraq, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

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Kristol and Kaplan may be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Boy Scouts,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as suggested by Brittan; or maybe they simply find it convenient to appear good-hearted and bumbling, as Chomsky warned. Either way, not all neo-conservatives wear their merit badges or their heart on their sleeve. The neo-conservative movement is hardly monolithic; there have been many fissures and splits along the way. The crucial point, however, is that some<\/em> key neo-conservatives are as committed to cold-hearted Machiavellian Realpolitik as any so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The battle dividing the Bush administration in Iraq is between two factions of Realpolitik strategists.<\/p>\n

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Indeed, as Achcar has recently noted<\/a>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in some neo-con circles\u00e2\u20ac\u009d there is actually support<\/em> for the same scenario feared most by Chomsky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s realists: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153some kind of Shia state controlling the bulk of Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oil\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that would align itself with Iranian Shiites and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unleash\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Shiite power in the whole area, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153including the Saudi Kingdom where the main oil producing area is inhabited by a Shia majority.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d To assume that evidence of neo-conservative support for de-Baathification in Iraq represents a simple blunder by na\u00c3\u00afve and incompetent Wilsonian idealists is, at best, a misunderstanding\u00e2\u20ac\u201dat worst, a serious underestimation<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dof neo-conservative visions for US foreign policy.<\/p>\n

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Consider, for example, David Wurmser\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book, Tyranny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ally: America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein<\/em> (hereafter, TA<\/em>). Wurmser published Tyranny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ally<\/em> while serving as a Middle East expert at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think tank long identified with neo-conservative foreign policy analysis. After his time at AEI, Wurmser moved on to service within the Bush administration, most recently serving as Middle East expert in the office of Vice President Richard Cheney. Published in 1999, the book is a Machiavellian tour de force<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand a blueprint for US policy in the Middle East. There are striking parallels between the policies endorsed in Wurmser\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book and those enacted by the Bush administration at the start of the US war in Iraq.<\/p>\n

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Wurmser directly confronts so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d fears regarding Shiite power in Iraq.<\/p>\n

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“The ensuing chaos of any policy that generates upheaval in Iraq would offer the oppressed, majority Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites of that country an opportunity to enhance their power and prestige. Fear that this would in turn enable Iran to extend its influence through its coreligionists has led Britain and the United States, along with our Middle Eastern allies, to regard a continued Sunni control of Iraq as the cornerstone for stability in the Levant. Saudi Arabia in particular fears that any Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite autonomy or control in Iraq will undermine its own precarious stability, because an emboldened Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite populace in Iraq could spread its fervor into Saudi Arabia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s predominantly Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite northeastern provinces. The Saudi government also fears that this upheaval could spread to predominantly Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite Bahrain, or to other gulf states with large Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite minorities.” (TA<\/em>, p.73)<\/p>\n

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Wurmser\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book is animated by a persistent focus on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153balance of power\u00e2\u20ac\u009d realist politics. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iran and Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 are serious threats to the United States. How can we vanquish one without helping the other? Similarly, how can we deal either with a radical, secular, pan-Arabic nationalism or with fundamentalist pan-Islamism without allowing one to benefit from the other\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defeat? (TA<\/em>, p.72). For Bush and Scowcroft\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand for the Clinton foreign policy team\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe only plausible response was a balance of power based on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dual containment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Iraq and Iran. Wurmser, however, proposes a Realpolitik basis for moving US policy from dual containment toward a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dual Rollback of Iran and Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (TA<\/em>, p.72).<\/p>\n

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Wurmser offers a direct challenge to the underlying factual<\/em> premise<\/em> of balance-of-power policies in the Gulf, even as he embraces the Machiavellian principles of balance-of-power politics. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153U.S. policy makers have long presumed that the majority Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite population of Iraq would serve as Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fifth column there; but would it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (TA<\/em>, p.72). Wurmser thinks not. Instead, he argues that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iraqi Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites, if liberated from [Saddam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s] tyranny, can be expected to present a challenge to Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s influence and revolution\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (TA<\/em>, p.74). More specifically, Wurmser claims that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite Islam is plagued by fissures<\/em>, none of which has been carefully examined, let alone exploited, by the opponents of Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Islamic republic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (TA<\/em>, p.74, emphasis added). The idea of exploiting fissures is entirely consistent with realist<\/em> theories of power balancing.<\/p>\n

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Wurmser argues that at the theological core of the Iranian revolution is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a concept promoted by Ayatollah Khomeini, the wilayat al-faqih<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe rule of the jurisprudent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that served as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the bulldozer with which Khomeini razed the barrier between the clerics and the politicians\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (TA<\/em>, p.74). For Wurmser, the central strategic fissure within Shiite Islam is between those who favor Khomeini\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vision and those who reject the rule of the jurisprudent. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The concept of wilayat al-faqih<\/em> is rejected by most Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite clerics outside Iran (and probably many of those within Iran, too)\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 The current leading ayatollah of Iraq, Ayatollah Sayyid \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAli Sistani, has reaffirmed [this rejection], much to the chagrin of the Iranian government\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (TA<\/em>, p.75).<\/p>\n

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Wurmser suggests that the US could and should exploit this fissure to its own advantage. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153liberation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the Iraqi Shia can be used to achieve a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Regional Rollback of Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite Fundamentalism.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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“[A] shift of the Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite center of gravity toward Iraq has larger, regional implications. Through intermarriage, history, and social relations, the Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites of Lebanon have traditionally maintained close ties with the Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites of Iraq. The Lebanese Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite clerical establishment has customarily been politically quiescent, like the Iraqi Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites. The Lebanese looked to Najaf\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clerics for spiritual models [until it was transformed into a regional outpost for Iranian influence]. Prying the Lebanese Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites away from a defunct Iranian revolution and reacquainting them with the Iraqi Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite community could significantly help to shift the region\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s balance and to whittle away at Syria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s power” (TA<\/em>, p.107, 110).<\/p>\n

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The core of the Regional Rollback, however, is Iran. For Wurmser, so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d have always been correct to emphasize the link between Iraqi and Iranian Shiites, but they have misunderstood the potential nature of the link. If realists have traditionally feared Iranian influence in Iraq, Wurmser argues that the more likely scenario is Iraqi influence in Iran. The demise of traditional Sunni rule over the Iraqi Shiites \u00e2\u20ac\u0153could potentially trigger a reversal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of fortune for the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n

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“Liberating the Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite centers in Najaf and Karbala, with their clerics who reject the wilayat al-faqih<\/em>, could allow Iraqi Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites to challenge and perhaps fatally derail the Iranian revolution. For the first time in half a century, Iraq has the chance to replace Iran as the center of Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite thought, thus resuming its historic place, with its tradition of clerical quiescence and of challenge to Sunni absolutism\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 A free Iraqi Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ite community would be a nightmare for the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (TA<\/em>, p.78-79).<\/p>\n

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For Wurmser, the liberation of Najaf and Karbala would promote and empower potential US allies in Iraq and Iran. Wurmser\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strategy foresees US military intervention against the Sunni minority in Iraq, not primarily as a springboard for further military<\/em> intervention in Iran, but as the Iraqi detonator for a populist<\/em>, Shiite-led rebellion against rival clerics in Iran. Neo-conservative support for the political ascendance of Shiite Iraq is not about the principle of democracy. Nor are neo-conservatives blind to the ways in which regime change in Iraq might transform the relationship between Iraq and Iran. Neo-conservatives who favor de-Baathification in Iraq might seem like blundering fools who would unwittingly<\/em> hand Iraq to Iranian clerics. Wumser\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scheme, however, is to hand Iran to Iraqi clerics, especially the followers of Ayatollah Sayyid \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAli Sistani. For Wurmser, the road to Tehran begins in Najaf.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wurmser is hardly alone in his strategic vision for the Middle East. His successor at AEI, Reuel Marc Gerecht\u00e2\u20ac\u201dformerly a CIA agent in Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u201denthusiastically embraces the same vision for dual rollback in Iraq and Iran. In a May 2001 article entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Liberate Iraq<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gerecht dismisses \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fear of an Iraqi-Iranian Shi’ite collusion upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East. This kind of fraternity between Iraqi and Iranian Shi’ites simply does not exist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dexcept in the minds of Republican \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcrealists\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 who tragically used this argument a decade ago.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d An August 2002 article entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Regime Change in Iran?<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d makes the case for dual rollback and argues that the ascendance of the Iraqi Shia \u00e2\u20ac\u0153will be brutal for the mullahs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Similarly, a March 2003 article by Michael Ledeen<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u201danother prominent neo-conservative at AEI\u00e2\u20ac\u201dpredicts, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we understand this war correctly, the Iraqi Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ites will fight alongside us against the Iranian terrorists.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That is a very big \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at the heart of neo-conservative thinking about Iraq and Iran. Richard Perle, doyen of neo-conservatives at AEI, writes in his 2003 book with David Frum, An End to Evil<\/em> (hereafter, EE<\/em>), that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153President Bush took an enormous risk in Iraq. The risk could well have gone wrong\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand it could still go wrong\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.36). Similarly, Gerecht warns that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the mullahs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201donce they saw signs of Iraqi Shiite rule in Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwould fight back. Gerecht\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s August 2002 Weekly Standard<\/em> article<\/a> acknowledges that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Bush administration should prepare itself for Iranian mischief in Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s politics.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In advance of the war, however, neo-conservatives found comfort in some \u00e2\u20ac\u0153area studies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d research\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich they published and promoted\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat found reason to believe Iraqi Shiites might ultimately prevail in any intra-Shiite competition between clerics in Iraq and Iran. In an April 2000 book Who Rules Iran?<\/em>, published by the Washington Institute, Wilfred Buchta argues that Ayatollah \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAli Khamene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122i, successor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a theological Achilles\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 heel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dunlike Khomeini before him, and unlike Sistani in Iraq, Khamene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122i is not a Grand Ayatollah. In his review of clerical opposition to the Iranian regime, Buchta describes Sistani as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Khamene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most serious competitor for the religious leadership of Shi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122is throughout the world\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.89).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whatever the particular merits or deficiencies of Wurmser\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s analysis of fissures within <\/em>Shiite Islam, these do not fully explain the intensity of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d opposition to Bush administration policies in Iraq. Neither realists nor neoconservatives shed tears for Saddam Hussein, nor would either grieve the fall of the incumbent Iranian regime. Realists, however, fear that the end of Sunni Arab control in Iraq and the rise of the Shia will tip the balance of power in the Persian Gulf away from a key US ally: the Sunni Arab regime in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Moreover, neo-conservatives agree<\/em> with realists that the Saudi regime fears Shiite regional power. Echoing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nightmare\u00e2\u20ac\u009d scenario articulated by Chomsky and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d neo-conservatives like Richard Perle agree that the House of Saud has good reason to fear a Shia Gulf.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“[W]hile the royal family, the government, and the moneyed elite all live on the western, Red Sea side of the country, the oil is located on the eastern, Persian Gulf side. And while the people in the west are almost uniformly Sunni, one-third of the people in the Eastern Province\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 are Shiites\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. Independence for the Eastern Province would obviously be a catastrophic outcome for the Saudi state” (EE<\/em>, p.141).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sounds just like the realists\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut with a crucial twist. Unlike Chomsky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s realists, Perle and Frum think that Shiite control of Arabian Peninsula oil would be catastrophic for the Saudi<\/em> state, but think it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153might be a very good outcome for the United States<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (EE<\/em>, p. 141). This is the great neo-conservative heresy. If realists make little or no distinction between what is good for the Saudis and what is good for the United States, neo-conservatives regard Saudi Arabia as an unreliable, if not downright hostile, regime. Wurmser describes the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Saudi Wahhabi state\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153particularly menacing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (TA<\/em>, p.68).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Varieties of American Imperialism<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Disagreement over the strategic value of the US-Saudi alliance goes to the heart of the venomous battle that has long raged between neo-conservatives and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Indeed, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Saudi\u00e2\u20ac\u009d question is, in many respects, the constitutive difference that cuts through the fog that otherwise surrounds the civil war in Washington over the political outcome of regime change in Iraq.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The earliest evidence of a split between neo-conservatives and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe decision by Ronald Reagan to sell Saudi Arabia an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS)\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis also the most illuminating for making sense of the division. The most useful expression of neo-conservative hope for Reagan administration foreign policy and of subsequent \u00e2\u20ac\u0153anguish\u00e2\u20ac\u009d comes from a May 1982 New York Times Magazine<\/em> essay penned by self-proclaimed neo-conservative, Norman Podhoretz, long-serving editor of Commentary<\/em>, the official publication of the American Jewish Committee. After the fall of the Shah in Iran, Podhoretz explains, neo-conservatives looked forward with great enthusiasm to Reagan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plan for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shoring up the American position\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the Persian Gulf in order \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to secure the oilfields against either a direct or an indirect Soviet move.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This would be accomplished by stationing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153American ground forces somewhere in the region,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d perhaps on the Israeli-occupied Sinai peninsula.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Neo-conservative hopes were dashed, however, when \u00e2\u20ac\u0153this new idea was dropped\u00e2\u20ac\u009d after \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Saudis\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6voiced their opposition.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d For fear that the oil-rich \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Saudis might have done something to damage\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the US economy, explains Podhoretz, Reagan fell into the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153habit of appeasing Saudi Arabia.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Having lost the Shah, the US would now \u00e2\u20ac\u0153supply the Saudis with advanced weaponry, including the Awacs planes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 depending upon them to police the region\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on behalf of the US.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Podhoretz argues that the decision to substitute the fallen Iranian regime with a Saudi surrogate was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 on its own terms,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that is, for the immediate strategic interests of the United States. If Iran under the Shah proved to be an unreliable \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pillar of sand\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for the US, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what could we expect of Saudi Arabia?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But the tilt toward Saudi Arabia was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all the more disturbing in its implications for the American connection with Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Saudis refused to join\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153de facto alliance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that would \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unite the moderate Arab states and Israel.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Podhoretz rejects as false the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153general impression\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that all neo-conservatives are Jewish, and in no way claims that all supporters of Israel are neo-conservatives. Indeed, the vast majority of Jewish voters and not a few Zionists remain loyal to the Democratic Party. Podhoretz acknowledges, however, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it is certainly true that all neo-conservatives are strong supporters of Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153would all agree that at a minimum the United States has a vital interest in the survival\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Israel as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153outpost\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the free world.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That is, if forced by Arab-Israeli conflict to choose between a strategic alliance with the Saudis and one with the Israelis, neo-conservatives support the latter, rather than the former.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Neo-conservatives lost the battle to prevent the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia, but that fight serves as an extremely useful proxy for distinguishing between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neo\u00e2\u20ac\u009d conservatives\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwho believe that US interests are best served by reliance on Israel, if only that relationship were not regularly jeopardized by the American habit of appeasing the Saudis\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d conservatives\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwho believe that US interests are best served by reliance on Saudi Arabia, if only that were not jeopardized by the American habit of appeasing the Israelis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The AWACS battle reveals the misleading and potentially self-serving function of labels like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neo-conservative,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d then and now. Whatever the historical salience of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neo-conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d label, the term is neither adequate nor helpful in clarifying the defining qualities of the faction. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neo\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in neo-conservatives initially described liberals and anti-Stalinist Leftists who made common cause\u00e2\u20ac\u201don a number of different political fronts\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwith various factions of the traditional Right. Notwithstanding the diversity of neo-conservatives on a host of issues, however, the AWACS issue did a great deal to reveal a crucial division on the Right. As Podhoretz argued, the AWACS affair indicated that\u00e2\u20ac\u201din matters of foreign policy\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153neo-conservatives\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are united in support of Israel. More specifically, neo-conservatives are Right \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zionists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who believe US supremacy in the Persian Gulf is best protected by the US-Israeli alliance. As Podhoretz indicated, not all neo-conservatives are Jewish; so, too, not all are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the Right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The label \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may provide an implicit contrast with allegedly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unrealistic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153idealistic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d neo-conservatives, but it obscures more than it reveals about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d commitments in the Middle East. To judge from the Reagan administration AWACS affair, the so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are Right \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Arabists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who believe that US supremacy in the Persian Gulf is best protected by the US-Saudi alliance. Very few are Arab; some are Jewish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each side of this split regularly accuses the other of bad faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dof trying to serve two flags at once. Right Zionists insist that US recognition of Israel as a strategic asset is compromised by the influence of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153big oil\u00e2\u20ac\u009d money. Richard Perle and David Frum, for example, insist that the Saudis distort the prevailing US assessment of its strategic interests in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“The reason our policy toward Saudi Arabia has been so abject for so long is not mere error. Our policy has been abject because so many of those who make the policy have been bought and paid for by the Saudis\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 [T]oo many of our recent ambassadors to Saudi Arabia have served as shills for Saudi Arabia the instant they returned home” (EE<\/em>, p.141-142).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Similarly, critics of the US-Israeli alliance portray Israel as a strategic burden, rather than an asset. Most recently, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt published an article in the London Review of Books<\/a> entitled, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Israel Lobby.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of [Israel]\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 [but] the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIsrael Lobby.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each side questions the strategic wisdom of appeasing the other side and searches for extra-strategic explanations for a strategic disagreement. The central strategic question, however, is unavoidable for any empire: which proxy state can most reliably \u00e2\u20ac\u0153police\u00e2\u20ac\u009d imperial interests?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Right Zionists and Right Arabists tend to agree that recurring battles in the US over policy toward Iraq and Iran are often \u00e2\u20ac\u0153proxies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for larger strategic questions about the wisdom of the US alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Right Arabists like Caspar Weinberger, in his 1990 memoir, Fighting for Peace<\/em> (hereafter, FP<\/em>) argue that Israel survives, in part, through classic balance-of-power strategies. In explaining the basis for long-standing ties between Israel and the Shah of Iran, for example, Weinberger describes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a natural affinity of all religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East to unite (when at all they unite) against the vast majority\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe Arab population. Hence some Jews, Christians, Turks, and Persians have long linkages\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Israel had close ties to Iran under the Shah\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (FP<\/em>, p.365).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion allegedly referred to this strategy as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Doctrine of the Periphery.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gary Sick, a former Carter administration NSC staffer and a critic of Right Zionist activities with the US, describes the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Doctrine\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich he calls \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a touchstone for Israeli foreign policy\u00e2\u20ac\u201din his 1991 book October Surprise: America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“This doctrine was predicated on the belief that while Israel was destined to be surrounded permanently by a ring of hostile Arab states, just outside this hostile ring there were non-Arab states such as Turkey, Ethiopia and Iran that were themselves frequently at odds with the Arabs and therefore potential allies of Israel. It was a classic case of the old maxim, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe enemy of my enemy is my friend,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 raised to the level of international policy” (p.60).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Doctrine of the Periphery is simply Realpolitik for Right Zionists. For Israel and Right Zionists, however, the 1979 Iranian Revolution created complex new risks and opportunities for the Doctrine of the Periphery. On the one hand, there was the immediate crisis of anti-Zionist and anti-American zeal within the Revolution. On the other hand, the Shiite Revolution seemed likely to embolden Shia insurgents in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Gulf Emirates and aggravate hostilities between Arab and Shiite populations. For Right Zionists, the risk of Shiite anti-Zionism was partially offset by the opportunity for a strengthened alliance of the periphery forged on the basis of aggravated rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Right Arabists, Iranian hostility toward the US, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia pointed in one direction and one direction only: support for incumbent Arab regimes. At the start of the Iran-Iraq war, the US remained officially neutral. But Caspar Weinberger (Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration) acknowledges that he found it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153difficult\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to remain neutral\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 we \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctilted\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 toward Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (FP<\/em>, p.358).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This tilt toward Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u201din the service of the US-Saudi Alliance\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwas a grave concern for Right Zionists. Notwithstanding the anti-Zionist and anti-American fervor of the Iranian regime, Right Zionists like Michael Ledeen\u00e2\u20ac\u201da key player in the Iran-Contra affair\u00e2\u20ac\u201dviewed the Iran-Iraq war very differently from those like Weinberger who tilted toward Iraq. In his 1988 memoir, Perilous Statecraft: An Insider\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Account of the Iran-Contra Affair<\/em> (herafter, PS<\/em>), Ledeen explains, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Israel was far more concerned about Iraq than about Iran, since Iraq had participated in the Arab wars against Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Iran, at least in the short run, posed no comparable threat to Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (PS<\/em>, p.100). Even as Saudi Arabia\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand Right Zionists like Weinberger\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbecame pivotal supporters of Iraq in the 1980s Gulf War, Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u201dalong with Right Zionists like Ledeen\u00e2\u20ac\u201dchampioned Iran in its battle against Iraq. As for the Iranians, Ledeen is quick to point out that their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hatred of Judaism did not prevent them from buying weapons from the Jewish state\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (PS<\/em>, p.97).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The AWACS battle lines held in the Iran-Contra affair. Weinberger refers to Iran-Contra as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Israeli-Iranian plot.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d For Right Zionists like Wurmser, Weinberger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unofficial tilt toward Saddam Hussein\u00e2\u20ac\u201dakin to a Saudi-Iraqi plot\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhelped the US become tyranny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ally. So, too, Weinberger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great fear was that any outreach to Iran \u00e2\u20ac\u0153would adversely affect our newly emerging relationship with Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (FP<\/em>, p.364-366). Right Zionists feared the exact opposite\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153newly emerging relationship\u00e2\u20ac\u009d between the US and Iraq would adversely affect the US-Israeli alliance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In many respects, Right Zionist war plans for Iraq represents an audacious attempt to reverse the pro-Saudi tilt in US policy that developed in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution and deepened with the movement of US forces onto Saudi soil following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Make no mistake: the US invaded Iraq, but it went to war with the Saudis. The Iraqi political tilt toward Iran is not an accident\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe unintended consequence of bumbling naivet\u00c3\u00a9\u00e2\u20ac\u201dso much as the heart of a future geo-strategic alliance with Iranian Shiites, if not the incumbent clerical regime.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Right Arabists understand the stakes quite well and this\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmore than any dovish conversion on the road to Baghdad\u00e2\u20ac\u201dexplains the vehemence of their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153anti-war\u00e2\u20ac\u009d opposition. Although they have attacked the war on a variety of fronts\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfor its aggressive unilateralism, its abuse of intelligence, its abuse of prisoners, etc.\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe heart of the critique has always been the political outcome\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsymbolized by de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Sunni-led Iraqi Army.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whither Cheney?<\/em><\/p>\n

In the history of Republican foreign policy factionalism, there seems to have been two major defections from the Right Arabist camp: Vice-President Richard Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In prior administrations, Rumsfeld and Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRumsfeld\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prot\u00c3\u00a9g\u00c3\u00a9 in the Ford White House\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfought side by side with Right Arabists. In the US invasion of Iraq, however, Cheney and Rumsfeld have drawn considerable fire from former allies on the Arabist Right. Any effort to explain the influence Right Zionist strategies at the start of the US invasion of Iraq must take account of the anomalous roles played by Cheney and Rumsfeld.<\/p>\n

The timing and significance of any break between Cheney and Rumsfeld, on the one side, and the Right Arabists, on the other, will likely remain a matter of speculation for some time to come. For now, the record remains sketchy. Rumsfeld served as Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense in the administration of Gerald Ford, but he stayed out of government during the early Reagan administration. However, as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Saudi-U.S. Relations Information Service\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reminded readers of its website in December 2003<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRumsfeld came back to the White House to help Reagan overcome Zionist opposition to the sale of AWACS to the Saudis. Similarly, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153American Israel Public Affairs Committee\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has never forgotten<\/a> that Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u201dserving as a Congressman from Wyoming in 1981\u00e2\u20ac\u201dvoted to support the AWACS sale. And it was Rumsfeld who helped Reagan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Arabists \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tilt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the US toward Iraq<\/a> in 1983 and 1984 when he traveled to Baghdad as special U.S. Middle East envoy and met with Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the way to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, however, Cheney and Rumsfeld ran into trouble with the Right Arabist crowd. Brent Scowcroft could not have been more explicit than he was in an October 2005 interview with the New Yorker<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The real anomaly in the Administration is Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I consider Cheney a good friend\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know anymore\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think Dick Cheney is a neocon, but allied to the core of neocons.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

More specifically, Scowcroft speculates that Cheney has been persuaded by the idea\u00e2\u20ac\u201drejected by Scowcroft, but attributed by him to Princeton professor Bernard Lewis\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the things you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to do to Arabs is hit them between the eyes with a big stick.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

There are some signs that Cheney and Rumsfeld had aligned themselves with Right Zionists before the 2000 Presidential election. For example, in June 1997, Rumsfeld and Cheney signed on to William Kristol\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Statement of Principles<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Project for a New American Century\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (PNAC). Other signatories included Right Zionists like Norman Podhoretz and his wife, Midge Dector; their son-in-law, Elliot Abrams\u00e2\u20ac\u201danother key player in the Iran-Contra affair; Frank Gaffney; and Paul Wolfowitz.<\/p>\n

In 1998, Rumsfeld signed another PNAC document<\/a> that explicitly endorsed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d With Richard Perle, Wolfowitz, and Abrams as signatories, the document certainly had Right Zionist support. The wording of the letter, however, offered something for Right Arabists and Zionists alike. It explained how the failure to effectively contain Saddam Hussein endangered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Maybe the refusal to name<\/em> Saudi Arabia as a friend, ally, or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153moderate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Arab state was intended to signal the dominance of Right Zionist influence. But the letter allowed for productive ambiguity.<\/p>\n

Most Right Arabists seemed to draw even closer to Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Abdullah in the late 1990s. Abdullah thrilled\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand shocked\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRight Arabists and US oil company executives in September 1998 when he unexpectedly abandoned the oil nationalism of the 1970s and invited US oil companies to consider direct upstream investment in new oil and gas fields (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Saudis Talk with 7 U.S. Oil Firms; Companies Were Kicked Out in 1970s,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Washington Post<\/em>, September 30, 1998). In April 2001, Exxon Mobil and Saudi Arabia signed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153preparatory agreements\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that secured for Exxon Mobile its role as leader and operator of two of three core ventures in a new Saudi natural gas initiative (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Exxon Takes Saudi Gas Prize,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d International Petroleum Finance<\/em>, April 30, 2001). Final contracts were expected by December 2001.<\/p>\n

Abdullah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s star was on the rise among Right Arabists impressed by his economic opening to the US oil industry. A serious deterioration in US-Saudi relations after September 11th<\/sup> seems to have engendered a split among Right Arabists about the future viability of any US-Saudi alliance. Cheney and Rumsfeld, in particular, seem to have developed serious concerns about Abdullah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response to September 11th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

His associations with Kristol\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Project for a New American Century, notwithstanding, Right Zionists were hardly accustomed to thinking of Cheney as an ally. In fact, by some accounts, Cheney was actually the most powerful Bush administration opponent of any effort to weaken the US-Saudi alliance. In his 2002 book, The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ud from Tradition to Terror<\/em>, Stephen Schwartz\u00e2\u20ac\u201da regular contributor to the Weekly Standard<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddescribes Cheney as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the most active in diverting the president from any actions detrimental to Saudi interests\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and accuses the Vice President of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clear conflicts of interest\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because of his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lucrative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d relations with the Saudis (p.271).<\/p>\n

So, too, the Weekly Standard<\/em> published an article<\/a> in April 2002, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cheney Trips Up: The Vice President\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Middle East Expedition Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Help the War on Terror\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that criticized Cheney because he \u00e2\u20ac\u0153avoided putting the Arabs on the spot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d about regime change in Iraq. In a subsequent editorial, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Detour<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Weekly Standard<\/em> blamed Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ill-fated trip to the Middle East\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfor diverting the Bush administration from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s war on terrorism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and for engineering the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153administration’s sudden quasi-embrace of Arafat.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

By August 2002, however, Cheney seems to have gone from an obstacle to a key sponsor of Right Zionist ambitions for war in Iraq. Perhaps it is important to note that the $30 billion Saudi gas deal fell apart just prior to Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apparent reversal. The first public report of trouble appeared within weeks of the September 11th<\/sup> attacks, as the government-owned Saudi Aramco\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest oil exporter\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153baulked at this foreign invasion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Western Oil Companies Join the Search for Gas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Financial Times<\/em>, October 29, 2001). By January 2002 oil industry officials suggested that new delays were a consequence of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political, not legal, reasons\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153US Firms say Timetable May Slip on Saudi Gas Deals,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The Oil and Gas Journal<\/em>, January 21, 2002).<\/p>\n

As deadlines passed and industry executives began to fret about the future of the gas deal, industry analysts reported, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is reason to believe the status of the negotiations will be monitored at the highest levels of the US government. The Department of State announced Mar. 1 that Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, would join the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in coming weeks as the deputy assistant secretary handling Middle East economic issues\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Saudi Gas Partnerships with US Firms Delayed Again,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The Oil and Gas Journal<\/em>, March 11, 2002). In April 2002, industry officials hoped that Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visit to Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Abdullah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visit to the United States would save the faltering gas talks, but feared \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rising anti-American sentiment in Saudi Arabia\u00e2\u20ac\u009d would scuttle the deal (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Talks Between Saudis, Oil Companies Falter,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wall Street Journal<\/em>, April 22, 2002).<\/p>\n

In late July 2002, the Saudis announced that negotiators would meet to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153present their final offers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d On Monday, July 29, 2002, the oil industry press reported that negotiations \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ground to a halt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d after it became clear \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the [Saudi] ministers were against going forward\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Saudi Gas Initiative at an Impasse,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Petroleum Intelligence Weekly<\/em>, July 29, 2002). The deal was dead.<\/p>\n

Little more than a week after the Saudis walked away from the US oil majors, Cheney went public in his support for a US invasion of Iraq. The Weekly Standard<\/em> was quick to notice the change. Even as Kristol chastised Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and his deputy Richard Armitage for constituting an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Axis of Appeasement<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d within the Republican Party, he praised Cheney for a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fine speech in San Francisco on August 7\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe Vice President\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first major public appearance in months\u00e2\u20ac\u201din which the Vice President called Saddam Hussein a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153growing threat.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In the August 26, 2002 issue<\/a> of the Weekly Standard<\/em>, Kristol pointed to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the highly significant speech delivered today to the Veterans of Foreign Wars by Vice President Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and concluded \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The debate in the administration is over.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As far as Kristol was concerned, Cheney had switched sides and consummated his alliance with the Right Zionists. Moreover, Kristol noted that Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s speech specifically targets \u00e2\u20ac\u0153recent critics of the Bush Doctrine\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201despecially Brent Scowcroft. Cheney addressed himself\u00e2\u20ac\u201din minimally coded language\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto the Right Arabist argument \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits for the region\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 The reality is that these times bring not only dangers but also opportunities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Even as Cheney thumbed his nose at Scowcroft, he tipped his hat to Right Zionists, citing Fouad Ajami\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prediction that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the streets of Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In short order, Rumsfeld and Cheney became the patron saints of Right Zionist ambitions in Iraq. For this they have earned the eternal enmity of Right Arabists.<\/p>\n

The most famous Right Arabist attack on the Iraq war\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcelebrated by much of the Left–remains Richard Clarke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2004 book, Against All Enemies<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dan \u00e2\u20ac\u0153insider\u00e2\u20ac\u009d account that ostensibly confirmed the senselessness of the US invasion of Iraq and highlighted\u00e2\u20ac\u201din the person of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (p.30)\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRight Zionist attempts to use 9\/11 as a springboard for promoting their agenda for Iraq. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Instead of addressing [the al Qaeda] with all the necessary attention it required, we went off on a tangent, off after Iraq,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clarke complains (p.286-287). The war in Iraq is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mistaken and costly\u00e2\u20ac\u009d attack on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an oil-rich Arab country that posed no threat to us\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.264-266). Beyond the headline-grabbing charge that the invasion of Iraq was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tangent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that sidetracked the war on terror, however, Clarke also offers an entirely different\u00e2\u20ac\u201dif less publicized\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153insider\u00e2\u20ac\u009d analysis of the Realpolitik rationale for war.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clarke asserts that al Qaeda inaugurated \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a war intended to replace the House of Saud\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.282). According to Clarke, it was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153concern with the long-term stability of the House of Saud\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.265) in light of the challenge from al Qaeda that led \u00e2\u20ac\u0153some in the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.283) to favor war with Iraq. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153With Saddam gone, they believed, the U.S. could reduce its dependence on Saudi Arabia, could pull forces out of the Kingdom, and could open up an alternative source of oil\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.283). The war on Iraq was, in effect, an indirect attack on the House of Saud.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clarke is not persuaded. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The risk that the United States runs is of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that will undermine the House of Saud \u00e2\u20ac\u0153without a plan or any influence about what would happen next\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 The future and stability of Saudi Arabia is of paramount importance to the United States; our policy cannot just be one of reducing our dependence upon it\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.283). Just for good measure, Clarke criticizes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153firing of the army and de-Baathification\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Iraq (p.272). This is the Right Arabist critique in a nutshell. Clarke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book was one of the earliest Right Arabist attacks on the war but his critique is hardly exceptional. Many of the same charges have been leveled by other Right Arabists, including Retired General Anthony Zinni<\/a>, former commander of the U.S. Central Command responsible for protecting Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Left?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ongoing battles between Right Arabists and Right Zionists have complicated attempts to criticize the war without implicitly\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand often inadvertently\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtaking sides within<\/em> the terms of an intra-imperialist debate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For example, Michael Moore\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9\/11<\/em><\/a> goes to great lengths to expose and condemn the role of Saudi money in the United States and to establish the Saudi connection to the Bush family, their friends and associates, all as a prelude to the decision to invade Iraq. Likewise, Craig Unger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2004 book, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Two Most Powerful Dynasties<\/em> has the misfortune of having been written in the older tradition\u00e2\u20ac\u201dexposing the intimacy of Bush-Saudi ties, even as there were signs that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the relationship between the House of Bush and the House of Saud appears to be coming to a difficult end\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.280). Unger finds all of this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153difficult to believe\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and ends his book with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one incontrovertible fact\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: Never before has an American president been so closely tied to a foreign power that harbors and supports our country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mortal enemies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.281). The foreign power in question is Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Robert Dreyfuss, the foreign power in question is Israel, not Saudi Arabia. Dreyfuss, a contributing editor at The Nation<\/em>, a contributing writer at Mother Jones<\/em>, and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect<\/em>, is author of Devil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam<\/em>. In an on-line review of Fahrenheit 9\/11<\/em><\/a>, Dreyfuss declares that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in one critically important way, [Moore\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s film] entirely misses the boat and gets nearly everything wrong.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Moore totally avoids the question of Israel. Not only that, but the opening polemic of the movie ties President Bush and company mightily to Saudi Arabia\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. Huh?… If Bush is so \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcin the pocket\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of Saudi Arabia, why is he Ariel Sharon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strongest backer?… And most important, why did he invade Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsince Saudi Arabia was strongly opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Why did he launch his Iraqi adventure over Saudi objections, with many of his advisers chortling that Saudi Arabia would be \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnext\u00e2\u20ac\u2122? Why did he stock his administration with militant neocon crusaders who see Saudi Arabia as the main enemy?… Is that because attacking Israel is too hard? Moore\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s photo-montage of Saudi princes borders on the racist, showing Bush and Co. clinging to grinning, Semitic-looking Arabs in flowing white robes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Did Moore notice that Baker, along with Brent Scowcroft, and other former advisers to Bush 41 (including Colin Powell) were against the Iraq adventure?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In his book, Devil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Game<\/em>, Dreyfuss devotes considerable attention to close readings of Right Zionist authors, including Richard Perle, David Wurmser, and Reuel Marc Gerecht and participates in the vilification of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neo-conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Right Zionists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to the worst accusations, Right Zionists are agents of Israel who serve a foreign flag. At best, they represent one imperialist faction within the US foreign policy establishment\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe faction that believes Israel is able to police the Middle East and secure US access to the region\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strategic oil resources and the Suez Canal. Anti-imperialists on the Left have good reason to oppose this as an imperialist war and rightly assert that no more US troops should die in order to make the Middle East safe for US empire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In doing so, however, the Left sometimes runs the risk of becoming unwitting partners in an intra-<\/em>imperialist battle between Right Zionists and Right Arabists. Right Arabists\u00e2\u20ac\u201dlike Brent Scowcroft and General Anthony Zinni–posing as the equivalent of Republican \u00e2\u20ac\u0153anti-war activists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d do not demand immediate withdrawal of US troops; they attack the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153incompetence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of those who have executed this war. Right Arabists are not opposed to the US micro-managing the political outcome in Iraq; they oppose the particular<\/em> outcome that empowers Iraqi Shiites and Kurds at the expense of Sunni Arab power in Iraq and beyond.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The anti-imperialist Left has no business aligning itself with Right Arabists, and yet the dangerous consequences of this alliance have only grown as Right Arabists have begun to regain control of the US ship of state. Nowhere is the risk for the Left more evident than in the writing of Robert Dreyfuss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dreyfuss is a good reporter and, to his credit, he understands the Right Zionist and Right Arabist battle lines within the Bush administration. However, because all of his political firepower is directed at the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neocon-dominated\u00e2\u20ac\u009d United States, his critique is completely neutralized<\/em> in those instances where Right Arabists have managed to regain some influence over Iraq policy. Dreyfuss pins everything on the idea that Right Zionists are dominating US policy. It legitimizes his uncritical embrace of Right Arabist perspectives on Iraq.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a December 2004 comment<\/a>, for example, Dreyfuss finds evidence of considerable Right Zionist panic, expressed by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153leading neocon strategist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Max Singer, that Right Arabists were winning greater influence over Iraq policy. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What world is Singer living in?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d asks Dreyfuss. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The United States is supporting the Sunnis and Baathists? Course not.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More recently, Dreyfuss has acknowledged that the balance in US policy might have shifted back toward the Right Arabists. In an article sub-titled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bring Back the Baath<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dreyfuss reports on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153U.S.-Baath Talks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What the United States ought to have done two years ago\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnamely, make a deal with the resistance and its core Baathist leadership\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmight, after all, be happening. It is unclear how far up the food chain in the Bush administration this effort goes, but it appears that a desperate Ambassador Khalilzad has realized the importance of forging ties to the Baath party\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all good\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If Dreyfuss feels awkward about declaring the increasingly Right Arabist inclinations of a Republican administration \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all good,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he certainly hides it well. Give Dreyfuss the benefit of the doubt and assume that his pro-Baathist perspective is derived not from his love of Sunni Arab authoritarianism but the fact that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153resistance and its core Baathist leadership\u00e2\u20ac\u009d offer the best chances for driving the US out of Iraq. That remains to be seen. If the US makes its peace with the Baathists, it is Sistani and the Iraqi Shiites who may ultimately drive the US out of Iraq.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whatever his intentions, however, Dreyfuss risks becoming a pawn of Right Arabists. Not surprisingly, they have embraced him openly. Charles Freeman, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a prominent Right Arabist, provides a glowing blurb on the back cover of the book<\/a>. Moreover, key chapters on Right Zionists draw on interviews with Freeman, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Atkins, and other prominent Right Arabists whom Dreyfuss quotes approvingly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not everyone on the anti-war Left is equally keen to mimic Right Arabist rhetoric. In an exchange with Alex Callinicos<\/a> ahead of the January 2005 Iraqi elections, Gilbert Achcar breaks ranks and warns \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the whole anti-imperialist left against falling into the trap of declaring the forthcoming elections \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcillegitimate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 just because some armed groups based among the Sunnis and some reactionary Sunni parties are trying to delegitimize them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Achcar argues that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it is dead wrong for the movement and the left to condemn the elections in advance, thus probably putting us at odds with the great majority of the Iraqi people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The political allure of Achcar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first commentary<\/a> on Iraqi elections was certainly strengthened by three accompanying claims. First, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the US\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6tried to postpone as far as possible the prospect of holding elections and to replace them with appointed bodies.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Second, the US was forced to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153backtrack\u00e2\u20ac\u009d only when \u00e2\u20ac\u0153countered by\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani\u00e2\u20ac\u009d whose call for demonstrations brought \u00e2\u20ac\u0153huge numbers of people\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 into the streets of several Iraqi cities, especially in the Shia areas, with hundreds of thousands shouting \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcyes to election, no to designation.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Third, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153overwhelming majority\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Iraqis are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hostile to US control of their land, and hence any truly representative democratically elected government would seek to get rid of the occupation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The second claim\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat the decision to go forward with the elections was a direct consequence of Sistani-led demonstrations in support of elections\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis indisputable. This fact afforded critics of Bush to celebrate the elections without conceding anything to the President. One anti-Bush blogger proclaimed it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Elections Bush Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Want<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The political appeal of the first claim\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153US\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Bushies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tried to postpone or cancel elections\u00e2\u20ac\u201donce again presupposes, implicitly at least, a unified imperial actor. On that basis, the Sistani-led demonstrations and the elections can be depicted as a defiant thumb in the eye of US imperialism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This claim is only partially accurate. Both the Sistani-led demonstrations and<\/em> the Iraqi elections represent an enormous defeat for Right Arabists struggling to put the old Baathist lid back on Iraq. The Right Arabists had to backtrack. For Right Zionists, however, the Iraqi elections represent a great victory in their<\/em> battles with Right Arabists in Washington. Indeed, one of the most stunning elements of the Iraqi elections is the way it allowed Right Zionists to snatch victory from the jaws of factional defeat at the hands of Right Arabists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Setting aside all the talk\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfrom allies and critics of the White House\u00e2\u20ac\u201dabout how this administration is dogged in its determination to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stay the course\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at all costs, many Right Zionists suggest that the White House actually lost its nerve\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand began to retreat\u00e2\u20ac\u201das early as October 2003, if not earlier. In August 2004, Michael Rubin\u00e2\u20ac\u201da fellow at the American Enterprise Institute\u00e2\u20ac\u201darticulated the Right Zionist sense of betrayal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In October 2003, the White House launched a major reorganization of its Iraq-policy team. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice became titular head of the Iraq Stabilization Group… [and] her deputy (and former mentor) Robert Blackwill\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 became chief for political transition\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. Whereas President Bush repeatedly promised that the U.S. sought<\/a> democracy in Iraq, the British government, U.S. State Department, and the National Security Council project the opposite to an Iraqi audience. Iraqis were not blind to high-level discussions of a “Sunni strategy<\/a>.” They interpreted the Sunni strategy to mean that Washington would not live up to its rhetoric of democracy, and instead return the Sunni minority to what many former Baathists\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the Saudi and Jordanian governments\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfelt was the Sunni community’s birthright. Iraqis interpreted Bremer’s decision to televise his April 23 [2004] speech<\/a> announcing a rollback of de-Baathification as proof that Washington was pandering to Iraq’s Sunni population\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. [T]he decision to reverse de-Baathification in effect traded the goodwill of Iraq’s 14 million Shia and six million Kurds for the sake of, at most, 40,000 high-level Baathists. Realism isn’t always so realistic.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reuel Marc Gerecht, also at AEI, was warning of a sellout as early as November 2003<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Pentagon’s and the Central Intelligence Agency’s decision to use the former exile organization, the Iraqi National Accord, as the basis for a new domestic Iraqi intelligence-and-security service is part of Washington’s and the Provisional Authority’s new “pro-Sunni” push\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. The Shiite-American alliance–on which all hinges in Iraq–can snap if only a small number of Shiites grow fearful about America’s intentions. Working with Baathists\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is a longstanding predilection in certain offices of the State Department, the CIA, and, more recently, among some American military field commanders\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 The CPA and the Bush administration obviously believe that democracy now is unworkable. They also fear\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 that elections now might give the Shiite clergy–especially Sistani–a potential veto over the nation’s future. To put it succinctly: We are enormously lucky to have Sistani in post-Saddam Iraq.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the start of October 2004, Gerecht published an article entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Battle for Iraq.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The battle of which Gerecht writes, however, is located in Washington as much as Baghdad.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The United States is engaged in a revolution in Iraq. We have toppled Saddam Hussein, the Baath party, and the Sunni Arab dominion over the country. We have promised to help the Iraqi people establish a democracy, which means that we are the midwife of a political system that will empower the Shia\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 [T]he Coalition Provisional Authority\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 wanted to be rather nice to the Sunni base of Saddam’s power in the hope of placating it, of getting it to play along. (The CIA’s dogged advancing of the pro-Sunni, Baathist-sympathetic, Shiite Ayad Allawi and the White House’s approval of him as prime minister was the culmination of this attitude.) The American retreat started in earnest in Baghdad last year\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Any significant delay of elections would quickly force Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s preeminent Shiite cleric, to stand against the United States. If he were to do so, he would win, we and Prime Minister Allawi would lose.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the showdown occurred and Sistani did fight and win, Gerecht\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Birth of a Democracy<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwas predictably ecstatic. It was also remarkably explicit about the larger meaning of the victory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153ALL RIGHT. Let us make an analytical bet of high probability and enormous returns: The January 30 elections in Iraq will easily be the most consequential event in modern Arab history since Israel’s six-day defeat of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s alliance in 1967\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. Continue to pray every night for the health, well-being, and influence of Grand Ayatollah Sistani.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If the Iraqi votes of January 2005, October 2005, and December 2005 were the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Elections that Bush Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Want,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the same can hardly be said of Right Zionists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Left would do well to remember that there are at least two<\/em> imperialist camps in Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u201done Right Arabist and one Right Zionist. Both are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sensible,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d within the framework of imperialist statecraft. Neither deserves our embrace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Will Sistani\u00e2\u20ac\u201dlike the Shah before him\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcollaborate with Israel and police US interests in the Middle East? Or will the Baathists and Saudis patrol the region for the US? These are urgent questions for US imperialism. Not so for the anti-imperialist Left. Ours is not the quest for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153indigenous\u00e2\u20ac\u009d surrogates willing and able to police<\/em> the Middle East on behalf of US Empire. US Soldiers are not cannon fodder for Right Zionist or Right Arabist imperial ambitions. Our demand is simple: Bring the troops home. Now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jonathan Cutler teaches sociology at Wesleyan University. For more Iraq analysis and commentary, go to his blog, www.profcutler.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyond Incompetence: Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s War in Iraq   Jonathan Cutler     If there is a central principle animating Noam Chomsky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s commentaries on US foreign policy, it is his affinity for Realpolitik analysis. As Chomsky argues in a recent interview, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our leaders have rational imperial interests. We have to assume that they’re good-hearted and bumbling. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/344\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}