{"id":212,"date":"2006-12-18T09:37:56","date_gmt":"2006-12-18T14:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=212"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:03:56","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:03:56","slug":"meet-the-wurmsers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=212","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Wurmsers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>Ynetnews has published an interv<\/title>Ynetnews has published <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ynetnews.com\/articles\/0,7340,L-3340750,00.html\">an interview  with Meyrav Wurmser<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hudson.org\/learn\/index.cfm?fuseaction=staff_bio&#038;eid=Wurmser\"> Meyrav Wurmser<\/a>&#8211;Director of the Hudson Institute&#8217;s Center for Middle East  Policy&#8211;is married to <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=211\"> David Wurmser<\/a>, Cheney&#8217;s Middle East advisor.<\/p>\n<p>Until he went to work in the Bush administration, David Wurmser was Middle East  fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/pubID.13383\/pub_detail.asp\">views were  quite public<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once on Cheney&#8217;s staff, however, David Wurmser hasn&#8217;t  said much of anything public.\u00c2\u00a0 It has always been tempting to read Meyrav  Wurmser&#8217;s public pronouncements as some kind proxy for the prevailing views of  David Wurmser, if not the Office of the Vice President as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>Meyrav Wurmser&#8217;s interview is extremely pessimistic, not about Iraq or the  Middle East, but about the factional politics of the Bush administration.\u00c2\u00a0  The tone offered up is not the outlook of a person whose partner is about to win  control of the ship of state.<\/p>\n<p>In any event, if Meyrav Wurmser&#8217;s Ynetnews interview is any indication of  David Wurmser&#8217;s influence, however, it looks highly unlikely that his so-called  &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=200\">Shiite Option<\/a>&#8221; will  be adopted as a result of the ongoing White House Iraq Policy Review.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Meyrav Wurmser suggests that most of the Neocons are already gone and  &#8220;there are others who are about to leave&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 (including David Wurmser?\u00c2\u00a0  or Elliott Abrams? both?).<\/p>\n<p>This is not a cautious interview.\u00c2\u00a0 Interviewer and interviewee are so blunt about so many issues that I wondered  if the interview was a fake.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, it appears to be the opening salvo  in a <em>post-Wurmser<\/em> Bush administration.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, here are some of the key sections of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ynetnews.com\/articles\/0,7340,L-3340750,00.html\"> the interview<\/a> (there are sections on Israel&#8217;s military action in Lebanon  that lend support to propositions from previous posts <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=115\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=125\">here<\/a>, but the  selections below are the ones focused on Iraq):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>YITZHAK BENHORIN: <em>Did you, in practice, bring about the war in Iraq?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>MEYRAV WURMSER: &#8220;We expressed ideas, but <strong>the policy in Iraq was taken  \tout of neocon hands very quickly<\/strong>. The idea was that America has a war on  \tterror and that the only actual place for coping with it is in the Middle  \tEast and that a fundamental change would come through a change in  \tleadership. We had to start somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The objective was to change the face of the Middle East. But it was  \timpossible to create a mini-democracy amidst a sea of dictatorships looking  \tto destroy this poor democracy, and thus, where do insurgents in Iraq come  \tfrom? From <strong>Iran and Syria<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>YITZHAK BENHORIN: <em>Should they have been conquered?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>MEYRAV WURMSER: &#8220;<strong>No<\/strong>. There was a need for <strong>massive political  \taction<\/strong>, of threats and pressure on these governments, financial  \tpressure, for example. The sanctions on Syria were nothing. There was a  \tperiod of time when the Syrians were afraid that they were next. It would  \thave been possible to use this momentum in a smarter way. <strong>There&#8217;s no need  \tto go in militarily<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>YITZHAK BENHORIN: <em>Your people held senior positions in the Pentagon.  \tDidn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary of Defense  \tfor Policy Douglas J. Feith implement your theories?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>MEYRAV WURMSER: &#8220;The final decisions were no in their hands. In the  \tPentagon, the decisions were in the hands of the military, and the political  \tleadership had a lot of clashes with the military leadership.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>YITZHAK BENHORIN: <em>Did the military leadership ask for more soldiers in  \tIraq?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>MEYRAV WURMSER: &#8220;<strong>Rumsfeld<\/strong> prevented that. He <strong>was a failure<\/strong>. \t<strong>The State Department opposed the neocons&#8217; stances<\/strong>. Also <strong>John  \tBolton<\/strong>, who is also <strong>part of the family<\/strong>, and was no. 4 at the  \tState Department under Colin Powell, was <strong>incapable of passing decisions<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Powell curbed our ideas and they did not pass. There was a lot of  \tfrustration over the years in the administration because we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel we  \twere succeeding.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Now Bolton left (the UN \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Y.B.) and <strong>there are others who are about to  \tleave<\/strong>. <strong>This administration is in its twilight days<\/strong>. Everyone is  \tnow looking for work, looking to make money\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 <strong>We all feel beaten<\/strong> after  \tthe past five years\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 We miss the peace and quiet and writing books\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>When you enter the administration you have to keep your mouth shut<\/strong>.  \tNow many will resume their writing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 <strong>Now, from the outside, they will be  \table to convey all the criticism they kept inside<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>YITZHAK BENHORIN: <em>In the meantime you left the US inside Iraq?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>MEYRAV WURMSER: &#8220;We did not bring the US into Iraq in such a way. Our  \tbiggest war which we lost was the idea that before entering Iraq we must  \ttrain an exile Iraqi government and an Iraqi military force, and hand over  \tthe rule to them immediately after the occupation and leave Iraq. That was  \tour idea and it was not accepted.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The only &#8220;news&#8221; here is probably the prediction that other members of &#8220;the  family&#8221; are &#8220;about to leave.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 The idea that the &#8220;administration is in its  twilight days&#8221; certainly seems to suggest that there will no big new initiatives  from the Right Zionist playbook in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Meyrav Wurmser writes as if James Baker was now running the White House.\u00c2\u00a0  Or, at least, as if any <em> <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=208\">push back<\/a><\/em> against  Baker does not represent any particular fidelity to the ideas of\u00c2\u00a0 &#8220;the  family.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ynetnews has published an intervYnetnews has published an interview with Meyrav Wurmser.\u00c2\u00a0 Meyrav Wurmser&#8211;Director of the Hudson Institute&#8217;s Center for Middle East Policy&#8211;is married to David Wurmser, Cheney&#8217;s Middle East advisor. Until he went to work in the Bush administration, David Wurmser was Middle East fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and his views were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}