{"id":300,"date":"2007-05-30T10:53:29","date_gmt":"2007-05-30T15:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=300"},"modified":"2007-05-31T07:39:55","modified_gmt":"2007-05-31T12:39:55","slug":"cheney-beyond-hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=300","title":{"rendered":"Cheney: Beyond Hypocrisy"},"content":{"rendered":"
In many respects<\/title>In many respects, the factional battle lines that have formed around the US invasion of Iraq have been pretty stark and predictable.\u00c2\u00a0 In my ZNET essay on foreign policy factionalism, “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">Beyond Incompetence: Washington’s War in Iraq<\/a>,” I suggested that the US invasion of Iraq tended to split the foreign policy establishment into two camps: Right Zionists and Right Arabists.<\/p>\n<p>One of the central puzzles, from that day to this, has been locating Vice President Cheney on that spectrum.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Cheney has been very clearly <em>aligned<\/em> with Right Zionists for some time now and he continues to surround himself with Right Zionist advisers like <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=212\"> David Wurmser<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But Cheney was not always perceived as a “sure thing” for Right Zionists.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <em>Cheney was not always thought of as allied with Right Zionists<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Among other things,\u00c2\u00a0 the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishworldreview.com\/0700\/cheney.jews.asp\">never forgotten<\/a> that Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u201dserving as a Congressman from Wyoming in 1981\u00e2\u20ac\u201dvoted to support the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the 1990s Cheney did not seem to be above taking pot shots at the Israel lobby and its zeal for US sanctions against Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Snow interviewed Cheney for <em>Petroleum Finance Week<\/em> at a 1996 Energy Conference and filed the following report:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Halliburton Co. Chairman Richard B. Cheney sees many opportunities \tworldwide for U.S. oil and gas producers, drilling contractors and service \tand supply companies. But he’s also concerned that <strong>sanctions sought by \tdomestic politicians to please local constituencies<\/strong> will hurt U.S. \tbusiness growth overseas…<\/p>\n<p>But he also considers sanctions the greatest threat to Halliburton and other \tU.S. companies pursuing opportunities overseas. “<strong>We seem to be \tsanction-happy as a government<\/strong>. The problem is that the good Lord didn’t \tsee fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic \tgovernments,” he observed during his conference presentation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If anything, Cheney was probably considered a Right Arabist eager to do business with the Saudis and willing to find a <em>modus operandi<\/em> for doing deals with the Iranians.<\/p>\n<p>Something changed.\u00c2\u00a0 Cheney closely aligned himself with Right Zionists.<\/p>\n<p>Commentators who note the change often seem to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/cgi-bin\/print.cgi?file=\/views02\/0904-04.htm\"> focus primarily on Cheney’s hypocrisy<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Be that as it may, there are important questions to be asked about what<em> triggered<\/em> Cheney’s change of “heart.”<\/p>\n<p>I have tried to offer up some explanations, including one that focused on post-9\/11 <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=56\">tensions between Cheney and Saudi King Abdullah<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More recently, I have also found reason to suspect that at least some of Cheney’s shift might have begun before September 11th.\u00c2\u00a0 According to this account, Cheney was <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=157\">handed a huge defeat by the Israel Lobby in early 2001<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Unable to beat them, he joined them.<\/p>\n<p>Those who do not attend to the factors the triggered Cheney’s change are least likely to anticipate the possibility that other factors might cause Cheney to change course again.<\/p>\n<p>In several recent posts last week (<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=295\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=296\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=297\">here<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=298\">here<\/a>) I pondered the possibility that Cheney might “come to terms” with the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, these are merely speculations.<\/p>\n<p>Even as Cheney “allowed” the US-Iranian meeting in Iraq, there are signs that he is far from committed to this track.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from Cheney’s own <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=290\"> strident, anti-Iranian bluster<\/a> during his recent visit to the Gulf, there are also rumors that he and his Right Zionist allies are telling friends to discount all the “diplomatic” talk.<\/p>\n<p>In early May, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forward.com\/articles\/top-bush-adviser-says-rice-s-push-for-mideast-p\/\"> <em>Jewish Daily F<\/em><\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.forward.com\/articles\/top-bush-adviser-says-rice-s-push-for-mideast-p\/\">orward<\/a><\/em> reported such a rumor:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams told a group of Jewish \tcommunal leaders last week that the president would ensure that the process \tdoes not lead to Israel being pushed into an agreement with which it is \tuncomfortable.<\/p>\n<p>Also last week, at a regular gathering of Jewish Republicans, sources said, \tAbrams described President Bush as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153emergency brake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who would prevent \tIsrael from being pressed into a deal; during the breakfast gathering, the \tWhite House official also said that a lot of what is done during Rice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \tfrequent trips to the region is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just process\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d steps needed in order to \tkeep the Europeans and moderate Arab countries \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on the team\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and to make \tsure they feel that the United States is promoting peace in the Middle East.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Was Abrams speaking truth to the “Jewish Republicans” or was he trying to manage their potential discontent?\u00c2\u00a0 Hard to say.<\/p>\n<p>More recently, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewashingtonnote.com\/archives\/002145.php\"> Steven Clemons<\/a> has offered up alleged details of a similar “reassurance” campaign among Right Zionist allies:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President \tCheney’s national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the \tAmerican Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one \tnational security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice \tPresident Cheney does not support President Bush’s tack towards Condoleezza \tRice’s diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy \twith Iran too seriously…<\/p>\n<p>There are many other components of the complex game plan that this Cheney \tofficial has been kicking around Washington. The official has offered this \tcommentary to senior staff at AEI and in lunch and dinner gatherings which \twere to be considered strictly off-the-record, but there can be little doubt \tthat the official actually hopes that hawkish conservatives and \tneoconservatives share this information and then rally to this point of \tview…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Is there any reason to doubt that the “senior aide on Vice President Cheney’s national security team” who has been “meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute” is either John Hannah or David Wurmser?<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.juancole.com\/2007\/05\/cheney-conniving-at-iran-war-says-bush.html\"> Juan Cole has suggested<\/a>, Steven Clemons is “very well connected in Washington,” especially among Right Arabists.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m in no position to discount the rumor.\u00c2\u00a0 I do think it is peculiar that, according to Clemons, there is “little doubt” that the “Cheney official” hoped “hawkish conservatives and neoconservatives would share this information.”\u00c2\u00a0 So far, only Clemons appears to be sharing the “information.”<\/p>\n<p>In a more general sense, I think it is unwise to <em>assume<\/em> that Cheney will remain forever faithful to his Right Zionist allies.\u00c2\u00a0 He has bigger fish to fry.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=291\">Caspian Sea fish<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I have no doubt Cheney would gladly discard his Right Zionist allies if he thought the incumbent Iranian regime could become a useful foil to Russian geopolitical aspirations.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In many respectsIn many respects, the factional battle lines that have formed around the US invasion of Iraq have been pretty stark and predictable.\u00c2\u00a0 In my ZNET essay on foreign policy factionalism, “Beyond Incompetence: Washington’s War in Iraq,” I suggested that the US invasion of Iraq tended to split the foreign policy establishment into two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,6,10,11,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300"}],"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=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}