{"id":56,"date":"2006-05-12T06:17:55","date_gmt":"2006-05-12T10:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=56"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:26:33","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:26:33","slug":"finding-rumsfeldcheney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"Finding Rumsfeld\/Cheney"},"content":{"rendered":"

My ZNet article–“Beyond Incompetence: Washington’s War in Iraq<\/a>“–is an abridged version of a longer essay. The longer paper includes an explanation–quite speculative in most respects–for the fact that Rumsfeld and Cheney have served as leaders of a Right Zionist war in Iraq. This warrants explanation because Rumsfeld\/Cheney have not always appeared to be the most reliable allies for such a project. Indeed, I review some indications that both were previously thought of by Right Zionists and Right Arabists as reliable Right Arabists. So, what changed?<\/em><\/p>\n

A further question–even more important for understanding current US policy toward Iraq and Iran–is whether Rumsfeld and Cheney remain aligned with Right Zionists. Alas, the following excerpt does <\/em>not<\/strong> attempt to answer that crucial question.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Finding Cheney\/Rumsfeld\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Jonathan Cutler, Wesleyan University, May 12, 2006<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/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>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 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.<\/span><\/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<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/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>.<\/span><\/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).<\/span><\/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<\/span><\/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).<\/span><\/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).<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/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 <\/span><\/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<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My ZNet article–“Beyond Incompetence: Washington’s War in Iraq“–is an abridged version of a longer essay. The longer paper includes an explanation–quite speculative in most respects–for the fact that Rumsfeld and Cheney have served as leaders of a Right Zionist war in Iraq. This warrants explanation because Rumsfeld\/Cheney have not always appeared to be the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56"}],"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=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}