"Tehran Splits the Israel Lobby" : I would agree with the general thrust of 'babak's post: As against the much hyped and overrated views of Walt-Mearsheimer, it is a fundamental misreading of the alignments among the imperialist (international) ruling classes to portray organizations such as AIPAC - and by imputation Zionism or neoconservativism as political movements - as a lobby of a "foreign power". Pursuing this misreading leads to overplaying certain distinctions between various ruling class factions to the point of believing that there may be differences of real significance rather than simple tactical manuvers between groups that are generally tightly bound up with one another out of necessity.
To see the situation more clearly, we need to first ask ourselves, is the State of Israel truly an "independent foreign country"? The test for independence is this: how long would the State of Israel continue to exist, let alone continue with its highly aggressive policies of present, without the massive aid and support of both the USA and to a lesser extent Western Europe, both at the state level and in terms of the relatively privileged position of Israel in the global market structure?
Not very long, and no, hundreds of nuclear warheads would not save the State of Israel from rapid extinction.
This explains why the State of Israel is so tightly bound to the USA - since the 1973 war, which Israel almost lost save for the intervention of the US, the Israeli section of the American constellation of imperialist ruling classes has had to accept annexation as the "external section" of an American ruling class faction.
This annexation took place from the Israeli side by means of the rise of the Likud movement, which marked a sharp and decisive break from the European traditions of "labor" Zionism towards that of a typically American democratic populist movement - and going into the historical conjuncture of the Reagan era, a profoundly reactionary democratic populism at that.
The general result then was the complete absorbsion of the old European Zionist movement into the mainstream of American ruling class politics and ideology, in the form of what we could call American Zionism, a homegrown American ideology and movement as American as the proverbial apple pie. Its global center was to be found, not within some small Middle East state with a regional monopoly of nuclear weaponry, but naturally in the centers of power within the United States, whose axis has always been and still remains the Northeast corridor from New York to Washington D.C., the seats of American financial and political power respectively. This is true not because, as some such as Max Sawicky of LBO would have you believe, therein lives "a lotta Jews", but because, well, last we heard, a lot of Americans happen to live there.
This transformation and annexation of the historical Zionist movement could be performed with relative ease, as the Americans themselves rather famously chased after a Zion of their own making, probably best know under the rubric of "Manifest Destiny", but with roots tracing through the Puritans 'New Jerusalem' in New England back to the Protestent republicanism of the English Revolution. Inspired by their reading of both Machievellian Roman Republican neoclassicism and the representative organization of the Biblical Hebraic tribes as a mass movement in arms - both expansive imageries, needless to say - the revolutionary millieu of which the Puritans were a key part saw England as a country "Elect of God" destined to found a new republican empire of an agrarian people in arms that would spread across the North Atlantic. (Aside: Giving our theological poster a run for his money, no)
With this background in mind, it is easy to see how this vision lives on today in the grandiose ideological fantasies of what we call the "neocons", but they are but the tip of the American iceberg. Or, to use an "old fasioned" expression, "neoconism" is in the vanguard of the ruling class. "Neoconism" simply expresses in highly concentrated form what every American has drilled into them in school and out from kindergarten on. Is it any wonder then that such a narrow "cabal" exercises such a wide influence over the American political scene, capable at one point in 2003 in capturing the allegances of 60% of the American population, according to polls at that time measuring support for GW Bush's policies. As well the hegemonic influence of American Zionism encompasses virtually the entire active "mainstream" of American ruling class politics, from Cheney, GW Bush and the Congressional Far Right to McCain, Rice, Clinton, Kerry and the entire leadeship of the Democratic Party, together with leading corporate media outlets ranging from the Far Right FOX outfit to NPR. Moreover, through this hegemonic influence the "mainstream" is united with the "extreme" Right, variously in the form of a highly organized fundamentalist Christian Zionist mass movement and a diffuse, motley populist mass of Arab and Muslim hating racists. In such a broad mix the American Jewish community organizations, including the State of Israel - which after all is a self described "Jewish community organization" with guns and nukes - all play a relatively marginal role.
Far from being the result of a "foreign lobby" that somehow managed to capture the central levers of political power and thereby exercise an enormous influence over an otherwise "normal" American political scene, what we have is a phenomenon emerged straight from the heart of "America" and mistook in typically alienated American fashion for a "foreign power". But that foreign, alien power is ideological "America" itself, the unselfdiscovered America.
But why has American Zionism assumed its stark profile in our own times? For this, one has to scrape through the patina of American ideology to reveal the ongoing and deepening crisis of the USA's mode of existence in the world today, both in terms of its relations with other states as well as its mode of integration into the global economy. That vastly interesting field of analysis is beyond the scope of this commentary, but suffice to say that the result of this crisis process has been to render Israel as a very appealing model for how the USA must make its way in the future, if it wishes to preserve its increasingly threatened and isolated position in the world, and therefore the position of ruling American regime within the USA, one might add. "America" as a Global Israel, a Blight Unto The Nations.
Therein lies the secret of the power and influence of the so-called "neocons". Contrary to present appearances, it is a power and influence that have every promise of growing as the "crisis of America" - of US imperialism - deepens.
Finally, as to the recent manuvers of Rice and GW Bush in relation to Iran, the answer is more straightforward. These were caused, not by splits with American ranks, but by splits beween nations on the global scene: The failure of the USA to get a punitive sanctions resolution out of the Security Council that could be brandished in Teheran's face. It is a failure of US imperialism, a failure of hegemonic leadership and a failure of its relations with respect to Russia and China in particular.
In the face of failure there was no alternative but to beat a (temporary, they hope) retreat to buy time and regroup for another attempt at launching aggressive war. US imperialism today has no other option.
To see the situation more clearly, we need to first ask ourselves, is the State of Israel truly an "independent foreign country"? The test for independence is this: how long would the State of Israel continue to exist, let alone continue with its highly aggressive policies of present, without the massive aid and support of both the USA and to a lesser extent Western Europe, both at the state level and in terms of the relatively privileged position of Israel in the global market structure?
Not very long, and no, hundreds of nuclear warheads would not save the State of Israel from rapid extinction.
This explains why the State of Israel is so tightly bound to the USA - since the 1973 war, which Israel almost lost save for the intervention of the US, the Israeli section of the American constellation of imperialist ruling classes has had to accept annexation as the "external section" of an American ruling class faction.
This annexation took place from the Israeli side by means of the rise of the Likud movement, which marked a sharp and decisive break from the European traditions of "labor" Zionism towards that of a typically American democratic populist movement - and going into the historical conjuncture of the Reagan era, a profoundly reactionary democratic populism at that.
The general result then was the complete absorbsion of the old European Zionist movement into the mainstream of American ruling class politics and ideology, in the form of what we could call American Zionism, a homegrown American ideology and movement as American as the proverbial apple pie. Its global center was to be found, not within some small Middle East state with a regional monopoly of nuclear weaponry, but naturally in the centers of power within the United States, whose axis has always been and still remains the Northeast corridor from New York to Washington D.C., the seats of American financial and political power respectively. This is true not because, as some such as Max Sawicky of LBO would have you believe, therein lives "a lotta Jews", but because, well, last we heard, a lot of Americans happen to live there.
This transformation and annexation of the historical Zionist movement could be performed with relative ease, as the Americans themselves rather famously chased after a Zion of their own making, probably best know under the rubric of "Manifest Destiny", but with roots tracing through the Puritans 'New Jerusalem' in New England back to the Protestent republicanism of the English Revolution. Inspired by their reading of both Machievellian Roman Republican neoclassicism and the representative organization of the Biblical Hebraic tribes as a mass movement in arms - both expansive imageries, needless to say - the revolutionary millieu of which the Puritans were a key part saw England as a country "Elect of God" destined to found a new republican empire of an agrarian people in arms that would spread across the North Atlantic. (Aside: Giving our theological poster a run for his money, no)
With this background in mind, it is easy to see how this vision lives on today in the grandiose ideological fantasies of what we call the "neocons", but they are but the tip of the American iceberg. Or, to use an "old fasioned" expression, "neoconism" is in the vanguard of the ruling class. "Neoconism" simply expresses in highly concentrated form what every American has drilled into them in school and out from kindergarten on. Is it any wonder then that such a narrow "cabal" exercises such a wide influence over the American political scene, capable at one point in 2003 in capturing the allegances of 60% of the American population, according to polls at that time measuring support for GW Bush's policies. As well the hegemonic influence of American Zionism encompasses virtually the entire active "mainstream" of American ruling class politics, from Cheney, GW Bush and the Congressional Far Right to McCain, Rice, Clinton, Kerry and the entire leadeship of the Democratic Party, together with leading corporate media outlets ranging from the Far Right FOX outfit to NPR. Moreover, through this hegemonic influence the "mainstream" is united with the "extreme" Right, variously in the form of a highly organized fundamentalist Christian Zionist mass movement and a diffuse, motley populist mass of Arab and Muslim hating racists. In such a broad mix the American Jewish community organizations, including the State of Israel - which after all is a self described "Jewish community organization" with guns and nukes - all play a relatively marginal role.
Far from being the result of a "foreign lobby" that somehow managed to capture the central levers of political power and thereby exercise an enormous influence over an otherwise "normal" American political scene, what we have is a phenomenon emerged straight from the heart of "America" and mistook in typically alienated American fashion for a "foreign power". But that foreign, alien power is ideological "America" itself, the unselfdiscovered America.
But why has American Zionism assumed its stark profile in our own times? For this, one has to scrape through the patina of American ideology to reveal the ongoing and deepening crisis of the USA's mode of existence in the world today, both in terms of its relations with other states as well as its mode of integration into the global economy. That vastly interesting field of analysis is beyond the scope of this commentary, but suffice to say that the result of this crisis process has been to render Israel as a very appealing model for how the USA must make its way in the future, if it wishes to preserve its increasingly threatened and isolated position in the world, and therefore the position of ruling American regime within the USA, one might add. "America" as a Global Israel, a Blight Unto The Nations.
Therein lies the secret of the power and influence of the so-called "neocons". Contrary to present appearances, it is a power and influence that have every promise of growing as the "crisis of America" - of US imperialism - deepens.
Finally, as to the recent manuvers of Rice and GW Bush in relation to Iran, the answer is more straightforward. These were caused, not by splits with American ranks, but by splits beween nations on the global scene: The failure of the USA to get a punitive sanctions resolution out of the Security Council that could be brandished in Teheran's face. It is a failure of US imperialism, a failure of hegemonic leadership and a failure of its relations with respect to Russia and China in particular.
In the face of failure there was no alternative but to beat a (temporary, they hope) retreat to buy time and regroup for another attempt at launching aggressive war. US imperialism today has no other option.
posted by keitai at 7:14 AM
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