We’re quite convinced that Walt and Mearsheimer aren’t anti-Semites. How they came up with the preposterous idea that American foreign policy is oriented toward securing Israel’s interests is anyone’s guess. We’re not ready to dismiss a life-long commitment to piss-poor social science as a possible explanation, but there are also more subtle possibilities. Perhaps out of confusion and frustration at their declining influence, they reached out unconsciously for the least controversial position in the American academy: pro-Israel neocons have taken over the Bush administration. But there’s one possibility that hasn’t been given serious consideration – and it’s one that, given their deserved stature in international relations, we’re loathe to introduce. But after their stunt today with CAIR, we think that this possibility should at least be in the realm of consideration: they might just not know anything about the US’s actual Middle East policy.
Their original paper was embarrassing in its oversights and misstatements:
Mearsheimer and Walt present the situation as one where the Jewish tail wags the American dog… If the Jewish stranglehold on policy has been so absolute since the days of Harry Truman, then what was Gen. Eisenhower thinking when, on the eve of an election 50 years ago, he peremptorily ordered Ben Gurion out of Sinai and Gaza on pain of canceling the sale of Israeli bonds… If it is Israel that decides on the deployment of American force, it seems odd that the first President Bush had to order them to stay out of the coalition to free Kuwait, and it is even more odd that the first order of neocon business has not been an attack on Iran, as Israeli hawks have been urging. Mearsheimer and Walt are especially weak on this point: They speak darkly about neocon and Israeli maneuvers in respect to Tehran today, but they entirely fail to explain why the main initiative against the mullahs has come from the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Authority, two organizations where the voice of the Jewish lobby is, to say the least, distinctly muted.
He might also have mentioned their intellectual dishonesty in complaining about US aid to Israel (aid that Israel was promised so that Jimmy Carter could get a Noble Prize by getting Israel to give up critical land – and security – to Egypt, which the realists supported because it moved Egypt out of the Soviet orbit) and in leaving out the part where Bush Sr. almost cut off aid to Shamir because of Israeli settlements.
All of these oversights might be understood – if not excused – as attempts to put together a coherent and consistent hit-piece. And we’re far more willing to entertain the possibility that two professors are being dishonest before we consider the possibility that these two IR giants are just flat ignorant. And yet, Rick Richman’s very concise decimation of their CAIR conference makes this twice that they’ve been egregiously mistaken about the history of Middle East policy:
Their analysis was exemplified by Walt’s assertion that the United States ended up with Hamas because — beholden to Israel — the U.S. gave Mahmoud Abbas “nothing.” That’s what the man said, “nothing.” Neither of them mentioned the fact that George W. Bush formally endorsed a Palestinian state (assuming the Palestinians built a “practicing democracy” with leaders “not compromised by terror”), nor the fact that the U.S. — while waiting in vain for Abbas to meet his initial Road Map obligation of “sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure” — nevertheless (a) pressured Israel into releasing 900 prisoners to help Abbas (a step not required in the Road Map); (b) supported Sharon’s plan to simply give Abbas all of Gaza (under the mistaken assumption it would generate popular support for Abbas); (c) supported Abbas financially with tens of millions of dollars in handouts, and with pledges of billions more; (d) watched without protest as Abbas took the money and padded the public payroll with “security forces,” instead of building schools or hospitals or houses for refugees; and nevertheless (e) continually supported Abbas as a “man of peace.”
More dramatically, Bush basically treated Sharon like the leader of a client state when he turned to him during the meeting the two had with Abbas and said “you’re going to help this man”. We don’t know what Walt and Mearsheimer are up to, and we’re increasingly of the opinion that they don’t know either.
UPDATE: They don’t know anything about domestic politics either:
University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer was in town yesterday to elaborate on his view that American Jewish groups are responsible for the war in Iraq, the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure and many other bad things. As evidence, he cited the influence pro-Israel groups have on “John Boner, the House majority leader.” Actually, Professor, it’s “BAY-ner.” But Mearsheimer quickly dispensed with Boehner (R-Ohio) and moved on to Jewish groups’ nefarious sway over Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who Mearsheimer called “Von Hollen.”
This actually makes things much easier. The reason that Walt and Mearsheimer are wrong about the way Washington works is because they don’t know anything about Washington. Done and done.
UPDATE 2: Don’t miss this part from the Milbank article:
Mearsheimer made no such distinctions as he used “Jewish activists,” “major Jewish organizations” and the “Israel lobby” interchangeably. Clenching the lectern so tightly his knuckles whitened, Mearsheimer accused Israel of using the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hezbollah as a convenient excuse to attack Lebanon… As evidence that the American public does not agree with the Israel lobby, the political scientist cited a USA Today-Gallup poll showing that 38 percent of Americans disapproved of Israel’s military campaign. He neglected to mention that 50 percent approved, and that Americans blamed Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Lebanon far more than Israel for the conflict.
This is an oversight no social scientist of Mearsheimer’s stature could possibly make unintentionally. Seriously, we’re not being sarcastic here. Mearsheimer will embarrass each and every reader of this blog with his ability to manipulate data on an Excel sheet – this omission crosses into just sheer dishonesty on his part. Deliberate dishonesty, in turn, is not done without a purpose.
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