The Sky is Falling! (Again...)

The Jerusalem Post reports:

A survey by a respected journal showing that 15 of 108 foreign policy elites in the U.S. believe Israel does not serve U.S. national security interests has raised eyebrows in Jerusalem.

The journal, Foreign Policy, published its "terrorism index," co-sponsored by the Center for American Progress, asking a bipartisan group of former "secretaries of state, national security advisors, senior White House aides, top commanders in the US military, seasoned intelligence professionals, and distinguished academics" a variety of questions having to do with US national security issues.

When given a list of US allies and asked to choose the one country that least serves US national security interests, 14% of the respondents picked Israel. Russia led the list, with 34% saying it least served US interests, followed by 22% who said Pakistan, 17% who selected Saudi Arabia, and 5% each for Egypt and Mexico.

One diplomatic official in Jerusalem, while acknowledging that 14% is a considerable minority, said he was still worried by the trend.The official said that while in the past the notion that the U.S. alliance with Israel harmed U.S. interests was a belief relegated to individuals on the far right, such as Pat Buchanan, and the far left, like Noam Chomsky, this survey indicated that the idea was gaining prominence among the elites. This idea is starting to make it into the mainstream, the official said, citing as an example a paper published last year by University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer and Harvard University's Stephen Walt arguing that the U.S. was willing to "set aside its own security" to advance Israel's interests because of AIPAC and the Israel lobby.

The official expressed concern that this trend will likely pick up steam with the scheduled release early next month of a book by the two, which, according to press reports, argues that with the end of the Cold War, "Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States."

My response? Calm down. I'm surprised that only 15 of the 108 policy elites hold that opinion. Ever since the United States became engaged in the Middle East after World War II, Israel has time and again been singled out as a threat to U.S. interests.

When it comes to politics and foreign affairs, everyone tends to suffer from short-term memory. Here are just a few examples over the years of when Israel was declared to be a "strategic liability":

● In 1981, Strobe Talbott wrote a lengthy article for Time magazine declaring, "The close identification of the U.S. with Israel has impeded American attempts to coordinate diplomacy with the European Community, and it has complicated U.S. relations with most Third World countries and virtually all Islamic ones. It has also complicated American efforts to preposition military supplies and guarantee access to bases around the Gulf." (Talbott, who would later become Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State, also wrote in 1990: "So Israel's policy today does indeed have something in common with Iraq's. Saddam says that since Kuwait and Iraq were part of the same province under the control of the Ottoman Turks, they should be rejoined now. For their part, many Likud leaders believe that since the West Bank was ruled by Israelites in biblical times, not one square inch should be traded away as part of an Arab-Israeli settlement.")

● In 1989, a pro-Iranian Shiite group in Lebanon publicly executed a U.S. hostage, Lieut. Col. William R. Higgins--claiming that it was retaliation for Israel's abduction of cleric Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid. Senator Bob Dole angrily declared that Israel had "struck out alone, freelancing, apparently in the interest of gaining leverage to win the release of some of its citizens held hostage" without regard for the effect on innocent citizens of other countries. When asked about Israel's abduction of the sheik, President George H. W. Bush said, "I don't think kidnapping and violence helps the cause of peace." An ABC News-Washington Post poll indicated that 51% of Americans rejected the Obeid kidnapping.

● In 1990, Israel's exclusion from the U.S.-led campaign against Iraq prompted growing concern in Jerusalem that the country's traditional place as the premier U.S. ally in the Middle East was being undermined, together with its claim on billions of dollars in U.S. aid. Congressman Charles Schumer warned that the Iraqi conflict was laying the basis for exactly the sort of realignment in the Middle East that American friends of the Arab world had long been seeking: "It's a State Department Arabist's delight."

● In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, newspapers ran headline stories like the Christian Science Monitor: "Israel's Role As U.S. Ally Debated" The article noted: "Many analysts, including some current and former senior Defense Department officials who opposed Israel's designation as non-NATO ally, think that even in the Cold War era Israel's military value to the US was overrated. "Looked at in an overall perspective, for example, Israeli intelligence is helpful but not decisive," notes one US official, who adds that with the cold war now over Israel has become far less important to the US. "Now that there is no Soviet threat, what can Israel do?" asks the official. "Where is Israel an asset?"

● In 1997, during (yet another) standoff with Saddam Hussein, President Clinton declared: "In recent weeks, as Iraq has challenged the United Nations, we have been reminded again of how vital it is to continue forging a community of shared values throughout the region to strengthen the bonds among all people who oppose intimidation and terror, and how we will never, ever do that until there is peace between Israel and her neighbors; and that the absence of that peace makes the other difficulties, tensions and frustrations all the more troubling because it compounds them and undermines our ability to seek a unified solution."

My point to all this? Judeosphere's first rule of statecraft: Anytime the United States finds itself militarily entangled in the Middle East, a chorus of voices--in both Washington and Jerusalem--inevitably question Israel's strategic utility.

For that reason, I'm cautiously optimistic that Walt and Mearsheimer don't represent a trend. Yes, they gave voice to the frustrations of some in the foreign policy establishment. But their arguments ain't new. Their "success" is more a matter of timing because of the debacle in Iraq--people are looking for someone to blame, and Walt and Mearsheimer have found a receptive audience in an anti-war movement that includes an alliance of Israel-bashing Leftists, State Department Arabists, paleocons, and self-described "realists."