Who will be advising the next president?

Might be the Princeton Dean whose post is right below yours.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Ah, but President Clinton II will make it all better. After all she is different, she is in line to be our savior. Guess why President Clinton II will be in that position? Because our voters will chose her, apparently believing that she deserves another chance to screw up the world.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Chalmers Johnson addresses this problem in his latest book. He concludes that the military-industrial complex is so thoroughly entrenched in both parties and the economy that the problem cannot be fixed politically without an external crises that proves to even the most thickheaded that our military is out of control.

There are two possible crisis points. Chalmers thinks that it will be financial (ie we bankrupt ourselves). Others think it could be a devastating military set back with an unacceptable loss of American lives in some stupid war that we have no business fighting.

I think we should try to make the case that Iraq already is this second possibility. Now this is why we are Democrats. Here we have a chance to change attitudes within our party. Maybe, just maybe, we can defeat the Liebermans, Hoolbrookes, Rosses etc that are the prowar center of our party. We will likely not win but it today's good fight; better to do that than wait passively for bankruptcy.

few Presidents have been adept at foreign policy. You're dealing with competing interests, ideologies, and cultures, and many governments that do not share our values at all. Europe prides themselves in the "soft power" approach, but you could argue this doesn't resolve conflicts much better than hard power, given the unrelenting violence going on in so many places in the world. Authoritarian regimes regard Europe as weak.

We would.

Sorry, but this is a complete and total mis-reading of both Yglesias and Greenwald. Neither of them are making anything like the point you're making here. I'm quite confused as to how you get from what they're talking about to "The bottom line is that Democrats are not much better than Republicans when it comes to foreign policy." Neither of them makes that point or argues such a thing, at all, in either article.

They indeed do make the point. Greenwald writes that "America is plagued by a self-anointed, highly influential, and insular so-called Foreign Policy Community which spans both political parties." Yglesias adds that not only do these guys compose a bipartisan foreign policymakers club which is noted mainly for its failures but their policy prescriptions are influenced by careerism.

Case in point: the Middle East which is why you will not hear the Democratic candidates discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict other than to mouth pieties about Israel.

It's not just the fear of offending some donors, it is also that the Dems, even more than the Republicans, are getting their advice from the crowd Greenwald and Yglesias are concerned about.

That is why the whole establishment is piling on Obama. He deviated from their script. Thank God he didn't mention the centrality of the I-P conflict or the establishment Matt and Glenn allude to would consign him to oblivion as they did Howard Dean when he used the (parental warning) dread phrase "even-handed" when discussing how he would conduct Mideast foreign policy!

J. McCutchen

Good Ole Bill - The Liberals' Hero
J Pilger

Thanks, GFW. Much obliged.

It's like never-never land here. I find it hard to believe that any rational observer, how anyone calling theirself a liberal, can equate George Bush's foreign policy with Bill Clinton's foreign policy.

First line of the equation: George Bush invaded Iraq without a clue of what to do next (except sweep up the flowers strewn). Bill Clinton invaded ... um, where was that?, oh yes he invaded Haiti in 1994.

Keep up the good work M.J. (that was ironic).

destor,

Yglesias has some great stuff going about how the careerism of elitist advisors affects their advice.
One blogger said something like: Where you stand is determined by where you sit (or want to sit, he might have added). ASM as Hillary's SecState?

It is shocking that the world pretty much stays the same

The world does NOT stay the same.  It is not 1945.  If the US doesn't start waking up to 21st century realities we're going to find we've gone the way of the British Empire but there will be no arsenal of democracy waiting in the wings to bail us out.  Neither party will admit that.  Instead they're going to rerun the 1960 election with each party competing to out tough each other and out promise grandiose military commitments and defense budgets.   It's not 1960 either, economically or militarily and oh, we collected taxes in 1960 and the baby boomers were still babies not entitled retirees.

Will do, Marcf.

PS Bill Clinton isn't running in '08. The Dems who are running all supported Bush's war with the exception of Obama and Kucinich.

FOREIGNID: 285234
FOREIGNPARENTID: 0
FOREIGNCOMMENTERID: 23799
AUTHOR: BVZ
DATE: 08/09/2007 06:28:52 PM

At this time I am not an Obama supporter, but really you do need to at least come close to what a candidate said when you attack him. Obama absolutely did not suggest we attack Pakistan, not that attacking a sovereign country, such as Afghanistan, exactly horrifies Americans. Nor did he offer that we attack shadows and smoke. My complaint with him, among others, is that he wants to increase the size of the military - that at least is an accurate statement.

Hoppy in Sacramento

It would be constructive to look at US Foreign-Policy/Imperialism after Roosevelt to see how the Democrats have been the people who really started all this, and GWBush&Co is just the "perfect storm' moment.
First the Democrats :
TRUMAN - 1) Delivered the Atom Bomb and set-off the Nuclear Bomb race.
2) Cold-War was started
3) Israel created
4) The Korean War
KENNEDY :
- The Vietnam War
Of course REAGAN was the dark-one and the scandals of the 80's and the neo-con thought started. Again note that the neo-cons actually came out of the left, disgruntled Democrats.
CLINTON:
Fundamentally did not change the course which US Foreign Policy had taken. In fact the resolution for Regime Change in Iraq was done under him with full Democratic support and precisely why the Dems in Congress could not stop this insane miltarism into Iraq.
GWB: Of course 9/11 paved the way for the situation which we are in now, the great neo-con theory of world power.
What I find funny is the position taken against Pakistan. Under Clinton it was termed a rogue state after Mush had his coup and took over as military dictator. After 9/11 he suddenly became the great friend of Bush and the US. But I cannot understand the Hillary support for the present Pak dictatorship, which had been outlawed during her husband's reign. Are we really so poor on history? Or is it better to use the terminology which is popular at the moment, even if the Repubs have created it ...

Come on M.J.! Give us a break. Not even Henry Kissinger wouldn't have gotten us into the mess we're in now.

O.K. Our team's not close to perfect, but it's a long, long way from this bunch of proactive bunglers to recent Democratic practitioners our nation's foreign policy.

Kevin Russell Cook

I agree. But Kissinger was not a neocon and, for all his barbarism (i.e. Chile, India-Pak, Vietnam) pushed for Middle East peace rather than adopt the view that the Israeli Right was always right and that "if its good for Greater Israel, its good for America."

Do Democrats care? Many of the blogger types certainly don't. The only goal is getting a Democrat in there. I even question whether they will oppose continuation of the Iraq war if a Democrat is in charge

MJ Rosenberg,
After reading your post I thought you could benefit from looking at something Matt Stoller posted over at Huff Puff. His basic take is that perhaps the republicans still have an operating majority in Congress, via the blue dogs and neocon senators. Something to think about as we try and make sense of "the Democrats" and what needs to be done.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-stoller/waking-up-to-a-working-re_b_59839.html

Thanks, NO. Good post by Stoller which I hadn't seen. So thanks.
I agree with him about conservative Dems. In fact, I was glad Harold Ford lost because I think the harm a Bible-thumping homophobic reactionary brings to the Democratic party outweighs any good his additional vote brings.
But Ford was exceptionally bad. I think a Jon Tester in Montana, although a tad conservative, is better than any Republican.
It's tricky.

What "what"?

I take issue with your assertion that Democrats and their supporters -- either in the blogosphere or among likely Democratic primary voters -- will be satisfied with a copy of the Bush policy as you describe it.  

Or are you saying that you have never heard the expression "Oslo War" used to characterize the breakdown of the 2000 Camp David negotiations and the al-Aqsa intifada?  (Check this out.)

You're welcome.

So shall we all really "expect more of the same, just less stridency," from Democrats and their supporters on matters of foreign policy in general and Israel-Palestine in particular, or am I missing your point?

Really.

Help me understand.  You assert that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich are each as likely as George W. Bush to pull something like this...?

The President has signed the recess appointment of Daniel Pipes of Pennsylvania to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace. The President nominated Mr. Pipes on April 2, 2003.

There were many people before and after the invasion that expressed reactions ranging from mild skepticism to boiling outrage.  But the evidence seems to be that they were sidelined for a variety of reasons, one of which was careerism.  Here's quote from the Washington Post:

Lots of people predicted things would turn out this way. They are military brass and lawmakers and foreign policy intellectuals, the kind of wise ones whose counsel is routinely sought and respected. In the run-up to this war, their concerns carried no weight against a swelling of patriotism, a backdrop of fear and an administration determined to oust Saddam Hussein. Their warnings that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11 were ignored. Worse, some were shunned and scolded.

As president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, raised hard prewar questions about the looming Iraq engagement. They predicted Iraq would become a long occupation and recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and would damage U.S. relations with the Muslim world. And: No weapons of mass destruction would be found.

One day back then, one of Mathews's colleagues ran into an acquaintance on the street, and that acquaintance warned: " 'What is your boss doing? Nobody at Carnegie is ever going to get through another Senate confirmation.' " And Mathews was herself admonished by a colleague at another think tank, who told her: "You're going to make Carnegie irrelevant. The war's going to happen and you ought to have Carnegie working on the after-war rather than on 'we shouldn't go to war.' "

Amid what she calls the "seemingly inexorable roll" toward war, the clear message was "you better get on the bandwagon or you'll never be taken seriously in this town again."

But it's a bit of a stretch to go from that to saying that "both parties take their advice from masters of the CW who have not had an original thought since the Potsdam conference."  As usual, MJR is filtering everything through his failed attempts to sell his radical agenda on the Israel/Palestine issue.  Here there is indeed a bipartisan consensus, with a few dissents here and there, and that consensus is largely on the mark. 

In addition, no one who was even remotely familiar with postwar foreign policy would claim that there has been nothing but groupthink.  Indeed, the very radicalism of the Bush Administration was in part a reaction of a group of foreign policy intellectuals like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and others who dissented from the prevailing consensus.  To argue that had Al Gore been president, his reaction to 9/11 would have been the same as Bush's because he would have been advised by the same foreign policy elite that advised Bush is to take the Naderite position that no significant differences between the parties.  It's beyond absurd.  It's downright unhinged.

There's a world of difference between failing to stand up and be counted as a dissenter in a policy that you view to be wrong and being the initiator of that policy.  Kudos to those who had the moral courage to buck the prevailing winds in Washington back in 2002-2003 and stand up for their beliefs.  And shame on those who didn't, myself included.  Not all of them went along because of careerism, but certainly some of them did.  But the idea that those who didn't dissent because of craven reasons would have actively initiated those same policies is just crazy.

Here's what I still don't understand.  You have issued an assertion:

The bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that Democrats are not much better than Republicans when it comes to foreign policy because both parties take their advice from masters of the CW who have not had an original thought since the Potsdam conference.

And that especially applies to the Middle East where neocon orthodoxy governs our Israel-Palestinian policy as well as our policies on Iran and Iraq.

But history and real-time evidence suggest that there is in fact a huge difference between the approach to foreign policy between the parties.  For example, President Bush appoints a demagogic promotor of the idea that the violent breakdown in the Oslo peace process be approached as a "war," and we are supposed to accept that even a close associate (at least!) of the very administration that nurtured the Oslo agreements would follow a similar if not the same approach to the dispute.

Democratic contenders for the nation's chief executive really keeping counsel with the very same foreign policy advisors as our incumbent White House?  Who are these omnipotent bi- and/or non-partisan masters of orthodox neocon common wisdom, anyway?  That is what you appear to be saying, and you really need to be specific about this.  And while I have the opportunity, I really must express some bewilderment that a pisher like me who never rose above the steering committee level in local chapters of Peace Now and the Middle East Peace Network has been compelled to deal with garbage like the "Oslo War" thrown in my face for the last seven years, while a macher from the Israel Policy Forum could remain unaware of such a popularly malignant phrase.

Well, MJ choice of his presidential candidate is determined but their view on Israel.He supports Obama only because he hopes that Obama is hidding his real view about Israel.

"where the choice is between Netanyahu and Barak"
Worse than Bush and Kerry?

Mr. Rosenberg would like all the Democratic Presidential candidates to emulate Howard Dean and proclaim their intention to be even-handed brokers between Israelis and Palestinians. I would like those of them who agree with Mr. Rosenberg to forthrightly say so. Dennis Kucinich is a jerk, but I grant him some credit for being honest. ALL OBAMA SUPPORTERS NOW HEAR THIS: If he tries to pull a Carter post-election, after professing steadfast support for Israel's security in the campaign, we will cut his fucking balls off politically just like we did to that bastard.

Emet18 was out of line. . .again. I don't understand what he or she thinks is gained by such a nasty post. To this American zionist that kind of rhetoric is embarassing and counterproductive and I reject it completely.

It saddens me just as much to read a post that takes a cue from the meanest of the right wing arsenal, by a poster who apparently thinks it's cute or funny or witty to associate a teamsters election with verbal intimidation. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters number more than 1 million proud and hard-working men and women, and those workers and their union are entitled to a bit of respect around here.

I think there are better ways to respond to Emet18.

There is much to be gained from making it clear to would-be nominees that those of us in the Democratic Party who categorically reject the notion that U.S. security is enhanced by pressuring Israel to make unwise concessions to its enemies--and who, incidentally, are a majority of Democratic voters (albeit not on this site)--will not stand for perfidy.

Careful.  You are liable to blow your image of neocon Zionist thug with comments like that.

Brad the Dad,

There's nothing wrong in theory with being even-handed.  The problem is that in this context, "even-handed" is code for "beat up on Israel to give up more because it's all their fault anyway."

There certainly is nothing wrong with an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Howard Dean's comment to that effect was surely spun toward the "code" you mention by the conservative echo chamber.  the "scream" just made it unnecessary to dwell on it at further length.  But I have never found any reason to believe that Dean ever ascribed such meaning to the term.

I stand with those in the Democratic Party that categorically reject the notion that the interests of the US is identical with those of Israel. I also believe that when our interests diverge, it is the duty of American leaders to stand up for US interests.

There are two examples from recent history that make this point. Israel attacked, bombed and mined Southern Lebanon last summer. That is Israel's business if she felt so threatened. The US should not punish her for that act of aggression. However, it was not in America's interest to be seen as supporting Israel in that action. The second example is the invasion of Iraq. Good for Israel, not so the US.

We need leaders that place US interests first.

How was invading Iraq good for Israel?

Howard Dean's comment to that effect was surely spun toward the "code" you mention by the conservative echo chamber.

You need to consider the context.  Dean was the darling of the left due to his antiwar stance and he was trying to ride that wave.  The left takes it as axiomatic that the I-P conflict is primarily Israel's fault and that American policy is biased.  So a pander to that audience on this issue can only mean one thing: "I'm going to lean on Israel."  Not "I'm going to lean on both sides" but Israel only.

Dean is no dummy.  He knew exactly what he was saying.

http://www.forward.com/articles/9839/
Publicly, Sharon played the silent ally; he neither criticized nor supported the Iraq adventure. One reason for his relative silence was Washington’s explicit request that Israel refrain from openly backing its invasion of an Arab country or in any way intervening, lest its blessing damn the United States in Arab eyes.

But sometime prior to March 2003, Sharon told Bush privately in no uncertain terms what he thought about the Iraq plan. Sharon’s words — revealed here for the first time — constituted a friendly but pointed warning to Bush. Sharon acknowledged that Saddam Hussein was an “acute threat” to the Middle East and that he believed Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Yet according to one knowledgeable source, Sharon nevertheless advised Bush not to occupy Iraq. According to another source — Danny Ayalon, who was Israel’s ambassador to the United States at the time of the Iraq invasion, and who sat in on the Bush-Sharon meetings — Sharon told Bush that Israel would not “push one way or another” regarding the Iraq scheme.

According to both sources, Sharon warned Bush that if he insisted on occupying Iraq, he should at least abandon his plan to implant democracy in this part of the world. “In terms of culture and tradition, the Arab world is not built for democratization,” Ayalon recalls Sharon advising.

Be sure, Sharon added, not to go into Iraq without a viable exit strategy. And ready a counter-insurgency strategy if you expect to rule Iraq, which will eventually have to be partitioned into its component parts. Finally, Sharon told Bush, please remember that you will conquer, occupy and leave, but we have to remain in this part of the world. Israel, he reminded the American president, does not wish to see its vital interests hurt by regional radicalization and the spillover of violence beyond Iraq’s borders.

Sharon’s advice — reflecting a wealth of experience with Middle East issues that Bush lacked — was prescient. The American occupation of Iraq has ended up strengthening Iran, Israel’s number-one enemy, and enfranchising militant Shi’ite Islamists. A large part of Iraq is slipping into the Iranian orbit. Iraq’s western Anbar Province is increasingly dominated by militant jihadi Sunnis who could eventually threaten Syria and Jordan, the latter a strategic partner and geographic buffer for Israel.

I have great respect for our intelligence community, and their ability to produce quality information. The "intelligence" used to justify the invasion of Iraq was not a product of our intelligence community, but was a product of Cheney's own little group which was seeking to justify such an invasion by any means necessary. So, if that group of professionals were to declare that there was "actionable" intelligence that bin Laden was at a meeting at a certain location at a certain time, I would trust it. It is highly unlikely that they would do that, knowing that it would result in a possibly embarrassing attack on a herd of goats, so I consider that such an attack would be extremely unlikely.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Corvid

Nice comment, syvanen. I would also point readers to two articles in Sunday's NYT--on the front page about how Dems aren't really talking about any imminent withdrawal from Iraq and a piece on page 4 of the Week in Review about how the Dems aren't really ever likely to do anything about globalization.
.
In "What's the Matter With Kansas," Thomas Frank clobbered the Republicans with the bait-and-switch club, accusing them of campaigning on one set of issues and delivering a completely different set of policies when they won office. You could pretty much say the same for Dems on the big issues that affect the great majority of Americans' lives every day--the horribly globalizing economy and war.
.
You could throw in climate change, too. Other than Al Gore, I haven't heard one Dem talk about the kind of actions that would be necessary, according to the recent UN climate conference, to avoid the imminent tipping points of carbon and methane release that will kill off most human life. Of course, this dwarfs all other issues combined, but you don't get any sense of that from the Dems, either.
.
So maybe, at long last, it's time to think seriously about dumping the mainstream candidates of both parties and considering only the fringe-dwellers. Otherwise, nothing's ever going to change.

Ignoring ideology, if for no other reason than the reality of Scud attacks on Israel in 1991, Saddam was a direct military threat to Israel. While the Scud and its derivatives, for various technical reasons, were unlikely platforms for delivering WMD, I make no argument that Saddam certainly tried to project himself, within the region, as the counterbalance to Israel, gaining regional face from it.

Saddam also demonstrably provided support for terrorist ground operations against Israel. I make no argument that Saddam did not represent some real threat against Israel.

Bush, however, gave the impression that Iraq was a clear and present WMD and terrorism threat against the United States. Saddam, however, had no direct means, other than smuggling, to reach the US with WMD payloads. From Saddam's unquestionably cunning perspective, what advantage could he gain by supporting a terrorist attack against the US, given the high probability of major retaliation, based on existing military sanctions of no-fly zones and the occasional cruise missile attack?

Please help me out from a geopolitical standpoint. Israel certainly had reason to consider Iraq a threat. There was very little reason to believe Iraq was a threat to the US. I am forced to conclude, therefore, that a major motivator for the Bush Administration priority against Iraq was Israeli, or associated domestic support, political pressure.

Having a place to put bases does fit into the PNAC agenda, but primarily landlocked Iraq is a poor place to put bases. There's always the arguments for oil industry stability, and outright contractor benefit.

Nevertheless, I am unable to find a terribly good reason for the US getting into Iraq were there no Israeli factors. Do you consider this an unreasonable analysis?
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Your analysis has reason, but I think you want to know more than whether it is unreasonable. The problem with your analysis is that you assume that Bush et al. only acted rationally and without consideration of the political advanatage they achieved by going to war against Iraq.

Howard,

excellent view.

I have never been convinced that Saddam was a threat to the United States. Saddam seems to have went from ally to enemy when George HW Bush became President and issued his "New World Order" which sounds eerily similar to "The Project for the New American Century". In my opinion, Saddam is like Hugo Chavez, neither of them dislike America or the American people, but both of them thoroughly dislike the Bush family. George Jr supported a coup against Chavez in 2002 which didn't work and Saddam's overthrow was Act ll.

Saddam + Chavez + Oil = Bush Family Evil Empire.

With that said, I think much of what we do in the middle east has a connection to our support for Israel.

I think we went to Iraq because of a convergence of interests, Oil/Israel.

Don Key,

Jews have a tragic history, as I think most peoples do, but to imply racist motives to political criticism because of that history is just a subtle way to chill that criticism.

Therefore, we must not even examine the role of antisemitism or antisemitic elements within criticism of Israel or Zionism without being accused of chilling such criticism and stifling the debate.  Heads you win, tales we lose.  That's some catch, that Catch-22.  It's the best there is....

Don:

The only thing I ask is that you read my post incredibly carefully before suggesting, as I think you are, that I would imply a racist motive to anything you have written today, or on any other day. I have not; I have generally had nothing but praise for your comments, and we rarely agree.

I respectfully reserve the right not to ignore history in explaining not only where I come from but, more importantly, from where come the multitude of Jewish Americans who spend less time than I do reading reasoned arguments on left-of-center blogs about extraordinary Jewish influence.

I also reserve the right not to automatically reject the notion that all criticism of Israel is necessarily devoid of deeply-seeded historical impressions of the Jewish People.

And, finally, I leave it to my fellow Jews to tell me, in the end, whether or not my advocacy has been a disservice to them.

Thank you.

Bruce S. Levine
New York, New York

Exactly right. 

There is no question that a desire to improve Israeli security was at least some of the motive for some of the people advising Bush.  If the people who suspect the nefarious influence of Israel left it at that, I'd say fine.  But it is telling that they are unable to leave things at that.