It was a radical departure from America’s postwar liberal hegemonic orientation – and the world has bitten back.

Any such claim must start with a recognition that US's postwar policy in the Middle East cannot be characterised as liberal internationalism. It has been a matter of replacing the British as the imperial power, deposing heads of government in the interests of rents from oil exploration and accommodating the demands of well-organised US groups for the Jewish colonisation of Palestine. The US has never treated the Arab countries like it treated the European/NATO members. The Bush strategy has been a variant on the US's pre-existing non-liberal hegemony in the Middle East.

Posted at December 1, 2006 12:30 PM in response to Bush Foreign Policy – How Deep is the Failure?

The match up we really want is Lieberman against McKinney ...

Posted at August 4, 2006 10:27 AM in response to McKinney

I think Krugman did an article on how Howard Dean was right on the war.

Posted at August 3, 2006 6:41 AM in response to Too Conservative?

"But if this is how she thinks Jewish people should be voting, how seriously should we take her thinking on the concordance of American and Israeli interests?"

This question could be asked much more widely, inlcuding in relation to the "Joe Lieberman weekly".

Posted at July 28, 2006 10:37 AM in response to Dual Loyalties Watch

Gonzales will be even better on the supreme court if there's another vacancy in the more than 2 years that the administration has left.

Posted at July 27, 2006 3:28 PM in response to Ashcroft Nostalgia

This is the man who was willing to stay in the Presidential primary stating he was in a three-way tie for third position in NH. He may run and lose or run and win in the general, but I dont see him dropping out.

Posted at July 26, 2006 10:52 AM in response to Question of the Day: Lieberman Edition

"I see a lot of people complaining about charges of anti-semitism, but I very rarely actually see anybody being called an anti-semite."

Go away and read 10 issues of The New Republic.

Posted at July 24, 2006 11:48 AM in response to The Silence of the Blogs

Hilarious is not the word I would use.

Posted at July 24, 2006 9:16 AM in response to The Silence of the Blogs

"Israel's hard-core supporters in the United States, by contrast, are extremely powerful and in the habit of mounting broad-brush smear campaigns against people they dislike."

Well, right. If you want a career in politics or journalism in the US, or even if you don't want to rule out a career in politics or journalism in the US, the alternatives of support-Israel-or-be-silent are career acceptable whereas being publically critical of Israel frequently is not. I can't think of anyone's career suffering for criticising the Palestinians too much.

"American Jews, by contrast, have much more lattitude to criticize Israeli policy and American Israel policy without getting labeled anti-semites."

This can be overstated. The powerful groups mentioned above have frequently been known to smear American Jews too. So it's good of you and Josh etc to risk the smears and possible retaliation.

Posted at July 24, 2006 9:14 AM in response to The Silence of the Blogs

"Similarly, it's surely occurred to most Israelis that one way they could "solve" the Palestinian problem would be to deport or kill the entire Palestinian population of the West Bank. Israel doesn't do this, however, because that would be unambiguously wrong."

Well, it could be argued that Israel doesn't do this not because it would be unambiguously wrong. On the contrary there is a lot of support in public opinion and Israeli political parties for just such an option. Israel doesn't do just fully ethnically cleanse the Palestinians on the West Bank because the EU, on whose economy Israel is entirely dependent, would cut off all trade etc in the case of open mass ethnic cleansing.

(I dont think that the US political system would prevent Israel from doing this or punish Israel afterwards, by the way).

Posted at July 23, 2006 4:44 AM in response to Cleansing