Senator Fritz Hollings proves himself to be an utter fool and ignoramus. According to Hollings, the U.S. must have known that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Why? Because the Mossad, which Hollings seems to think is omniscient, had to have known. Moreover, if Iraq had such weapons, Israel would have taken them out. Instead, the reason the U.S. decided to invade Iraq was to secure Israel, appease American Jews, and take the Jewish vote from the Democrats. All the talk of spreading democracy in the Middle East is meant to secure Israel. How do we know? Because Wolfowitz, Perle, and Krauthammer were leading advocates of the idea that the Middle East needs democratization.
A few comments:
(1) If I’m not mistaken, it’s Israeli military intelligence, not the Mossad, that would be responsible for determining whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And it’s created a minor scandal in Israel that IMI, like other intelligence services around the world, was convinced that Iraq did have such weapons, for which no evidence has yet been found.
(2) Israel in general, and the Mossad in particular, does not have superpowers. Iraq is hundreds of miles from Israel. Israel’s attack on the Osirak reactor in 1981 required incredible skill and planning, and a lot of luck. Exactly how does Hollings think Israel (the Mossad) could have destroyed hidden stockpiles of WMDs? Israel hasn’t even been able to stop Iran from arming Hizbullah and Hamas, much less from building its nuclear reactor.
(3) If Bush really wanted the Jewish vote, the first thing he would do is become pro-choice. I can’t prove it, but I’m convinced that Republicans lose far more Jewish votes over abortion and other religiously-tinged issues than over Israel. And Jews are but 2% of the population. The idea that a president will go to war and put his entire presidency on the line to sway some fraction of that population (many of whom are virulently left-wing and antiwar) is ludicrous.
(4) Funny how Hollings only mentions the name of JEWISH neocons who wanted to spread democracy to the Middle East.
(5) Neocons have wanted to U.S. diplomatic military power to spread democracy all over the world, for decades. They supported the war in Vietnam, Reagan’s Cold War policies (such as the invasion of Grenada and the Contras in Nicaragua), intervention in Yugoslovia, and just about any wise or harebrained scheme of military intervention any president of either party has come up with over the last thirty years. The neoconservatism vision, like other intellectual, idealistic visions from socialism to libertarianism, has a disproportionate appeal to Jews. But the fact that these Jews apply their vision to the Middle East as much as they did to, say, Poland or Nicarague, hardly means that they are simply shilling for Israel.
(6) Indeed, and I’ve mentioned this before, Israel’s most important strategic interest in the Middle East prior to the Iraq invasion was to contain Iran. Iran was, and remains, infinitely more threatening to Israel than was Iraq. (In my view, Iran is a greater danger to the U.S., as well.) It’s not at all clear that invading Iraq has made Iran less dangerous; it’s entirely plausible that given diplomatic and military difficulties in Iraq, the U.S. will now be gunshy about intervening in Iran, if needed, for example, to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
(7) I’m glad that the Jesse Helms, Fritz Hollings, and other holdovers from the bigoted, reactionary South of yesteryear are finally leaving the Senate. They have been a stain on the institution.
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