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[Justin Raimondo is
on the road. What follows is the text of a speech he
delivered on Thursday to the Palestine Center conference,
at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C.]
How
is it that U.S. policy in the Middle East has essentially
nothing to do with vital American interests? How is
it that, in the midst of a war against Osama bin Laden
and his terrorist network, the United States is about
to launch a war on the entire Arab-Muslim world, pursuing
a policy that pleases the Evil Imam to no end? What
is behind the relentless drive to war with Iraq – a
country that has never attacked us, and represents no
military threat to U.S. territory or forces?
Foreign policy is supposed to be about
an abstract concept that goes under the rubric of "the
national interest." But since I am a libertarian
– that is, someone who believes in the primacy of the
individual – this kind of rhetoric doesn’t impress me.
Since only individuals can have interests and the means
to pursue them, such a concept as the "national
interest" is highly suspicious, to say the least.
So the question, when it comes to foreign affairs, is
really whose interests are being served by a
given policy. The idea that some noble, disinterested
goal is being achieved, like the growth of "democracy"
or the protection of the legitimate rights of our allies,
is an illusion perpetrated by the beneficiaries of those
policies.
Likewise,
the conceptual theory of foreign policy, that traces
the origin of a given government’s actions in the international
arena to abstract ideas and official ideologies, is
utter nonsense. This confuses the rationalization with
the motivation. Ideals, noble and ignoble, are the masks
behind which governments conceal their real goals, which
can be boiled down to a single purpose: the maintenance
and expansion of the ruling elite’s power on the home
front.
This dynamic is built in to the nature
of all governments everywhere, no matter what form they
take. A fascist dictator, a democratically-elected President
or Prime Minister, the hereditary tribal chief – all
must constantly reinforce their own legitimacy in the
eyes of the public, or at least some significant portion
of it, in order to retain their positions. The dictator
of a one-party state cannot base his rule solely on
keeping the population terrorized: he must devote an
awful lot of resources to propaganda directed at his
own subjects. He isn’t all-powerful, not really, and
he knows it. If, one day, the majority (or even a significant
minority) of his subjects decide to withhold their sanction
from the system, and simply cease cooperating, the dictator’s
goose is cooked. The Soviets, to their great chagrin,
learned this lesson too late.
In a democracy, the process of obtaining
popular consent for government action involves elections,
in some form, but in all other respects is essentially
similar, albeit vastly more complicated. Foreign policy
gets made like every other policy: as part of the horse-trading
and mutual back-scratching that characterizes the political
process.
Having said this, we can now at least
begin to imagine the answer to our initial question,
and yet it still seems quite mysterious that our policy
is not only morally misguided but also so directly opposed
to our own interests, objectively understood. Why are
we alienating the entire Middle East at such a crucial
conjuncture? As Professor Paul W. Schroeder of the University
of Illinois pointed out in regard to the upcoming invasion
of Iraq:
"It would represent something
to my knowledge unique in history. It is common for
great powers to try to fight wars by proxy, getting
smaller powers to fight for their interests. This would
be the first instance I know where a great power (in
fact, a superpower) would do the fighting as the proxy
of a small client state."
That "small client state"
is, of course, Israel, a nation that makes up for its
smallness in a geographic sense for the large-scale
heft and reach of its American lobby. And, in the age
of "democratic" imperialism, it helps a great
deal to have an American lobby.
The
old-line Zionist organizations in America are one component
of Israel’s amen corner in the U.S., naturally enough,
but these are probably by far the least influential
and are certainly not a decisive factor. Traditionally
liberal, Democratic, and pro-secular, these groups have
very little influence in the Republican party. However,
the two other principal tendencies that make up the
pro-Israel lobby, the neoconservatives and the Christian
conservatives, are both deeply ensconced in the GOP.
Acting in tandem, and playing complementary roles, they
have co-opted American foreign policy and made it the
instrument of Israel’s right-wing Likud party.
Of
these two groups, the neoconservatives are dominant,
not numerically – there are only a few dozen of them,
after all – but ideologically. Half of them are newspaper
columnists, and the other half are influential writers
and academics, who shuttle between jobs in government
and cushy niches at influential Washington thinktanks.
The neocons are the generals and the Christian conservatives
of Jerry Falwell’s ilk are the spear-carriers—and naturally
it is the former who are far more interesting, so we’ll
start with them.
Neoconservatism
is a political tendency that grew out of the American
left: its initial cadres came out of the Communist movement
and especially the Trotskyist tradition. These were
high-powered Marxist intellectuals who lost their faith
in socialism, hated the Kremlin, and down through the
years retained little of their original ideology except
a monomaniacal hatred of Stalin and his heirs, and an
overriding belligerence. Whatever stand they took on
domestic issues shifted with the political winds, but
the neocons were consistent about one thing: the need
for an aggressive foreign policy. Back when they were
Trotskyists, they insisted on the necessity of "permanent
revolution" and attacked the Stalinists for not
doing enough to export the Revolution abroad. Now that
they are conservatives, of a sort, they insist that
we must export "democracy" abroad, and criticize
the White House whenever it fails to display the proper
crusading spirit. The career of Christopher Hitchens
demonstrates this syndrome in its purest form.
When
the cold war ended, the great enemy the neocons had
railed against for half a century was suddenly gone
– along with the rationale for a foreign policy of global
interventionism. The energizing factor that had fueled
American interventionism since the end of World War
II, an implacable enemy, disappeared overnight – and
did not reappear until 9/11/01. From the fall of the
Berlin wall until the fall of the twin towers we had
a blessed interregnum of quasi-peace, and the possibility
that American conservatives would return to the problem
of how to shrink the size and power of Big Government
here at home.
But it was not to be.
For that whole decade, the neoconservatives
had pined away for lack of an enemy, and had fought
off the natural inclination of their fellow conservatives
to concern themselves with domestic issues. But when
the twin towers fell, the neoconservative movement was
energized as never before. With its number one platform
plank a policy of global empire-building, the movement
was in a perfect position within the Republican party
to finally implement its idea of exercising what Bill
Kristol calls "benevolent
global hegemony." We must become global hegemons
for our own protection, they aver, starting with the
Middle East.
Much has been said and written about
the neoconservative attachment to Israel, but it is
a mistake to attribute this fealty entirely or even
primarily to ethnic and religious allegiances. It is
true that many neoconservatives are of the Jewish faith,
but neoconservatism is a set of ideas, not an ethnic
but an ideological construction, which explains why
there is such a creature as a non Jewish neocon: Bill
Bennett and Michael Novak come immediately to mind.
To say nothing of Michael Barone. The idea that neocon
is a synonym for something else is a
vicious canard meant to deflect criticism.
The special place that Israel enjoys
in the heart of every neoconservative is due to its
nature as a self-created entity: that is, one that reflects
their concept of America itself as a country founded
on an abstract idea rather than an allegiance to a certain
place with a definite history. Israel, also, was America’s
staunchest ally during the cold war, and represents
all the values that stand in such stark contrast to
its neighbors: modernity, democracy, Western culture,
all the things that neocons fervently believe must be
spread over the entire earth, by force if need be.
So
how does this tie in to the "born again" Christians,
who make up such an integral part of the Republican
party machinery? The interface of these two disparate
groups, with their wildly different histories, is the
contemporary conservative movement, where support for
Israel is unconditional. The neocons insinuated themselves
into the traditional institutions of that movement over
the years – the thinktanks, the magazines, the grassroots
organizations – and slowly co-opted the leadership from
the more traditional right-wing types. The Christian
conservatives, however, came from another place altogether,
since their interest in Israel is entirely theological.
In
the first chapter of The Acts of the Apostles, the disciples
ask the ascending Jesus, "Lord, is this the time
when you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?" This
quote from the New Testament encapsulates the fascination
with Israel and its key role in the "end times"
that characterizes the Protestant tendency known as
"dispensationalism,"
which came to such prominence in the late nineteenth
century and is now enjoying a revival.
The idea that Jesus will return, one
day, and establish an eternal Kingdom on earth is a
central tenet of Christianity. The millennial spirit
is endemic to Christian doctrine. But the dispensationalists
deviate from the traditional Christian idea that the
Kingdom of God will be established after Christ’s return.
Indeed, they reverse it: according to them, the actions
of human beings, and not God, are enough to bring the
Kingdom into being, and, what’s more, can provide the
catalyst for the Second Coming.
Reading the Bible literally, and seeing
in it all sorts of predictions, the dispensationalists
see evidence that the "end times" are upon
us based on their interpretation of certain key passages
in the Bible. As the dispensationalists see it, the
future will be a time of turmoil, but true Bible-believing
Christians will be "raptured" away (literally,
carried up into heaven) before it begins. This is known
as the period of tribulation, which will culminate in
a valley northwest of Jerusalem known as Armageddon.
When the Christians are "raptured" away, then
Israel will take the place of the Church on earth, and,
according to the dispensationalists, this will mark
the beginning of another theological period or "dispensation"
supposedly foreseen in the Bible.
This variant of Protestant fundamentalist
doctrine is the root of what is known as "Christian
Zionism," a movement that preceded the formal establishment
of the Jewish variety by some years. As related by Professor
Donald Wagner in article in The Christian Century,
"Evangelicals
and Israel: Theological Roots of a Political Alliance":
"When
Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 war; dispensationalists
were certain that the end was near. L. Nelson Bell,
Billy Graham’s father-in-law and editor of Christianity
Today, wrote in July 1967: ‘That for the first time
in more than 2,000 years Jerusalem is now completely
in the hands of the Jews gives the student of the Bible
a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity
of the Bible.’"
The political alliance of Zionism and
dispensationalist Christianity set down roots early
in the century, here and in Britain, and these have
grown stronger over the years, finally culminating in
an effective, well-funded political machine that forms
the base of the present-day Republican party. With neoconservative
theoreticians at the head of the column, and a "born
again" army of spear carriers standing behind them,
the Neocon-"born again" alliance, working
in tandem with mainstream Zionist organizations, has
become a pervasive force in American politics. Having
won the White House, and established a veritable stranglehold
on Congress, Israel’s amen corner in the U.S. has infiltrated
the national security and diplomatic apparatus via the
GOP and effectively controls U.S. policy in the Middle
East.
Why
is the United States embarked on a war that cannot possibly
benefit us? Don’t let them tell you it’s all about oil.
The price of oil will go down once Saddam’s supply
is unleashed on the open market. If oil is a factor,
it is a minor one: it is Israel, not oil, that energizes
the drive to war. And we are not just talking about
war with Iraq, but a regional war, one in which Iran,
Syria, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia will all be counted
as our enemies. What the neocons – and the dispensationalists
– want (each for their own reasons) is what Norman
Podhoretz, a leading neocon, calls "World
War IV." World War III, you understand, was
the cold war. The fourth world war will be, as Poddy
puts it, George W. Bush’s "war against militant
Islam."
The
war against Iraq will be the first shot of that war.
Here,
in the scenario of World War IV and the subsequent conquest
of the Middle East by American armies, the ideas that
motivate the neocons and the dispensationalists come
together. For the neocons, this implements and validates
both their desire to protect and expand the Israeli
state and their theories of American hegemonism; for
the dispensationalists, it fulfills their prophecies
of the "end times" and gives existential reality
to the idea of Armageddon as an actual battle. These
are the two pillars that hold up our irrational and
dangerous policy in the Middle East, and we cannot even
think of changing that policy until their foundations
are weakened, and, after the exertion of Samson-like
efforts on our part, they come tumbling down.
–
Justin Raimondo
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