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This Week on the Right

Where’s the American in AIPAC?
By Michael Flynn

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from new Right Web analysis, available in full online at: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0505aipac.php)

The FBI’s decision in early May to arrest Lawrence Franklin, the Pentagon analyst accused of disclosing classified information about U.S. forces in Iraq, has put in the spotlight the work of an influential pro-Israel lobbying outfit, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as well as its many supporters in and outside government, including Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Douglas Feith.

According to an FBI affidavit, Franklin related information about possible attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq to two AIPAC employees during an FBI-monitored lunch in June 2003. Franklin was allegedly upset that his hardline stance on Iran was being overlooked and he hoped AIPAC would be able to attract attention to his views.

According to the New York Times (May 5, 2005), supporters of the ‘influential circle in the Pentagon,’ whose members were leading advocates for war in Iraq and have long-standing ties to AIPAC, blame the FBI’s investigation on ‘the continuing struggle inside the administration over intelligence,’ arguing that individuals who supported the Iraq war have been unjustly targeted.

Although the two AIPAC employees had not been charged (as of early May 2005) and the lobbying group was informed that it was not under investigation, the Franklin case has brought some unwanted attention to AIPAC, as well as to the larger issue of U.S.-Israeli relations. Many observers have long suspected that key supporters for the Iraq war inside the administration­including Wolfowitz and Feith­were at least in part motivated by their views on Israeli security. These views were also in line with the stance of AIPAC and several other pro-Israel outfits.

Of all the U.S. lobbies, few wield more influence than the pro-Israel interest groups. According to some estimates, there are about 500 national and local organizations that collectively make up the pro-Israel lobby. And of those, AIPAC arguably carries the most weight­’the most effective general interest group over the entire planet,’ Newt Gingrich once said of AIPAC. Extremely active in securing weapons deals for Israel, in lobbying for sanctions against the country’s Middle East rivals, and in promoting the political agenda of whatever government happens to be in power in Israel, AIPAC has long played a highly public role in American policymaking in the Middle East.

Not long after President Bush declared an end to the war in Iraq in May 2003, AIPAC focused its attention on a new target­Syria. AIPAC helped lobby for passage of new U.S. sanctions against Syria, long a key goal of neoconservatives and Likud supporters both in the United States and Israel. Reported the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (November 14, 2003), ‘In his speech this month about the need for the Middle Eastern countries to move toward democracy, U.S. President George W. Bush won some praise but his words were also met with apprehension among Arab countries in the region. ‘ The basis for such worries ‘ was that Bush’s speech was preceded by suggestions from the so-called neoconservatives. They were the spearhead of the drive that led to the invasion of Iraq. For example, one of them, Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, talked (while in Israel) about the Syrian government’s failure to stop infil tration of guerrillas into Iraq. He coupled that with the observation that Syria’s military strength was feeble. This occurred at the same time that the Israeli lobby in Washington, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was using its muscle on the U.S. Congress to pass the Syria Accountability Act. This would impose U.S. sanctions on Syria unless Syria ended its occupation of parts of Lebanon, cut its ties to Palestinian groups the United States regards as terrorists and stopped its alleged developments of chemical and biological weapons.’

AIPAC has also lobbied heavily for U.S. funding of various Israeli weapons programs, including its Arrow missile defense system. Its web site explains: ‘Since 1990 the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization have cooperated to develop missile defense technology to counter the threat of long-range missiles, which are being developed by countries such as North Korea and Iran. This military cooperation between the U.S. and Israel has resulted in the deployment of the Arrow missile defense system, and the continuing development of the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL).’

Several high-profile Bush administration folks have had financial interests in many of the weapons systems pushed by AIPAC, including Jay Garner, the former ‘mayor of Baghdad,’ whose SY Coleman produced parts for the Arrow missile system. Garner also has strong ties to the neoconservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Michael Flynn is a research associate with the Right Web program of the International Relations Center (IRC), online at www.irc-online.org.


Featured Profile 

Bolton’s Right Hand Man
Robert Joseph will likely replace John Bolton as Undersecretary for Arms Control. Joseph is a member of George W. Bush's National Security Council and serves as special adviser to the president on counterproliferation. A former Reagan administration official, Joseph spent part of his time outside government supporting the work of the Center for Security Policy, a rabidly hawkish advocacy outfit that pushed for war in Iraq, publishes right-wing screed about the many threats posed to Israel and the United States by terrorists and rogue states, and lambastes any and all arms control agreements. Joseph also worked with the National Institute for Public Policy to produce "Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control," a study that is widely regarded as having served as the blueprint for George W. Bush's controversial Nuclear Posture Review.

Joseph was one of several individuals allegedly responsible for allowing those famous 16 words regarding Saddam Hussein's alleged efforts to get uranium from Niger to appear in President Bush's state of the union address.

Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, quickly came to Joseph's defense, writing, "It should come as no surprise that bureaucracies that are hostile to President Bush have taken a dim view of Joseph and others who have proven so effective in helping him to articulate and advance his Reaganesque philosophy of international peace through American strength. Neither should anyone be surprised that the NSC counter-proliferation chief's foes would try to take him out, or at least diminish his authority, by making him a scapegoat for the present controversy. . . . The CIA's efforts to make Joseph the fall guy for the present imbroglio should fail [and] Joseph's name should be cleared and his considerable contribution to the national security should be able to continue undiminished for year's to come."
Right Web Profile: Robert Joseph

 
Featured Analysis
 
Reclaiming Our Good Neighbor Legacy
In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor--the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the right of others."
                -President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

Is the U.S. a good neighbor? In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt decided that U.S. foreign policy needed a dramatic overhaul­because America’s military occupations, dollar diplomacy, and disdain for other cultures were bad for business, bad for U.S. security, and bad for our own self-respect as a nation.
 
A May 2005 report by a team of foreign policy experts makes a compelling case that FDR’s Good Neighbor policy can inspire a new framework for international relations. A Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations, a 32-page report produced by the International Relations Center and Foreign Policy In Focus, concludes that good neighbor principles and practices would be a healthy departure form business as usual.
 
The report says it’s ‘time to push our way through the barricades established by outdated political labels of conservative vs. liberal, realist vs. idealist, or isolationist vs. internationalist,’ and ground a new foreign policy in the best of American values.
 
‘Like FDR’s foreign policy in the 1930s, the Global Good Neighbor ethic breaks with the language of Washington think tanks, pundits, and the current U.S. foreign policy, emulating instead the practices of towns, communities, churches, and neighborhoods across our land,’ said Laura Carlsen, director of the IRC’s Americas Program.
 
‘The contrasts between the early 1930s and today are striking,’ said Salih Booker, director of Africa Action. ‘With his Good Neighbor policy and New Deal programs, FDR ended U.S. military occupations abroad, promoted cross-cultural understanding, and instituted major social democratic reforms like Social Security. The legacy of FDR’s foreign and domestic policies gives us hope that once again we can change course.’
 
‘We should heed the warning of John Quincy Adams that we should ‘go not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy’,’ cautioned John Gershman, IRC codirector of the Foreign Policy In Focus think tank. ‘Rather than supporting crusades like an open ended ‘war on terror’ and wars founded on dubious intelligence, we suggest a more narrowly focused search for the international terrorists that attacked the United States and other countries like Spain. These threats, these monsters, must be destroyed before they do more damage.’
 
‘Adopting a Global Good Neighbor ethic doesn’t require backing a specific political party,’ said IRC policy director Tom Barry. ‘It doesn’t mean joining or leaving the conservative, liberal, progressive, left, or right political camps. All that it means is that you believe, as Roosevelt did, that everyday good neighbor practices­self respect, mutual respect, and a spirit of cooperation­-are the proper starting points for mutually beneficial international relations.
 
‘We are tired of ineffective and ill-advised U.S. foreign aid programs,’ said Barry, author of several books on foreign assistance. ‘We call for the abolishment of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy because of their meddlesome, bad neighborly practices.’
 
‘As FDR’s Good Neighbor policy and his visionary agenda for international cooperation amply demonstrated,’ noted Marie Dennis, director of Maryknoll Global Concerns Office, ‘the true power of the United States should be a product of prestige, not military might.‘
 
For all material related to this new IRC initiative, go to http://www.irc-online.org/content/ggn/index.php


Bad Neighbor of the Week
Each week Right Web News will profile an organization or individual that embodies the Bad Neighbor policy of the U.S. government in recent years. This week it’s Eric Edelman.

Hawk and "Colonial Governor" All but chased out of Turkey as a ‘persona non grata,’ Eric Edelman is being promoted to defense undersecretary for policy. Like many other top officials of the Bush administration’s foreign policy team, Edelman began his government career in the Reagan administration. Edelman served under Defense Secretary, now vice president, Cheney during the administration of the president's father. At that time he worked as part of a team headed by Paul Wolfowitz that was charged with formulating a Defense Policy Guidance that would serve as the post-Cold War framework for U.S. military strategy. Vice President Cheney brought Edelman back under his wing as Principal Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs. As an assistant to Cheney, he was part of the foreign policy network that hurriedly established the "itelligence" rationales for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Right Web Profile Eric Edelman


Letters From Our Readers
(Editor's Note: We encourage feedback and comments, which can be sent for publication through our feedback page, at: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/form_feedback.html. Thank you.)
 
Re Paul Wolfowitz
 
Mr Wolfowitz should be ashamed of himself. He is zionist patriot first, with his other colleagues he has brought shame and disrespect for America. By formulating his policies to invade a sovereign state Iraq with ostensibly reasons being for the WMD so far there have been over 1,500, and more to come, young Americans killed for the sake of Israel thanks to Mr Wolfowitz’ doing so to stop Suddam from opening a second front or threat to Israel. I believe that this is Israel's problem not America's. Unfortunately with a strong zionist lobbying group Israel is treated as the 51st State of the union. This is a prospective from an outsider looking in. One gets a clearer view of the events in the Middle East. As far as I'm concerned he is nothing more than a terrorist.
 
- Albert Anthony
 
Re Leo Strauss
 
In her book Leo Strauss and the American Right, Shadia Drury elaborates on Strauss' view that a political aristocracy must necessarily manipulate the masses for their own good. The Straussian worldview, according to Drury, contends that perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them.  
 
In terms of the American Revolution the neocons are counter-revolutionaries. The pretended Judeo-Christianity of the present admin is precisely pretense... they "preach" God but they practice Malthus.
 
- Phil
 
Re John R. Bolton
 
I would like to thank you for the wonderful, comprehensive and up-to-the-minute news coverage on John Bolton, George Bush's nomination for permanent ambassador to the United Nations. I spent hours tonight on the internet trying to obtain news information regarding the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee vote on U.S. websites, including newspapers online and the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations website and couldn't find what I was looking for until I came to the BBC news website and its links [to Right Web.]  And voila! I found what I had been wanting to find. A big thank you! As a U.S. citizen who is appalled and even outraged at John Bolton's nomination for this vital position, I have been closely watching my Senator Lincoln Chafee (Republican) who is on the Foreign Relations Committee and sadly learned he finally decided to cave in and approve Bolton. 
 
- Sandra HAMMEL
 

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