The Elders of Zion Strike Again?

On Sunday night I had the opportunity to attend a dinner with Stephen Zunes at which he spoke on what we can expect in terms of US-ME policy in the Age of Obama. The occasion gave me an opportunity to revisit the controversy that surrounded the John Mearsheimer and Stephan Walt argument that the pro-Israel lobby weilds a "heavy - and malign influence upon the formulation of US Middle East policy."

In terms of the Mearsheimer-Walt argument, it was of course refreshing to hear the obvious stated by the Deans of the Realist school of International Relations. But many of those who have spent decades studying the effects of US policy in the Middle East objected strongly to the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis, in that it overstated the influence of the Lobby and overlooked other factors such as American long-standing hegemonic designs in the region. What many of these critiques (from the Left) take special exception to, is the notion the US invaded Iraq because top level policymakers are beholden to the Lobby, and were therefore led to wage a war of aggression to "make Israel more secure" (in the words of Mearsheimer and Walt). For these critics, the Iraq invasion and other such policies must be explained in terms of US Grand Strategy- control of oil resources and access to military bases. In the words of Joseph Massad: "it is in fact the very centrality of Israel to US strategy in the Middle East that accounts, in part, for the strength of the pro-Israel lobby and not the other way around."

But I wonder, if the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis is overstated, then how do we explain Obama's June 4 address to AIPAC? I don't believe that that speech can be accounted for in terms of US Grand Strategy - I think there is something more insidious at work - it has to do with the position of Palestine within the dominant American political culture and the structure of the American state. I think we need to step back from the structural realism (though I am, for the most part, a structural realist...) of Hans Morgenthau, and look closely at American class structure and the nature of bureaucratic politics in the US.

I believe that there is a danger, in the analysis of Massad, Zunes, Plitnick and Toesing, et al., of overstating the rationality and coherence of the American State and its Grand Strategic Designs. There is a danger of reifying the State and its interests, and assuming that said interests (economic, security, or otherwise) are natural, self-evident, or can somehow be logically deduced from the structure of the international system, rather than seeing said interests as socially constructed in a process that is as much discursive as it is material.

To my way of thinking, it is not Israel as such (a strategic object on a Grand Chess Board), but rather "Israel" as a symbol of American nationalism -- the cultural resonance of the New Jerusalem and the City on the Hill run deep among America's dominant social groups -- Israel as a symbol of strength and continued expansion in the post-Vietnam era when apparitions of American hegemonic decline haunt all policymakers. Unconditional ("non-negotiable") support for Israeli expansion has become code for continuity with the the 500 year American tradition of frontier expansion. By supporting Israeli colonization efforts, US policymakers signal their own commitment to "strength" in the face of "barbarism." It seems to me that a radical redefinition of the terms of American nationalism is in order if we're to see a truly transformative change in American politics and society. Until we (the Left) confront the pernicious cultural hegemony of Manifest Destiny and its Evil Twin Zionism, we'll remain ineffective in the face of the organized Money Power of The Lobby- and Palestinians will continue to pay a price in blood for our cowardice.