by Eric Martin
More evidence that a McCain administration would be guided by neoconservative foreign policy principles (as discussed in a prior post):
A McCain administration would discourage Israeli-Syrian peace talks and refrain from actively engaging in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
That was the message delivered over the weekend by two McCain advisers -- Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Richard Williamson, the Bush administration's special envoy to Sudan -- during a retreat hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy at the Lansdowne Resort in rural Virginia.
One of Barack Obama's representatives -- Richard Danzig, a Clinton administration Navy secretary -- said the Democratic presidential candidate would take the opposite approach on both issues. [...]
That Williamson was endorsing such views at all signified how closely the McCain campaign has allied itself with neo-conservatives. A veteran of the Reagan and first Bush administrations, Williamson in other circumstances would be more closely identified with Republican "realists" who have vociferously eschewed the grand claims of neo-conservatives to a new American empire.
Yet here he was echoing their talking points on several fronts.
McCain until the last year or so has kept feet in both the realist and neo-conservative camps. The session at Lansdowne appeared to suggest that the Republican presidential nominee has chosen sides, opting for policies backed by the outgoing Bush administration and its neo-conservative foreign policy architects.
Some realist. I'll reiterate: If you liked the last 8 years of Bush administration foreign policy, especially the first 4 years, you'll love a McCain presidency.
McCain's position on the prospect of Syria/Israeli peace talks is particularly misguided. Not only would McCain not assist the effort to make peace, or remain neutral in the face of such ongoing negotiations, but he would actively discourage the advancement of peace between two longtime rivals. Consistent with Michael Ledeen's "Cauldronize" doctrine, McCain seems quite intent on keeping the pot simmering. As Ledeen himself put it:
[Brett Scowcroft] fears that if we attack Iraq "I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a cauldron..."
One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today.
McCain's unwillingness to tolerate the emergence of a mutually acceptable modus vivendi between Israel and Syria cuts against Israel's long-term goals of establishing some form of peace and stability between it and its neighbors (not to mention the effort to peel Syria away from Iran). But then, just as US lawmakers have to accommodate an active and assertive Israel lobby, so too do the Israelis have to deal with the "US lobby," so to speak. Those "lobbies" often substitute a hubristic solipsism for their respective constituents' best interests. As I've said in the past, when these voices dominate, we bring out the worst in each other.
This is especially so with respect to Syria policy. At least, if McCain is able to continue the Bush administration's failed approach.
(*post title via The Editors)
[UPDATE: More on the wisdom of Sun Bzoot here (including the comments)]
"Sun Bzoot" reminds me of the Team Fortress 2 "Meet the Soldier" video.
"Sun Tzu said that. And I think he knew a leetle more about fighting than youuu do, pal. ...Because he invented it!"
Posted by: Adam | September 23, 2008 at 04:52 PM
Reminder: putting one's name under the subject header is Useful.
Meanwhile, back in Israel:
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 23, 2008 at 05:06 PM
Fixed Gary. Thanks.
Posted by: Eric Martin | September 23, 2008 at 05:26 PM
"Fixed Gary."
I feel improved already.
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 23, 2008 at 05:49 PM
Fixed Gary.
Does the new and improved Farber model have a laser mounted on his head? I think that reading troll comments would be far more fun if I knew that shortly after the trolls wrote their swill, the Farbinator 2000 incinerated them with its laser vision.
Posted by: Turbulence | September 23, 2008 at 06:00 PM
Doesn't that already happen?
Posted by: KCinDC | September 23, 2008 at 06:11 PM
Concerning the Syria/Israel aspect of this. Obviously, Israel would not be involved in any talks with Syria if they didn't want to be. Does this mean that McCain is contradicting Palin who stated not once but three times to Charles Gibson that "We should never second guess Israel"?
Posted by: john miller | September 23, 2008 at 06:27 PM
I suppose I should point out that Randy Scheunemann told Reuters the opposite:
Make of it what you will.Posted by: Gary Farber | September 23, 2008 at 06:47 PM
Meanwhile, while Ahmadinejad is still denouncing Zionists, and contributing to antisemitic stereotypes, and being crude, he's also clearly not calling for genocide:
I think it's clear that "there is no Israel can" is intended to read "there is no way Israel can...."Posted by: Gary Farber | September 23, 2008 at 06:49 PM
More unpleasant language, though.
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 23, 2008 at 07:06 PM
I'm sorry, but Gary Farbers with laser beams is just too much to ask . . .
Posted by: rea | September 23, 2008 at 07:07 PM
I just like saying 'Bzoot'. It has the sort of whistling, empty sound I associate with the value of neocon thinking.
Posted by: JakeB | September 23, 2008 at 07:19 PM
Speaking of 'Bzoot,'any word yet on what Sarah Palin will be serving with the mooseburgers when she meets the global nobles?
Posted by: xanax | September 23, 2008 at 07:29 PM
I do have a laser pointer key chain, actually.
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 23, 2008 at 08:55 PM
Back in 2000, a lot of neocons (William Kristol was one, I think) supported McCain over Bush.
Evidence that McCain is influenced by neocons? This is new? What kind of moron would think that McCain is not a neocon?
McCain is worse than Bush.
Posted by: Glaivester | September 23, 2008 at 09:10 PM
Bzoot makes me think of Beck, cause "Bzooty" is one of his words.
it's in the Becktionary (subtitle: "from Bzooty to Whiskeyclone")
Posted by: cleek | September 23, 2008 at 09:11 PM
Back in 2000, a lot of neocons (William Kristol was one, I think) supported McCain over Bush.
Evidence that McCain is influenced by neocons? This is new? What kind of moron would think that McCain is not a neocon?
McCain is worse than Bush.
I don't see anything in Scheunemann that challenges Eric's fascinating point implying that in McCain's rhetoric he is positioning himself as even more hawkish on Isreal than Isreal.
as for Moronic, I guess you'll have to count me in, because I've never known John McCain to be anything but a gunboat realist.
I'll bet that behind the scenes he utters nothing but a soft-spoken contempt for the intellectuals inventing neocon arguments.
Posted by: redwood | September 23, 2008 at 10:40 PM
Meanwhile, that whole "punish Russia" thing is working out real well.
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 24, 2008 at 07:17 AM
"Isreal than Isreal."
Or even Israel.
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 24, 2008 at 07:18 AM
while Ahmadinejad is still denouncing Zionists, and contributing to antisemitic stereotypes, and being crude, he's also clearly not calling for genocide
Perpetuating antisemitic stereotypes and being crude is certainly despicable, denouncing Zionism not necessarily so, though for Ahmadinejad and others it all blurs together.
Posted by: novakant | September 24, 2008 at 08:16 AM
Evidence that McCain is influenced by neocons? This is new?
Well, I didn't say it was new now did I?
However, since McCain is attempting to be all things to all people (with one foot in the realist camp and one in the neocon camp), I thought it worthwhile to point out how his actual policies are being enunciated by some of his top advisors.
Posted by: Eric Martin | September 24, 2008 at 09:54 AM
I thought it worthwhile to point out how his actual policies are being enunciated by some of his top advisors.
yea, that's what I think is going on: McCain has abdicated the whole thinking thing over to his advisors, who are neocons.
as long as their ideology gives him permission to press the red button when he feels like it, he's happy.
Posted by: redwood | September 24, 2008 at 11:33 AM
Speaking of Iraq, Kirkuk has been kicked down the road again.
So there will -- maybe, if the Presidential triumvirate agrees -- be provincial elections, but not in Kirkuk, the most problematic area.I suppose you could call it progress of a sort. It's a new and different kind of delay a regards Kirkuk, and it doesn't involve more current killing.
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 24, 2008 at 03:44 PM