So we learned today that the language forbidding war with Iran was stripped from the appropriations bill in the House. This has been largely attributed to the lobbying efforts of AIPAC, who many accuse of actively seeking war or at least military strikes on Iran.
Up front, I am one such accuser. And I'm not going to back that accusation any further, because this incident puts the onus on anyone who wants to defend AIPAC to prove they don't want war with Iran. But I tip my hand!
Naturally, many of you are upset by this setback. Avoiding war with Iran is a good thing. The Bush Administration, particularly under Cheney's influence is deemed likely to engage in strikes on Iran, and we've all had a bellyfull of illegal, unnecessary and strategically disastrous war. Now, to that silver lining I promised.
The Upside (yes there is one)
A sample from Glenn Greenwald:
For awhile, many people were resisting the notion that right-wing Israeli-centric groups like AIPAC (as absolutely distinct from the majority of American Jews generally) (bold in original - S) were "agitating for a U.S. war with Iran," but the evidence proving that becomes clearer all the time (one commenter here, Gator90, was insistent that there was no evidence of such a connection, but to his great credit, acknowledged that there was in the wake of the CQ story (Bold added - S)). The AIPAC-type agitators combine with the Cheney-type paranoid militaristic hysterics to ensure that the U.S. continues with its warmonger posture in the world.
The upshot is simply that the progressive Democrats who put that language in the bill forced AIPAC's hand. If this were still a Republican congress, the language would never have even been considered, and AIPAC could sit quietly by, under the specious pretense of being ambivalent towards the idea of war with Iran.
Instead, AIPAC had to get up, and expend capital in a very public way to get this language stripped.
That, is the silver lining. A disingenuous lobby group was forced to reveal its true colours. Minds are being changed. Gator90 was vehement in his opposition to the notion until s/he found out what AIPAC was doing on this bill.
It's natural to be disappointed that we didn't get what we wanted out of this bill, and for some to catastrophize the result into some kind of equivalence fallacy "Oh, the Democrats are just the same as the Republicans." But this is how AIPAC will be defeated, and reduced to a disreputable shell, or at least one tied solely to the Republican party and thus largely ignored by our side, like the NRA.
I quote from two academics who had the courage to write academically and critically about AIPAC, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt:
There is a ray of hope, however. Although the Lobby remains a powerful force, the adverse effects of its influence are increasingly difficult to hide. Powerful states can maintain flawed policies for quite some time, but reality cannot be ignored for ever. What is needed is a candid discussion of the Lobby’s influence and a more open debate about US interests in this vital region. Israel’s well-being is one of those interests, but its continued occupation of the West Bank and its broader regional agenda are not. Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one-sided US support and could move the US to a position more consistent with its own national interest, with the interests of the other states in the region, and with Israel’s long-term interests as well.
(emphasis added)
Consider Fox News
Now I've been arguing politics on the internet since about 2003. I started at a blog called Newshounds which monitors and reports on the ongoing bias in Fox News. Today, this seems quaint, that anyone should spend time and effort trying to prove that Fox News is biased. That's because it's a fight that progressives won. The proof? That we united as a front to force the Nevada Democratic party to cancel the debate with Fox News. That didn't happen in 2003, and a huge reason it didn't happen was that not enough people understood what Fox News really was. There was still honest debate about Fox's bias, even from progressives. Plenty of moderates and centrists really believed that Fox wasn't biased, or more biased than CNN or whatever.
Today, the idea of hosting a Democratic debate on Fox News was immediately a stupid idea to us, and we immediately made noise to stop it. That's the real reason Fox dropped "Fair and Balanced" - almost no one believed it anymore.
That's what we have to do to AIPAC. Out them for what they are. Understand exactly what policies they advocate, and reveal it to the public at large for their inspection. If we are right, and AIPAC are violent extremists disguised as polite lobbyists, people will see it and their credibility will be shot.
Right now, there is still significant disunity on the left over AIPAC, there are still many sincere progressives, particularly among progressive Jews that do not accept that AIPAC represents dangerous ideologues and an extremist, paranoid world-view incompatible with liberalism and frankly, IMO with Judaism too (though I suppose I'm hardly qualified to comment o that front).
I don't give a shit about "divided loyalty" right now. That's secondary: These people are trying to drag the US into a stupid and self-destructive war. That's why they have to be opposed. I don't care if they are Jews or girl-scouts.
And there are hopeful signs on the horizon. Progressives are becoming less afraid to openly call out AIPAC, and thanks to this overt move by them, we have more direct evidence to link to when we claim AIPAC wants war with Iran. Progressive Jews are speaking out too:
But AIPAC does not concoct its policies by wrestling seriously with Jewish wisdom, Jewish values.Its sole criterion is "friendship" between the US government and any transient government of Israel. (Though it seems far more comfortable with right-wing Israeli governments, as Yitzhak Rabin found.) So AIPAC thinks letting the President choose to attack Iran would benefit Israel?
I close on one small final ray of sunshine about our Speaker, and the Dems in general. From TPM:
Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois predicted that the language would ultimately not be included in the supplemental on the House side, although it is favored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee; and some Jewish lawmakers.
...
Members of the main pro-Israel lobbying group offered scattered boos to a statement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that the Iraq war has been a failure on several scores.
The reports of Nancy Pelosi's wholesale sell-out to AIPAC are clearly exaggerated.
This fight is not over, and AIPAC has only so much capital to spend. Senator Webb's bill remains on the horizon, and at worst, that will force AIPAC to come even further out of their contrived indifference in order to stop it. I don't know who will win, but I know there is something gained just in the fight.