The Role of Neoconservatives — and Israel’s Right Wing — in the War in Iraq

FGF - Allan C. Brownfeld
For many Americans, the reasons for the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003 remains a mystery. The reasons the Bush administration gave for going to war — that Iraq had ties with al Qaeda, that it possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that, somehow, it was involved in the terrorist attacks of 9/ll — have all been proven false. It is, some argue, as if after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, we declared war on Mexico.

However, a group of men and women in and out of government proposed war with Iraq even before 9/ll. These were the neoconservatives — including such leading Bush administration officials as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and L. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. What motivated these advocates of war with a country that never attacked the U.S. and posed little threat is the subject of an important new book, The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel (Enigma Editions) by Stephen J. Sniegoski, Ph.D.

....The new book examines the close relationship of the American neoconservatives and the Israeli Likudnik right, and its role as a fundamental driver of the Bush administration’s militant Middle East policy. Sniegoski states, “This orientation is at the root of the explanation for why our policy does not seem to address or correspond with the genuine security needs of the U.S.... Ideology and personal ties have blinded them to what most others clearly see was the foreign policy reality.”

While U.S. policy traditionally stressed stability in the Middle East, “[T]he neocons called for destabilizing existing regimes.... Likudnik strategy saw the benefit of regional destabilization for its own sake — creating as it would an environment of weak, disunified states or statelets involved in internal and external conflicts that could easily be dominated by Israel....
During the l990s — long before the 9/ll terrorist assault — the neoconservatives were quite open about their goal of war in the Middle East to destabilize Iraq and other enemies of Israel. Sniegoski cites a l996 paper entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing The Realm,” published by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.

Included in the study group that prepared the report were figures who later loomed large in the Bush administration’s war policy — Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser.

The “realm” that the study group sought to secure was that of Israel. The purpose of the policy paper was to provide a political blueprint for the incoming Israeli Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The paper stated that Netanyahu should “make a clean break” with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel’s claim to the West Bank and Gaza. It presented a plan by which Israel would “shape its strategic environment,” beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad. The same people — Feith, Wurmser, Perle — would later advise the Bush administration “to pursue virtually the same policy regarding the Middle East.”

.....When Bush assumed the presidency in 2000, neoconservatives filled key defense and national security policy positions. Paul Wolfowitz became Deputy Defense Secretary, and Douglas Feith became Under Secretary for Policy. The principal neoconservatives on Vice President Cheney’s staff included “Scooter” Libby, Eric Edelman, and John Hannah. David Wurmser replaced Edelman in 2003. Elliott Abrams was a member of the National Security Council who in 2002 was put in charge of Near East policy.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell.... I often wondered if their primary allegiance was to their own country or to Israel.”

According to Richard Clarke, a counter-terrorism adviser early in the Bush administration, Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives in the administration were fixated on Iraq ....

The tragedy of 9/ll offered the neoconservatives a convenient pretext to implement their war agenda for the U.S. ...

...when the CIA rejected claims of Iraq’s involvement in terrorism and possession of WMDs, Feith created a separate intelligence group in the Pentagon that provided the “intelligence” needed to promote the war against Iraq.

The neocons, Sniegoski declares, had a much more ambitious agenda far beyond Iraq: “They openly advocated the forceful reconfiguration of the entire Middle East.” Neocon Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute declared, “Creative destruction is our middle name.” In 2002, Ledeen responded to the fears of former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft that an attack on Iraq would turn the whole Middle East into a “cauldron” in the following terms: “One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please.”

.......... today, the neocons are promoting a preemptive war against Iran...  Full story

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