John McCain said this yesterday:
We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies.
Yep, we all know which "democratic allies" he's talking about. In the middle east, that's Israel. And what John is saying here is that he wants to follow in the Bush footsteps of conducting middle eastern policy per the wishes of the hard right Israel lobby. The same lobby which pushed us to hit Iraq (a country primarily of concern to Israel) after 9/11 instead of countries who actually had something to do with Al Qaeda.
Let's review.
In 1996, Messrs. Perle, Feith, and Wurmser, among others, produced this piece, in which they advocated as Likud policy:
Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.
Then in 1998, the PNAC (including Perle), sent this missive to Bill Clinton.
Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
Yep, let's take Likud policy and copy-and-paste it into the State Department. Awesome.
All 3 entered the Bush administration and take senior positions in the Pentagon. Perle was chair of the defense policy advisory board. Feith was in charge of manipulating WMD intelligence. Wurmser worked for Feith. Feith was later accused of passing classified intelligence to Israel, a charge which was also leveled at him in the Reagan administration. This is a man who Condi Rice once famously admonished:
Thanks Doug, but when we want the Israeli position we'll invite the ambassador.
There is absolutely no question that we pursued and prosecuted the Iraq war on behalf of Israel. Yes, Saddam supported terrorism. He paid off Palestinian suicide bombers. Similiarly, Iran supports Hezbollah, and Israel would like to curb their power as well. Neither effort has anything to do with the actual threat of Al Qaeda against the United States, which is based in Pakistan with financial support from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, countries the Republican party refers to as our "allies in the war on terror" despite both being consistently described as intransigent by those attempting to implement and enforce curbs on terrorist financing.
Remember, there were 3 countries that formally recognized the Taliban on 9/11/01. Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Pakistan. This relationship dated from the 1980's when the CIA was pouring over $6 billion into financing Islamic radicals in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets. The Saudis provided additional financing. The UAE laundered the money in state-owned banks, the same banks which continue at the core of the international drug and terror money laundering business. And Pakistani intelligence provided the on-the-ground liaison with the rebels - given that folks like Bin Laden didn't like the U.S. any more than they liked the Soviets.
The relationships and the roles continued similarly after the Soviets were booted out. The Saudis became antsy as Bin Laden cited his own desire to attack within the kingdom. Hence the royal family paid him off in 1998, protection money which financed, among other things, 9/11. The UAE royal family's with Bin Laden was cozier - maintaining a hunting camp near Bin Laden's. And of course we know how guarded Pakistani "cooperation" has been with U.S. terror indiction efforts in Northwest Pakistan, and how Musharraf has deliberately maintained relationships with Islamic terrorists to continue his proxy war over Kashmir.
Now, there are other factors which have led the Bush administration - and McCain - to subordinate U.S. military interests to those of Israel. Foremost among these is the religious right, whose interpretation of Revelations includes the "restoration of Israel" in its end-times chronology. They read this as Israel unconditionally annexing Gaza and the West Bank, hence Pat Robertson suggesting that God smote Ariel Sharon for "dividing Israel" and the interest in keeping Syria and Iraq at bay - two countries who through their support of the Palestinian authority and Hamas in particular make it more difficult for Israel to simply assert its authority. So we have this rather interesting alliance of Israel-firsters and religious fundamentalists who are hell-bent on making the world ready for nuclear obliteration.
There is no way that a person can be patriotic and vote for a man like John McCain, who advocates policies central to other countries at the core of our foreign policy. Who advocates that we commit the U.S. military to fight wars on behalf of other countries while deliberately rewarding countries who continue to advocate killing Americans. And who joyfully now works alongside the religious right, if that's what it takes to build support for these non-American objectives.