Last Word on Mearsheimer/Walt

Jacob Levy’s analysis may be quite correct in abstract, however it (at least in the quote above) obviously fails to find an alternative explanation for or justify the particular phenomenon M&W wrote about.

Any sane person call tell you that US unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest; it’s no more controversial than “earth isn’t flat”. Overanalyzing one out of context phrase doesn’t rebuff anything or prove anything, it sounds like another futile exercise in attacking the messenger without addressing the issue.

If you want to demonstrate that what they call “the Lobby” is a wrong explanation of the phenomenon, then provide an alternative explanation (as Mr. Chomsky does, for example); but implying as you do (at least in the quote above) that the current US-Israel policy is not absurd, not clearly absurd? – that’s just silly, sorry.

Any sane person call tell you that US unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest; it’s no more controversial than “earth isn’t flat”.

Actually, abb1, it’s highly controversial, unless you put so much stress on the word “unconditional” that you turn it into a tautology: to support Israel to such an extent as to harm American interests is not in America’s interest. Short of that, it is easy to make a case for supporting Israel. If America wants to have the option of fighting the entire Arab world, for example, it is surely nice to know that there is a small patch of ground which can be used as a bridgehead. Old-style realists like Bonaparte would see that in a flash.

That’s Mearsheimer’s problem, actually. He is committed to the idea that America cannot dominate distant lands because of the “stopping power of water” which plays a big part in his thinking (I don’t know about Walt’s).

Well, one of the reasons governments choose to hold on to their colonies is prestige. You don’t want to be perceived as weak, because if you are, the others will rip you into pieces (see the latest episode of The Sopranos): show weakness in N.Ireland and you’ll have problems in other places (Falklands?).

I don’t see how US-Israel fits the bill here.

Look, it’s not in the interests of the US to have majorities of every Arab country hate it. Their current hate is a result, mostly, of the current unconditional support of the US for Israel. Before that was in place, that hate didn’t exist, and indeed the US was liked in the Arab world, following the Suez crisis. Now, I don’t say that reacting more strongly than saying “tsk, tsk” when Israel uses US-supplied Apache helicopters for assasination politics, and automatic rifles against stone-throwing teenagers; when it uses US-supplied F-16s against poverty-stricken, populated areas would change that quickly, too much trust has been lost.

But with time, and done consistently–and note that Israel doesn’t need the US’s political support, and the arms and funding are guaranteed since the end of the seventies anyway, since when Egypt has got them too–the hatred for the US would abate, and with no damage to the US’ national interest.

This phrase was in fact discussed in an earlier CT thread on M/W.
1. It’s axiomatic that looking at policy production from a pluralist standpoint that the lobby interest officials in particular issue areas can be seen as determining the result regardless of the costs imposed on wider civil society. If there was a French policy decision to raise agricultural prices (as there is almost every day!), made by decision-makers personally affiliated to the French agricultural lobby, in the context of vote- and support- seeking from French farmers, you’d be laughed off the APSA/ECPR conference schedule for suggesting that the farm lobby was not driving French policy.
2. Exactly the same applies to the Israel lobby or lobbies in the United States in relation to ME decision-making, including in relation to the Iraq war, including in relation to the upcoming conflict with Iran.
3. “M&W treat their say-so about strategic and moral considerations as if it was naturally entitled to such overwhelming political deference that the fact that the polity hasn’t accepted their say-so is deeply anomalous” To the contrary , they argue (what’s this ‘say so’) that particular actions by Israel are morally unjustified (vis racist settler colonialism in and around Jerusalem) and impose negative externalities on American politics and society.
4. They suggest that the reason that “the fact that the polity hasn’t accepted their say-so” is the massive voting-, financial- and media- campaigns by a sectional group. If JL doen’t think such a thing is possible, then it’s he who needs to take his political science general examinations one more time.
5. You dont have to be a neo-realist to believe any of this. The author’s general theoretical affiliation is a red herring here. (Except in as much as this article might suggest to them that their earlier work should take more seriously the fact that policy is driven by powerful social groups and not balance of power considerations).

The authors’ general theoretical affiliation is a red herring here.

I don’t see how it can be, since it is their theory which pushes them to their conclusion. If they could accept “that policy is driven by powerful social groups and not balance of power considerations” then they wouldn’t have a puzzle to deal with. They would simply conclude that it was in the interest of a powerful group to invade Iraq, so Iraq was invaded. I suggest we just accept the fact that M & W call themselves realists (of a particular variety). So if we are to discuss their argument on their terms, we can ignore certain assumptions which normal, decent people tend to accept and which realists (of all varieties) reject.

One of these assumptions (see Aidan’s comment) is that it matters whether people love or hate America. In the world of the realists, states attack you if it is in their interest to do so. Public opinion can be manipulated if necessary. Yes, the US was liked in the Arab world, following the Suez crisis. But President Bismarck wouldn’t have set much store by that. (You can usually get a pretty good idea how a realist sees a situation by asking what President Bismarck would have said; it’s all about blood and iron.) He would have been right, since affection for America didn’t stop Egypt and Syria from trying to intimidate Israel when they thought they could get away with it in 1967. Subsequent American support for Israel didn’t unite them, as abb1 would have it; in fact it helped to divide them.

Kevin, I don’t think it’s true that American support for Israel divided Egypt and Syria.

Yes, the US maintains expensive client regime in Egypt, but it seems to me the American support for Israel is not a prerequisite for having a client regime in Egypt; the American support for Israel is the reason this client regime is so expensive.

And I suspect post-9/11 even Mr. Bismarck would be reluctant to make an outright claim that strong public resentment is irrelevant; we all noticed that now a few determined people not connected to any state can kill thousands and cause trillions dollars loss in the economy. Being a realist doesn’t necessarily means being stupid.

Otto:As indicated, it is not at all “their theory which pushes them to their conclusion”, on the contrary other IR theories would push them rather more quickly to their conclusion than realism.

That’s a fair point, I definitely shouldn’t have said that. Better to say that their theory (or at least the version Mearsheimer expounded in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics) is contradicted by the facts and that’s what they are wrestling with. Putting it another way, it is their anxiety to rescue their theory which is pushing them. Actually I think M/W are snookered: either states are not rational in pursuit of their interests, or it was in America’s interest to invade Iraq. I don’t think we can rule out the second possibility. That’s not to say that the invasion was justified, only that more bloody-minded realists than M/W could easily argue that it was. However, to make that case one would have to be prepared to argue for a prolonged military presence, irrespective of Iraqi wishes, and maybe an attack on Iran to consolidate America’s gains. To me that seems evil, but realism certainly doesn’t preclude evil behaviour.

abb1:I don’t think it’s true that American support for Israel divided Egypt and Syria.

It gave Sadat an excuse to make peace. After the 1973 war he argued that Egypt couldn’t hope to defeat Israel as long as Israel had US backing. As to the cost to America of propping up Egyptian leaders, it’s peanuts.

And I suspect post-9/11 even Mr. Bismarck would be reluctant to make an outright claim that strong public resentment is irrelevant; we all noticed that now a few determined people not connected to any state can kill thousands and cause trillions dollars loss in the economy.

After 9/11, Rumsfeld wanted to ignore Afghanistan and attack Iraq. Don’t you see a certain logic to that? Bismarck would have; OBL evidently did. Relative to America’s population and the size of the economy, 9/11 was a pinprick. If security = power, then the important thing is to control (directly or indirectly) the parts of the globe that matter.

Maybe we should have a CT seminar on M/W with M&W participating like the other CT seminars?

I agree with some of the previous commenters that M&W’s critics have seized on some of their relatively minor misstatements, or on their theoretical orientation, as red herrings to avoid the real issues that M&W raise. You don’t have to be a realist to argue that (1) the U.S. has been a strong partisan of Israel in that country’s ongoing dispute with the Palestinians (2) the U.S. pro-Israel partisanship is neither in this country’s interest nor morally justified and (3) that partisanship can in large part be explained by the remarkable amount of influence achieved in the U.S. by that constellation of forces they have labeled, as a convenient shorthand, the “Israel Lobby.” No one seems inclined seriously to challenge the first point. The second is, indeed, arguable. But I don’t see how anyone with a pretense to objectivity can deny the third. Please: can anyone who questions the influence of the Israel Lobby tell me how he explains how the U.S. Congress, with virtual unanimity (two dissenting votes in the Senate, 20-something in the House) passed a resolution, unsought by the Administration, which in essence said that Ariel Sharon could do anything he damn well pleased to crush the Intifada, and gave no recognition whatsoever to Palestinian grievances. A resolution that appalled Israeli moderates like Shimon Peres. Such a resolution could not have approached majority support—let alone near-unanimity—in any other national parliament in the world. How do you explain it?

Also, I have to comment on Henry’s completely inadequate statement “…while I don’t believe that Walt and Mearsheimer are guilty of anti-Semitism…” The imputation of anti-semitism to W&M is an odious if all too familiar attempt to stifle debate. To even suggest that anti-semitism is a respectable explanation of W&M’s views is reprehensible.

Several people on this thread (and elsewhere) have advanced the theory that American support for Israel is contrary to the national interest because it is effectively “unconditional.” This argument is hampered somewhat by the lack of clarity as to what “unconditional” means, but based on context, I’d guess that “unconditional support” means “failure to punish and/or withdraw support from Israel when it Does Bad Things.” This proposition is only partially true, and the areas in which it isn’t true suggest an alternative formulation of the United States’ interests vis-a-vis Israel.

It’s certainly true that the United States hasn’t withdrawn its support from Israel over human rights issues. This policy is morally debatable but unremarkable, given that the United States rarely concerns itself with its allies/clients’ human rights records or their participation in regional conflicts (see, e.g., Turkey vis-a-vis Cyprus, UK/Northern Ireland or Indonesia/West Papua). However, defining the proposition solely in terms of human rights isn’t the whole picture. The United States has sanctioned Israel multiple times, most recently this year, but it has done so over arms sales to undesirable end users (usually China) rather than policy toward the Palestinians.

In other words, the United States can and does punish Israel for acting against American interests, but defines these interests in terms of “controlling the flow of advanced weapons to potential enemies” rather than “advancing the cause of Palestinian statehood.” It’s possible to extrapolate this into a plausible national interest calculation: the United States has an interest in (1) having unrestricted access to the Israeli military and high-tech R & D pipeline and (2) being able to veto the use of that pipeline (and its products) by any unacceptable third party. The United States also has an interest, upon which it occasionally acts, in (3) restraining Israeli military operations enough to prevent the Palestinian conflict from spreading outside the region, but if it pushes too hard on (3), it might jeopardize (1) and (2), and American security planners could conceivably believe that (1) and (2) are more important.

I’m not saying they do think so, because I don’t have the evidence to prove it one way or another. Proving this hypothesis or ruling it out would require rigorous study. I do, however, think that Mearsheimer and Walt’s failure to discuss this possibility, and to balance the detrimental consequences of the American-Israeli alliance with the tangible benefits, points to something missing in their argument. It also suggests that they were working under at least two unexamined assumptions: that the United States realizes no tangible benefits from the alliance, and that the American national interest vis-a-vis Israel can be defined solely in terms of the global impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I don’t think either of these assumptions stands up to scrutiny, and without accounting for them, Mearsheimer and Walt haven’t proven their case.

It’s much more that Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it used to be an Israeli-Arab conflict and more recently it’s grown into full-blown Israeli-Islam conflict; not to mention a small matter of Israeli-UN/GA conflict (pretty much all states that experienced colonialism and imperialism). When the cost of your policy is the intense hatred by at least a quarter of the world’s population, then on the benefit’s end it better be some very amazing R & D pipeline.

“Their [people in the Middle East]current hate is a result, mostly, of the current unconditional support of the US for Israel.”

That isn’t obvious at all. For example, their current hate could be because we turned back Saddam on Kuwait and then kept him contained with sanctions which he used as propaganda (starving widows etc). It could be because Saudi Arabia asked us to have some troops on their soil in response to fear of Saddam. It could be because they fear the promiscuous temptation of our culture.

Hey if you think the parallel between Kuwait and Palestine is a good one, I really can’t be bothered to argue with you unless you can draw it out a lot better. That isn’t likely without drawing down the wrath of Henry so let us put it off to another day.

Suffice to say:

The US support for Israel has never been unconditional;

It is not debatable whether support for Israel is against the US interest;

The simultaneous existance of a lobby and an implemented policy which it generally agrees with does not prove (or in our current system even tend to strongly suggest) that lobby influence controls the outcome of the policy choice.

When the cost of your policy is the intense hatred by at least a quarter of the world’s population, then on the benefit’s end it better be some very amazing R & D pipeline.

A couple of people in a position to know have told me that it is pretty amazing, but I can’t identify them, so you’re free to reject their assessment. My main point, though, is that Mearsheimer and Walt don’t even discuss the R & D benefits to the extent necessary to rule them out. They don’t engage in any real cost-benefit analysis of the American-Israeli alliance, because they seem to take it on faith that there are no tangible benefits. This is demonstrably not so. There’s plenty of room to argue that the costs outweigh the benefits, but a national-interest analysis that leaves the benefits out is neither rigorous nor complete.

Speaking of costs, BTW, I’d appreciate some empirical evidence that the United States’ Israel policy has resulted in the “intense hatred [of] at least a quarter of the world’s population,” or that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has morphed into an Israel-Islam or Israel-GA conflict. As far as I’m aware, relevant surveys suggest that the I-P conflict one of several factors that influences perceptions of the United States in the Muslim world, and not necessarily the decisive one. If anything, Iraq would seem to be the largest negative, although I’m willing to be proven wrong.

I tend to think the simplest explanation is this:

1. there is enough support and sympathy for Israelis in the USA to make it impossible to ignore genocide, ethnic cleansing, or credible accusations of those, if perpetrated on Israelis.

2. in the most benevolent possible assessment of Palestinian/Arab motives and capabilities, if they took over Israel there would be plenty of scope for such accusations.

3. Fighting a war with a large proportion of the Arab world, at a time of the latter’s choosing, is not in US’s strategic interests, to put it mildly. Especially given the quantity of high-tech weaponry Saudi Arabia has been sold by the west.

4. As long as Israel is strong, such a thing won’t happen.

One question I’ve never seen answered. It seems to me Israel’s real security needs could be met by NATO membership, and that would on the face of it be an inducement big enough to get it to concede whatever settlement withdrawls etc. are felt necessary. But I’ve never seen that seriously suggested as a possible solution.

Who vetos such discussion, the Israels, the Europeans, or the Americans?

It’s certainly much easier to debate these things around ideas of “national interest” than around something so evanescent as moral principle. But then without moral principle national interest takes on the character of a buzzing insect hive more than the vivid aspirations of human beings.
Though you could, without an exhorbitant amount of work, make a case for the national interest being ultimately parallel to and contingent upon moral goals, even when those moral goals aren’t being fully articulated.
In fact, without that moral component, national interest seems to rest almost entirely on economic determinants. Or, in a pinch, the preservation of actual boundaries, I suppose.

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Strict adherence to Robert’s Rules of Order has much to recommend it for the elevation of civil discourse and consequent social progress over time, but it’s useless to paramedics.
This seems apt for some reason.

Jonathan, why not just take that whole pipe and bring it, say, to MIT by offering each one of these engineers and scientists a green card and high salary? Wouldn’t it be a much more direct and obvious way to serve American interests in this case?

Jonathan, why not just take that whole pipe and bring it, say, to MIT by offering each one of these engineers and scientists a green card and high salary? Wouldn’t it be a much more direct and obvious way to serve American interests in this case?

Maybe it would. There are also several reasons why it might not – for instance, the cost of paying all the engineers and rebuilding their facilities might be prohibitive as compared to letting Israel pay them and then skimming the results. (And yes, Israeli government investment in high-tech and military R & D is greater than aid received annually from the United States.)

I have no idea how the costs stack up against the benefits, though. Maybe Mearsheimer and Walt should do the math?

Completely agree, especially as NATO is pretty much looking for a role these days.

I do wonder why it never gets suggested.

That Nato membership subject to 1967 borders seems brilliant to me. Obviously someone must have thought of it before and for some reason it’s been rejected.

Kevin said somewhere above–
“It gave Sadat an excuse to make peace. After the 1973 war he argued that Egypt couldn’t hope to defeat Israel as long as Israel had US backing”

Sadat was making peace overtures in 1971, –Seymour Hersh talks about this in his Kissinger book. So does Avi Shlaim (The Iron Wall). Israel saw no reason to take Arab military power seriously post 67 and pre 73. Of course they won the latter war too, but the Arab armies performed much better and gave them a brief scare.

Donald, I agree with you about Sadat. My point was merely that US backing for Israel made it easier for him to leave Assad in the lurch.