Religious Fanaticism and Middle Eastern Wars

I was checking for new stories about Paul Wolfowitz as he prepares to walk the plank from his presidency of the World Bank, and I came across this article by Christopher Vasillopulos, a professor of international relations at Eastern Connecticut State University. I especially admire the article because it says so many things I’ve written here on VIEW FROM THE MOON.

I quote parts of the article. My comments are in [brackets].


‘WOLFOWITZ AND PODHORETZ: JEWISH NEOCONS AND THE IDEA OF ENTITLEMENT

‘Two Jewish neocons have been in the news . . . Paul Wolfowitz, soon to be the ex-president of the World Bank, and Norman Podhoretz, the long-time editor of “Commentary”.

‘Wolfowitz has been forced to resign due to corruption and Podhoretz has made headlines by saying that he is praying that the US bombs Iran. I see these stories as pieces of a larger whole, united by the Jewish idea of entitlement, which in its neocon version has a violent expression.

[So, Podhoretz asks Jehovah to make US bombs rain on Iran while Senator Joe Lieberman takes the low road and calls on television for the US to bomb Iran (see my “a Joe Lieberman note”, June 10) -- a religious and a political double whammy designed to get Americans to kill and die once more for Israel.]

‘A series of recent books which describe the inner workings of the Bush administration agree that Paul Wolfowitz was one of the most important, if not the most important advocate of the Iraq war. As undersecretary for defense, he was the highest ranking of the Jewish neocons, who were unrelenting in their efforts to reshape the Middle East.

‘Long before 9/11, Wolfowitz and other neocons [including I. Lewis Libby and Richard Perle] authored the doctrine of pre-emptive war. As is well known, the fundamental purpose of the doctrine was to create regimes friendly to Israel. Failing that, regimes hostile to Israel would be weakened. What is not so well-known is how Jewish neocons convinced non-Jewish neocons that eliminating Saddam Hussein was essential. Their assertion was simply that Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi Hitler and that failure to remove him would lead to another Holocaust.

[I started to say, “Who would be stupid enough to believe that?”. Then I remembered G.W. Bush.]

‘One would expect the neoconservatives, who almost always default to military rather than diplomatic activity, to use the word, “appeasement” regularly. Instead, they use the word “Holocaust.” This equivalency is based on the implicit allegation that appeasement implies Holocaust. When the Holocaust model is invoked to justify war against the Middle Eastern enemies of Israel, it amounts to a Jewish jihad. An analysis of Wolfowitz’s zeal to invade Iraq, no less than Podhoretz’s obsession with Iran, however, will demonstrate [this claim’s] truth.

‘One need not be Jewish to employ the Old Testament’s perspective that the world is divided between good and evil, an idea that is, in fact, the premise of Christian fundamentalism. Jewish jihadism is a state of mind, one which takes its cue from the Old Testament’s penchant for Armageddon. . . . Paul Wolfowitz and other Jews in the Bush administration, including among others, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, have most often played the Holocaust card to shame those who were reluctant to confront Saddam.

[I am soon going to post on FLIGHTS OF PEGASUS more of my own thoughts on the Old Testament and its pernicious influence, “The Impeachment of Jehovah: Introduction” and “The Impeachment of Jehovah.”]

‘To place morality or idealism or any other absolute value in the forefront of foreign policy is to make policy formation an offshoot of a religious commitment. . . All absolutes are religious, for they make a direct appeal to authority that is not tested by reason or evidence. There are countless references by associates of Wolfowitz and other Jewish jihadists that they were dedicated zealots impervious to reason and evidence which tended to erode their absolute conviction that they and only they were right. Realists, like Halper and Clarke and I, believe that international politics are largely determined by national self-interest and that its chief instrument is military power. Realists also believe that this state of affairs, as awful as its can sometimes be, is preferable to international politics driven by any absolute, moral or religious value. Such values are the breeding grounds of fanatics, of those who believe that their actions, regardless how horrific, are ordained by God or some other form of the Absolute. Jewish jihadists, like other jihadists, are ready to destroy the world rather than let it persist in sin.

‘This is how the Iraq war was summed up by Gen. Zinni: “I don’t think the neocons really give a shit what happened in Iraq and the aftermath. … They said: Look if it works out, let’s say we get Chalabi in, he’s our boy, great. We don’t and maybe there is some half-ass government out there, maybe a strong man emerges, it fractures, and there’s basically a loose federation and there’s really a Kurdish state. Who cares? There’s some bloodshed and it’s messy. Who cares? I mean, we’ve taken out Saddam. We’ve asserted our strength in the Middle East. We’re changing the dynamic. We’re off the peace process as the centerpiece and we’re not putting pressure on Israel.”’

[I have previously written that the Israel-first Jews who are responsible for the Iraq war did not and do not care what happens to Iraq now that it is reduced to bloody chaos and rendered incapable of challenging Israel. While American politicians pretend that their war aim was and is “democracy and freedom” for a stable and peaceful Iraq, the neocons will rejoice all the more if Iraq remains in anarchy and American soldiers fight there forever.]