# Re the lead up to the Iraq War do we need to re-assess our relationship with Israel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926 "2009-01-19T02:24:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/1 "2009-01-19T02:24:37Z")
Having watched the real politick interplay of the interests and policies of Israel and the US as allies over the past 30 years I have to admit I’m not really convinced at this juncture that what is best for Israel is necessarily best for the US in all circumstances. I really dislike most conspiracy theories as I firmly believe there is enough natural random stupidity to go around to account for almost any boneheaded decision or catastrophic result, but having read arms length journalistic accounts [(the book Fiasco](http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-American-Military-Adventure-Iraq/dp/159420103X)) of the influence and actions of US neocons who were hard core Israel hawks, on US intelligence decisions I’m kind of starting to re-assess that view. The core notion in this is that Israel benefits significantly from a political landscape where regional threats to it either become democracies or are in disarray, and that this is what was really behind the neocons push to go into Iraq, which (in that scenario) was primarily motivated more by concerns about the long term strategic interests of Israel, not the strategic interests of the US. I’m not proposing that there some specific Mossad operation trying to direct the Iraq invasion as an end result, but it’s not like they put themselves out to make sure we got the right intelligence. It’s long been held as a commonsense understanding in intelligence circles that no one on this planet knew more about the real world WMD capabilities of Iraq than the Israelis, and there was (so far I can see) not one peep from them that the US was chasing a number of false premises re the need to invade, and quite honestly I have to believe that they knew this was going to be a wild goose chase, but let it happen anyway. That’s not something an ally does. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/2 "2009-01-19T02:26:41Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Having watched the real politick interplay of the interests and policies of Israel and the US as allies over the past 30 years I have to admit I’m not really convinced at this juncture that what is best for Israel is necessarily best for the US in all circumstances. Always good to start an new thread with a strawman in the first sentence… ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/3 "2009-01-19T02:31:00Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I’m not proposing that there some specific Mossad operation trying to direct the Iraq invasion as an end result, but it’s not like they put themselves out to make sure we got the right intelligence. It’s long been held as a commonsense understanding in intelligence circles that no one on this planet knew more about the real world WMD capabilities of Iraq than the Israelis, and there was (so far I can see) not one peep from them that the US was chasing a number of false premises re the need to invade, and quite honestly I have to believe that they knew this was going to be a wild goose chase, but let it happen anyway. There were, as I recall, any number of intelligence agencies that did not provide a peep that we were invading under false premises. One of them, as I recall, is based in Virginia. ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/4 "2009-01-19T02:32:32Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I’m not proposing that there some specific Mossad operation trying to direct the Iraq invasion as an end result, but it’s not like they put themselves out to make sure we got the right intelligence. It’s long been held as a commonsense understanding in intelligence circles that no one on this planet knew more about the real world WMD capabilities of Iraq than the Israelis, and there was (so far I can see) not one peep from them that the US was chasing a number of false premises re the need to invade, and quite honestly I have to believe that they knew this was going to be a wild goose chase, but let it happen anyway. > > That’s not something an ally does. So what you propose is that Israel should have come out and said “Hey, everybody, just so you know, George W. Bush is a bullshitter and is lying to you. Just FYI!” Perhaps they did give the US their best intelligence, as far as they knew Iraq didn’t have WMD’s. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/5 "2009-01-19T02:56:09Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I’m not proposing that there some specific Mossad operation trying to direct the Iraq invasion as an end result, but it’s not like they put themselves out to make sure we got the right intelligence. It’s long been held as a commonsense understanding in intelligence circles that no one on this planet knew more about the real world WMD capabilities of Iraq than the Israelis, and there was (so far I can see) not one peep from them that the US was chasing a number of false premises re the need to invade, [ > [@](#): > > Sharon never revealed publicly what he said to Bush in the Feb. 7 meeting. But Yossi Alpher, a former adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, wrote in an article in the Forward last January that Sharon advised Bush not to occupy Iraq, according to a knowledgeable source. Alpher wrote that Sharon also assured Bush that Israel would not “push one way or another” regarding his plan to take down Saddam Hussein. > > Alpher noted that Washington did not want public support by Israel and in fact requested that Israel refrain from openly supporting the invasion in order to avoid an automatic negative reaction from Iraq’s Arab neighbours. > […] > > As late as October 2002, however, there were still signs of continuing Israeli grumbling about the Bush administration’s obsession with taking over Iraq. Both the Israeli Defence Forces’ chief of staff and its chief of military intelligence made public statements that month implicitly dismissing the Bush administration’s position that Saddam Hussein’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons made him the main threat. Both officials suggested that Israel’s military advantage over Iraq had continued to increase over the decade since the Gulf War as Iraq had grown weaker. > > The Israeli chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Farkash, said Iraq had not deployed any missiles that could strike Israel directly and challenged the Bush administration’s argument that Iraq could obtain nuclear weapons within a relatively short time. He gave an interview to Israeli television in which he said army intelligence had concluded that Iraq could not have nuclear weapons in less than four years. He insisted that Iran was as much of a nuclear threat as Iraq. ]([http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/29/3488](http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/29/3488)) From [commondreams.org](http://commondreams.org), not exactly a Likudnik site. Of course, Wilkerson et al may be misrepresenting things, but some of the facts in the article are objective. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/6 "2009-01-19T03:00:39Z")
If Israel were pulling the strings we would have invaded Iran. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/7 "2009-01-19T03:01:28Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > If Israel were pulling the strings we would have invaded Iran. Good point. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/8 "2009-01-19T03:30:01Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Good point. Well, that was certainly on the neocon agenda. And AIPAC wasn’t spying on Doug Feith’s staff to find out U.S. plans toward Iran for nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Ocean\_Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8797f3/32.png) [@Ocean\_Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ocean_Annie)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/9 "2009-01-19T04:10:40Z")
I am not making the connection between Thomas Rick’s book and Israel. The Iraq war was driven by American profligacy. It is consumption and the unwillingness to alter mass consumption or the American life style that determines American foreign policy in the Middle East and around the globe, not Israel. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/10 "2009-01-19T04:16:03Z")
It’s always easier to blame the Jews than ourselves when we make a gigantic mistake, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/11 "2009-01-19T10:19:46Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > It’s always easier to blame the Jews than ourselves when we make a gigantic mistake, isn’t it? Israel does not = Jews and I’d thank you not to start with the usual round of well-poisoning. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/12 "2009-01-19T10:24:21Z")
It is not controversial that the central and unyielding tenet of the Neo-Conservatives is to deploy the US military for the benefit of Israel. Plainly that was key to the invasion of Iraq. With that noted, the Neo-cons are partisans of a particular right wing Israeli party, the Likud. They are not representative of that country as a whole. In short, the OP is correct in considering the strategic interests as Israel as the Neo-cons primary motivation, although their ideology did not have the open backing of the official Israeli government. The nature and depth of that connection is murky. (For an in depth and scholarly analysis of the US - Israeli relationship look up the work of professors Mearscheimer & Walt.) In that light, it did not take a dark psy-ops from Mossad to suppress the intelligence. Rather there were numerous motivations, not all sinister: - The US mood was plainly that a large-scale slaughter of Arabs in the M-E was needed to assert American prestige, - The US staked a lot of credibility of the WMD claims and was plainly not receptive to contrary intelligence. Or indeed evidence, as it turns out. - Israelis were supportive of the imminent invasion of Iraq. Given all that, the Israelis omission to hammer on the Whitehouse door at an early hour is a little understandable. To do so would humiliate and frustrate the hand that feeds them. Not that the status of ‘ally’ implies they would anyway. Allies first and foremost look to their own. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/13 "2009-01-19T10:28:55Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > If Israel were pulling the strings we would have invaded Iran. > > -XT True. Although it was a close run thing I understand. The big factors were the change in status of the senior personnel as Wolfowitz and Cheney declined in influence; and the 2008 NIE stating that Iran was no nuclear threat (paraphrased - for the keen-eyed out there). That NIE was seen as an open message that the intelligence agencies weren’t going to take the fall a second time. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/14 "2009-01-19T10:42:56Z")
> [@Ocean\_Annie](#): > > I am not making the connection between Thomas Rick’s book and Israel. The Iraq war was driven by American profligacy. It is consumption and the unwillingness to alter mass consumption or the American life style that determines American foreign policy in the Middle East and around the globe, not Israel. Oil: The _Other_ big factor. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/15 "2009-01-19T16:50:41Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Israel does not = Jews and I’d thank you not to start with the usual round of well-poisoning. Even better way of putting it: Neocons/aggressive Zionist /= Jews and equally important: Jewish people /= neocons/aggressive Zionists. Noam Chomsky (he’s Jewish, right – not rhetorical, I did not check) would find a warmer welcome among the critics of U.S. AIPAC driven policy than would any number of dumbass white Protestants who have been gulled into believing that Israeli victory (and subsequent anihillation of the Jews, but that’s a minor detail) are a precursor to the Rapture, and that this sequence of events should drive U.S. foreign policy. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/16 "2009-01-19T16:53:26Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > - Israelis were supportive of the imminent invasion of Iraq. You know that Israel advised against the invasion of Iraq, right, and that public opinion in Israel was generally against the invasion of Iraq? ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/17 "2009-01-19T16:59:42Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > Oil: The _Other_ big factor. Ah yes. The “blood for oil” misperception. I am not sure what “U.S. profligacy” was intended to mean. The years after the Iraq invasion, though, saw dramatic increases in oil prices (to be fair, in part corellated with a global boom in minerals prices, but the invasion certainly was no help). Only in the past five months have prices come down to anywhere near where they were in 2003, and that was due not to occupying Iraq, but to oh hey a global recession (which some would argue was contributed to by the massive debt the U.S. incurred by the Iraq adventure). Oil is oil. It is referred to as a “commodity” for a reason. Those who control it enjoy power to a very, very, limited extent: they can sell it, for money, at a prevailing market price. If they don’t sell it, they have no power. What, are they going to drink it? Age it, like fine wine? If they attempt to sell it at anything other than a market price – they won’t find a buyer. Even the biggest owner/producer, Saudi Arabia, has a very, very mixed record in its attempts to manipulate price. The (relatively few) periods of super-high oil prices in the past thirty years have been the result of either almost impossible-to-duplicate collusion, for a brief period (one of the most notorious aspects of OPEC is the conviction that everyone lies about their reserves and cheats in selling over the cartel-imposed quotas), or of speculative market panics, which, like all panics, deflate themselves (cf. right now). The bottom line: the West, if it wanted Iraq’s oil, was going to get it, invasion or no. Indeed, was not one of the big complaints about Saddam that he was “cheating” on the U.N. imposed oil export limitations by rampantly funneling out excess oil (to be sold at oh hey commodity market prices) through the food-for-oil program? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/18 "2009-01-19T17:00:13Z")
Based on the, um, conclusions of some in this thread I think we should take a fresh look at our relations to the UK. It’s a better fit to the op…well except the fact that there are no Israeli’s (who of course don’t equal Jews). -XT ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/19 "2009-01-19T17:07:09Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > You know that Israel advised against the invasion of Iraq, right, and that public opinion in Israel was generally against the invasion of Iraq? It’s also worth pointing out that even US neocon think tanks like the PNAC actually [described using the Middle East to the benefit of the US](http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf), and not the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926/20 "2009-01-19T17:09:56Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Based on the, um, conclusions of some in this thread I think we should take a fresh look at our relations to the UK. It’s a better fit to the op…well except the fact that there are no Israeli’s (who of course don’t equal Jews). > > -XT You thought that was a clever joke and a snarky little sneak Godwinism. You were of course wrong. Of course the U.S. should take a “fresh look” at its relations with **everyone** every day. That most assuredly includes the U.K. I am no believer in “special relationships.” As I’ve pointed out in other threads, to do otherwise is suicide for a sovereign nation. What, I’m going to write a blank check to an “ally” just because it’s been an “ally” for X years? I’m going to tell them “no matter what, I got your back?” You have not played much cut-throat pool, it’s clear. The U.S. has been allies with the U.K. for far longer than it’s been “allies” with Israel, and the natural strategic parallels are more numerous. Nonetheless, why in God’s name would you not continually re-evaluate whether that’s doing more harm than good? Today, probably more good. Tomorrow, likely same answer. Ten years from now? Who the f knows? Alliances are not marriages (and as we know, even the closest marriages fall apart 50% of the time, when we learn something unsavory about our partner, or we change, or our partner’s interests change). George Washington warned against “entangling alliances.” Not “entangling alliances with those of different ethnic background.” All alliances are potentially entangling, and the degree of entanglement that is acceptable of course is a variable quantity. How could it be otherwise in a dynamic world order? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-the-lead-up-to-the-iraq-war-do-we-need-to-re-assess-our-relationship-with-israel/481926.md?page=2)