10/09/13 – Jim Lobe – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, Al Scott Horton here to talk to you about this great new book by Michael Swanson, The War State, The Cold War Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Power Elite.
In the book, Swanson explains what the revolution was, the rise of empire, and the permanent military economy, and all from a free market, libertarian perspective.
Jacob Hornberger, founder and president of the Future Freedom Foundation, says the book is absolutely awesome, and that Swanson's perspectives on the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis are among the best I've read.
The poll numbers state that people agree on one thing, it's that America is on the wrong track.
In The War State, Swanson gets to the bottom of what's ailing our society, empire, the permanent national security bureaucracy that runs it, and the mountain of debt that has enabled our descent down this dark road.
The War State could well be the book that finally brings this reality to the level of mainstream consensus.
America can be saved from its government and its arms dealers.
First, get the facts.
Get The War State by Michael Swanson, available at your local bookseller and at Amazon.com.
Or just click on the book in the right margin at ScottHorton.org.
All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
It's a beautiful day here in Austin, Texas.
Too bad for you, you're not here.
Or maybe some of you are, in which case, congratulations.
I love October in Austin.
My very favorite.
All right.
Well, enough chit-chat about the weather.
We got to go to our first guest.
It's the great Jim Loeb from Interpress Service.
He's the Washington Bureau Chief for Interpress Service.
I'm going to go ahead and call him the world's foremost expert on the neoconservative movement.
Welcome to the show, Jim.
How are you doing?
I'm all right.
How are you, Scott?
I'm doing great.
I really appreciate you joining us on the show again.
It's been way, way, way too long since we've spoken.
Actually, I was thinking about that during the break there, waiting to bring you up.
It occurred to me that you really helped set me straight on just what a neoconservative is way back in 2003, because I was a bit confused by the fact that John Bolton and Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich were palling around at the American Enterprise Institute.
I thought maybe neocon meant a conservative that hangs around at the American Enterprise Institute.
You set me straight all about how this is really a biographical term.
It doesn't mean a conservative nowadays like Sean Hannity or something.
It means what exactly, Jim?
Could you fill us in?
Well, on what it means, well, I think it's more of a ...
It's not a kind of internally consistent ideology.
It's much more of a kind of worldview or mindset, and it comes out of the late 1960s when a not insignificant portion of the Jewish community re-evaluated its positions on foreign policy and became much more Israel-focused and much more devoted to the security, however defined, of Israel.
This, I think, was especially the result of the 1967 war.
Most of this community was pretty secular in orientation.
They weren't particularly religious, but they did identify very strongly culturally and ethnically with their heritage, and Israel became very much a focus of that.
There was basically a kind of major readjustment in which their foreign policy views became increasingly Israel-centered, and as Israel moved to the right in the 1970s, they did as well.
I would say that it's not entirely Israel-centered.
Well, it is pretty entirely Israel-centered.
I think Israel is a core interest, or the security of Israel is a core interest of neoconservatives, but they also believe very strongly that the United States has a kind of historic role of protecting Israel.
And therefore, they identified increasingly with a kind of aggressive U.S. nationalism and exceptionalism, which believe that the greater the power the United States exerts in the world, the better off everyone, and particularly Israel, would be.
Now, it's by no means limited to Jews.
There are many Christian Zionists who have pretty much accepted a neoconservative worldview, and a number of aggressive nationalists like Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, and others also have kind of cross-fertilized and pretty much adopted the neoconservative vision of what U.S. foreign policy should be, although there are obvious differences of opinion, even on specific issues.
For example, neoconservatives have themselves split over U.S. involvement in Syria, whether it should be cut off to Egypt because of the military coup there.
They have differences both among neoconservatives and with their non-neoconservative but close allies, like the aggressive nationalists, such as John Bolton, and occasionally even Christian Zionists.
Right.
But you don't call somebody like Bolton a neoconservative.
You might say he believes in neoconservatism a bit, but you also write about it as a very small movement, a very small group of people, not just the ideas, but like in your great piece All in the Neocon Family, where we're really only talking about a few dozen men and women who have this extremely inordinate amount of influence on newspaper editorial pages and in think tanks and in government positions, but that they're most all cousin in-laws or something.
Well, yeah, I suppose.
I mean, there are families that are associated very closely with neoconservatism from the beginning, such as the Crystal family or the Podhoretz-Dechter family, to some extent the Abrams, the Elliott Abrams, who overlaps with the Podhoretz family and so on.
I mean, they do have a political base, but it's a very, particularly in the Jewish community, that it's a minority of American Jews.
I think it was definitely a minority of American Jews.
But they have largely this network of probably several dozen people, thinkers in institutions like American Enterprise Institute, really have dominated the foreign policy views of the Republican Party, at least since the mid-'90s, during the post-Cold War era.
And I think their domination is increasingly contested by other parts of the party.
But their voice is very loudly heard in Washington, and they're a very effective network.
All right, now, we've been talking a lot on this show and with a lot of different experts all about the hopefulness and the possibility of some real talks with Iran about their nuclear program and what I think pretty much everybody recognizes as the basic outlines of the deal.
Stop enriching up to 20 percent and we'll lift some sanctions and these kinds of things.
And it seems like everybody is, you know, if they're not hopeful, everybody would at least like to be hopeful about this, except I think you've gone through and cataloged here and it's the neoconservative movement are probably the only people in the world that you could find who are outright lamenting the possibility of a breakthrough on an end to the Cold War between the United States and Iran.
Jim, what in the world?
Well, it's not surprising.
I mean, I would add, I would say the certainly Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, who in many respects is a kind of classic neoconservative, although he himself is Israeli, also is very, very concerned about the possibility of detente or even a rapprochement between the United States and Iran and neoconservatives very much reflect his views.
But of course, because the Israeli government is so distrustful of such a prospect, the larger Israel lobby, which is much bigger than the neoconservatives, I think is also quite concerned.
Although I think there's also dissension within the lobby itself about how to react to Rouhani and his diplomatic offensive and kind of Iran's new post-Ahmadinejad look.
So it's not just the neoconservatives.
They are particularly outspoken in their, well, what I call kind of despair at the prospect that after all this time, Iran and the United States may actually be moving to substantially ease tensions, if not achieve some kind of rapprochement.
Yeah.
You know, I've always kind of been, you know, just a tiny bit nervous about stating that from the point of view of the war party, the moderates in Iran are the enemy because they would rather have extremists to confront because, you know, really, it just seems that way to me.
I don't really know that, but no, really, here he is, Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal saying exactly that, as you quote him here, saying, Israel is now in the disastrous position of having to hope, and that means he is too, that Iranian hardliners will sabotage President Rouhani's efforts to negotiate a deal.
Well, I think hardliners in both countries have always relied on their colleagues in the other country to keep tensions high, and there definitely is a strong kind of affinity between neoconservatives in this country and what are frankly called neoconservatives in Iran also, the most hardline sectors in Iran, because they reinforce each other's position.
The more influence hardliners in the United States exercising their influence through the U.S. Congress primarily can show that the United States is not interested in detente with Iran, that the United States wants regime change in Iran, then the stronger the position of the hardliners in Iran who say you shouldn't even make an effort at negotiating an agreement with the United States, because the United States is our sworn enemy, or the great Satan, if you will.
Hardliners on both sides feed each other very strongly.
All right, so this one's a two-parter.
How serious do you think Obama is about this?
I mean, as far as how hard is he willing to push to make Congress go along and, you know, that kind of thing, do you think?
And can the neocons and their Republican allies stop him, do you think?
Well, I think it's difficult to assess.
I mean, clearly Obama, and it looks increasingly like Secretary of State John Kerry, and I think for certain Chuck Hagel, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Martin Dempsey, all would like to see this nuclear, would like to see a nuclear deal.
I think one of the questions is, one of the obvious questions is, how hard are they going to push for one?
How much political capital are they willing to spend in order to get one?
Because going against the Israel lobby, in particular, and its allies in Congress, which are many, many on both sides of the aisle, will require a high political cost.
And, you know, one thing you can criticize Obama about is that he has never fought very, very hard on a major issue.
He tends to think that once he states the case, and states it rationally, that everyone should more or less kind of understand his points and hopefully accept them.
But he's not a politician in the sense that he likes to make the same point over and over again and fight and fight and fight and fight.
Whereas the lobby, and certainly the neoconservatives, not to mention Israel itself, or the Israeli government, will fight very, very hard because they feel that any kind of rapprochement between the United States and Iran is a zero-sum game in which they're going to lose.
And in some respects, they're also backed by the Saudis and the United Arab Republics and a couple other Gulf states who also feel threatened by the possibility of a detente, although they're much less vocal and much less powerful in Washington, D.C.
They still will insist that their voice be heard, at least in the inner councils of government.
I think the other problem is that whereas Obama, Hagel, and Kerry, I think, would really like to reach a deal, very much want one, will the bureaucrats who kind of run the sanctions program and who are constantly looking for ways to make it more difficult for Iran, just as a bureaucratic proposition, they're the ones who will be charged with implementing the policy.
And how zealously and loyally they implement it is also a major question that's relevant at this point as we go into these talks.
And I think on the Iranian side, they face, Rouhani and Zarif face similar problems with various bureaucracies and entrenched interests in Tehran who do not want to see a rapprochement.
The situation is pretty symmetrical.
And the question is whether the leaders will have the power and determination to really create a new relationship, reach a deal on nukes, which could open up a lot of possibilities for regional cooperation at a level we haven't seen at least since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan back 12 years ago now.
Right.
Well, now, I wonder if, do you think it's bad politics for the Israelis in the Israel lobby to be so far out in front of the American people on all of these wars, pushing for, they were the only voice, I guess, in D.C. other than Obama's pushing for the strikes against Syria.
And now here they're blatantly calling for the sabotage of any peace talks with Iran, which 75 percent of the American people support and want a peaceful resolution to any outstanding issues there.
And I just wonder whether they're gambling, whether it's a reasonable gamble they're making or not, of costing themselves the goodwill of the American people at this point.
I mean, most Americans don't even know about the Israel lobby at all.
And they seem to be guaranteeing that as the American people become aware of it, it's only in the context of, yeah, they're always trying to push us into a war.
Well, I think that's probably the source of some internal debate within the various institutions that make up the lobby is how far out in front to be seen as perpetuating a policy of confrontation that could indeed eventually lead to war.
I'm sure there's some unease about it, especially in the wake of Syria.
On the other hand, I think they think that Iran is a different proposition from Syria in that the hostility that's been built up against Iran is of much, much greater longstanding.
Iran consistently ranks as one of the most unfriendly nations as far as the American public is concerned and has for decades.
And I think that affects.
That's true.
They're a lot bigger adversary to take on, too, though.
Anyway.
All right.
We're all out of time.
Thanks very much, Jim.
I sure appreciate your time on the show.
Good to talk to you again.
Sure.
So long, Scott.
That is Jim Loeb.
He is the Washington Bureau Chief of Interpret Service, IPSnews.net and the world's foremost expert on the neocons.
Why does the U.S. support the tortured dictatorship in Egypt?
Because that's what Israel wants.
Why can't America make peace with Iran?
Because that's not what Israel wants.
And why do we veto every attempt to shut down illegal settlements on the West Bank?
Because it's what Israel wants.
Seeing a pattern here?
Sick of it yet?
It's time to put America first.
Support the Council for the National Interest at councilforthenationalinterest.org and push back against the Israel lobby and their sock puppets in Washington, D.C.
That's councilforthenationalinterest.org.
Fact.
The new NSA data center in Utah requires 1.7 million gallons of water every single day to operate.
Billions of Fourth Amendment violations need massive computers and the water to cool them.
That water is being supplied by the state of Utah.
Fact.
There's absolutely nothing in the Constitution which says that the water is being supplied by the state of Utah.
Our message to Utah?
Turn.
It.
Off.
No water equals no NSA data center.
Visit offnow.org.
Hey y'all, Scott Horton here for The Future of Freedom, the monthly journal of the Future Freedom Foundation.
As you may already be aware, Jacob Hornberger, Sheldon Richman, and James Bovard are awesome.
They're also in every issue of The Future of Freedom, and they're joined by others of the best of the libertarian movement.
People like Anthony Gregory, Wendy McElroy, Lawrence Vance, Joe Stromberg, and many more.
Even me.
Sign up for The Future of Freedom at fff.org slash subscribe.
It's just $25 a year for the print edition, $15 to read it online.
That's The Future of Freedom, edited by Sheldon Richman at fff.org slash subscribe.
And tell him you heard it here.
Hey y'all, Scott here hawking stickers for the back of your truck.
They've got some great ones at libertystickers.com, Get Your Son Killed, Jeb Bush 2016, FDR, No Longer the Worst President in American History, the National Security Agency, blackmailing your congressman since 1952, and USA.
Sometimes we back Al Qaeda, sometimes we don't.
And there's over a thousand other great ones on the wars, police, state elections, the Federal Reserve, and more at libertystickers.com.
They'll take care of all your custom printing for your bandier business at thebumpersticker.com, libertystickers.com.
Everyone else's stickers suck.
Hey, you own a business?
Maybe we should consider advertising on the show.
See if we can make a little bit of money.
My email address is scott at scotthorton.org.