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Professor Kaplan uses an article published in the London Review of Books to launch a complaint against simplistic and conspiratorial views of American policy in Iraq and elsewhere. Such views are not only misleading and unhelpful, but often lead to unintended results that bring war rather than peace.
The history of the Middle East since the creation of Israel after World War II is complex and does not neatly fit theories that some single group is manipulating events. After discussing problems with such theories, Kaplan describes his own experiences with more than 50 years of attempted solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He gives numerous examples of the failures of individual statesmen as well as political groups when self-aggrandizement, scapegoating, and narrow perspectives derailed meaningful discussions and possible solutions.
Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University wrote in the London Review of Books (April 2006) that United States policy on the Middle East is under the control of pro-Israeli intellectuals and right-wing evangelicals who have crafted a policy that is both unjust and contrary to the interests of the United States. This conspiracy theory is not as crazy as is the Lyndon LaRouche theory that had the Queen of England as part of a similar conspiracy but it will win no prizes for sober evaluation of evidence.
In the first place, the religious right and the neo-conservatives do not agree on enough issues to effect a strangle-hold on any policy issue. Their support on a particular policy in some cases might make the margin of difference, but the so-called coalition would shatter as soon as new issues arose. Furthermore, there would have to be enough support in the State Department, the Defense Department, and the National Security Council for even a determined president to impose their policy prescriptions.
In addition to being too simplistic, this claim is dangerous for two reasons. First, although Mearsheimer and Walt are not anti-Semitic, it will be picked up by every anti-semitic and pro-Arab website to support the claims in the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion that the Jews are in command of the major events in the world. This will do damage to Jews and to our civic culture. Second,...