To choose what, pray tell? To club the newborn to death?
Finally, I am a conservative because of foreign policy – in particular American national security and support for Israel. For me this issue trumps all the others. In fact, I am not just a conservative but a neoconservative.
The very term neoconservative has become to a certain extent a slander; for many left wing critics of the Iraq war, the term is used as virtually synonymous with Jews, particularly with the group of Jews who they believe encouraged or supported the Bush Administration in going to war in Iraq.
There are non-Jewish neocons, of course, but those who blame neoconservatives for the Iraq war generally overlook or exclude them – after all, a core part of the anti-neocon argument is that the neocons were doing Israel’s bidding, and it is more convenient to blame Jews for this.
The charge is preposterous. The idea that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell are shrinking violets who needed a push from a group of neocons to decide to go to war strains credulity. And none of those current and former administration figures have ever suggested that they needed any push from anybody else to take action in Iraq.
What is disturbing is that so many American Jews have been oblivious to the rank anti-Semitic undercurrent in the charge as well as to the danger to American support for Israel that is tied to the effort to associate the neocons – meaning Jews and Israel – with the Iraq war.
For the record, the formation of the neoconservative movement long preceded any talk about Iraq. Many neocons were supporters of Senator Henry Jackson of Washington when he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. Jackson was a cold warrior who believed America needed to enhance its military strength and remain resolute in dealing with the Russians, challenging their aggression in various spots around the world.
Jackson believed the Soviet system would eventually collapse and that the people of Eastern Europe would at some point know the freedoms of those in the West. Events following Jackson’s death proved that his vision was the correct one.
Jackson was also the strongest supporter of Israel in the U.S. Senate, seeing that nation as a moral beacon in the region, and a steadfast cold war ally. Alas, he was defeated for the nomination by Jimmy Carter, who was then elected president. And the Democratic Party continued its move to the left, a process that began with the nomination of George McGovern in 1972.
Many neocons, Democrats to that point, switched parties in 1980 and supported Ronald Reagan, who believed in Jackson’s approach to the Cold War. They and Reagan were committed to expanding the arc of freedom worldwide. Except for most parts of the Muslim world, that arc of freedom has been expanding – not only in Eastern Europe but also in much of Latin America, and Asia, and parts of Africa.
Today this country faces serious challenges in Iraq and the Middle East – dealing with Iran’s nuclear program and its destabilizing efforts in Lebanon; battling the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan; keeping Pakistan, a nuclear power, from falling to Al Qaeda and the radical Islamists; coping with North Korea and its nuclear and missile programs, etc. It is certainly not a time to pull in our horns and make believe the world would be a better place if we just left it alone.
Whatever one’s views on the wisdom of the Iraq invasion, at this point the debate needs to be on policy going forward. The neoconservative view is that the Middle East will become far more dangerous for the U.S. and its allies, including Israel, if it is perceived that we are withdrawing from Iraq before our job is done, hanging our heads in defeat.
Our enemies – and Israel’s enemies – in the current struggle keep probing to find weakness, to see if our side can deal with pain and fight on. This country has a history of doing just that: of getting off the canvas and taking the fight to our enemies.
In the case of Israel, the risks of inaction are higher. Forty percent of the world’s Jewish population resides in Israel, and Iran is continually calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Of all the world’s people, we Jews should know to take threats of annihilation seriously.