Stephen Walt’s profound dishonesty

Stephen Walt — actually permitting himself to title his post "I told you so" — thinks he’s found something of a smoking gun in Tony Blair’s testimony before a British inquiry into the Iraq War:

Probably the most controversial claim in my work with John Mearsheimer on the Israel lobby is our argument that it played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Even some readers who were generally sympathetic to our overall position found that claim hard to accept, and some left-wing critics accused us of letting Bush and Cheney off the hook or of ignoring the importance of other interests, especially oil. Of course, Israel’s defenders in the lobby took issue even more strenuously, usually by mischaracterizing our arguments and ignoring most (if not all) of the evidence we presented. 

So I hope readers will forgive me if I indulge today in a bit of self-promotion, or more precisely, self-defense. This week, yet another piece of evidence surfaced that suggests we were right all along (HT to Mehdi Hasan at the New Statesman and J. Glatzer at Mondoweiss). In his testimony to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., former Prime Minister Tony Blair offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas in April 2002. Blair reveals that concerns about Israel were part of the equation and that Israel officials were involved in those discussions.

Before we get to Blair’s quote, let me indulge in a little bit of "I told myself so." I saw this flagged on Mondoweiss last week, and I said to myself, "Self, will this professor at an Ivy League institution, this best-selling author, be vain enough, eager enough, stupid enough not to check the source?"

Self, on the one hand, was hoping Walt would not, because self wanted to preserve what little respect he had left for the American academic meritocracy.

Self is a little schizo, though, and was also hoping for a Nelson Muntz moment.

Sigh. Nelson wins.

So here’s Blair’s quote:

As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this.

Yes! The smoking gun! Yes!

Except: What Blair is discussing here (Walt does not even link to the original PDF) … is not Israel’s role in Iraq, but Israel’s actions in the West Bank at the time. If you’re looking for a bigger picture context for Blair’s reference to Israel — and I’m not sure there is one — it is that Blair and Bush may have been discussing Israel’s role in the U.S.-British relationship.

Blair is being asked about an April 2002 meeting at President Bush’s home in Crawford, Texas. April, 2002, was not without incident: Israel was in the midst of Operation Defensive Shield. That mini-war in the West Bank generated an international crisis; the Bush administration had called on Israel to withdraw. The operation took place between March 29-May 3; Bush and Blair met on April 6 and 7, during the height of the Battle of Jenin.

Here is the longer extract, referring to Blair’s testimony that at the time he hoped to "put together a coalition …  to deal with Saddam Hussein."

BARONESS USHA PRASHAR: Are you saying to me that that was the kind of agreed policy with which you went to Crawford? On the eve of Crawford, is that what you intended to achieve at Crawford?

RT HON TONY BLAIR: What we intended to achieve at Crawford, frankly, was to get a real sense from the Americans as to what they wanted to do, and this would be best done between myself and President Bush, and really to get a sense of how our own strategy was going to have to evolve in the light of that.

BARONESS USHA PRASHAR: Can we then come to Crawford? Because you had one-to-one discussions with President Bush without any advisers present. Can you tell us what was decided at these discussions?

RT HON TONY BLAIR: There was nothing actually decided, but let me just make one thing clear about this: one thing that is really important, I think, when you are dealing  with other leaders, is you establish and this is particularly important, I think, for the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the President of the United States you establish a close and strong relationship. You know, I had it with President Clinton and I had it again with President Bush, and that’s important. So some of it you will do in a formal meeting, but it is also important to be able to discuss in a very frank way what the issues were.

As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this.

But the principal part of my conversation was really to try and say, "Look, in the end we have got to deal with the various different dimensions of this whole issue". I mean, for me, what had happened after September 11 was that I was starting to look at this whole issue to do with this unrepresentative extremism within Islam in a different way, and I wanted to persuade President Bush, but also get a sense from him as to where he was on that broader issue.

BARONESS USHA PRASHAR: So what you are suggesting is that you were having general discussions in terms of getting views across to each other, trying to understand and establish a rapport and a relationship?

RT HON TONY BLAIR: Yes, but also, frankly —

BARONESS USHA PRASHAR: During the course of these discussions, do you think you gave many commitments?

RT HON TONY BLAIR: The only commitment I gave, and I gave  this very openly, at the meeting was a commitment to deal with Saddam.

So: The issues for Blair going into this meeting were "a close and strong relationship" with the United States, "what had happened after September 11" and "unrepresentative extremism within Islam," as well as Iraq.

Israel’s role in all this? It was dominating headlines at the time, and would naturally have come up, whether Bush and Blair were discussing climate change, NATO, or the Jockey Club v. the Kentucky Derby — never mind Iraq.

When Blair  says they spoke with Israelis — he’s not sure — it was probably to assess how long the operation would last and what effect it would have on American and British interests.  We don’t know if Iraq came up at all in the talks with the Israelis, if such talks took place. (I doubt that Israel’s leaders would have wanted to discuss Iraq at that time, or that Blair and Bush would have wanted to bring it up.)

Further down in the testimony, Blair notes that in their joint press conference, Israel came up first as a discrete issue:

At the press conference that President Bush and I gave afterwards, we talked about — I think Israel actually came up first, but then we went on to Iraq and President Bush says: "The Prime Minister and I, of course, talked about Iraq. We both recognised the danger of a man who is willing to kill his own people and harbouring and developing weapons of mass destruction."

At that press conference, Bush called on Israel to end the operation "without delay."

What this testimony suggests, if anything, is that the leaders saw Israel not as a partner in invading Iraq, not as a pretext for invading Iraq, not even as one of many pretexts for invading Iraq but as a possible complicating factor. I’m not even sure this is the case — Blair never actually links Iraq and Israel in his mind; the very quote Walt pulls, in fact, distinguishes the topics: The conversation had "less to do" with Iraq or the Middle East because of Israel’s actions in the West Bank.

Moreover, his interlocutor, Baroness Prashar, understands his testimony about the meeting as describing "general discussions in terms of getting views across to each other, trying to understand and establish a rapport and a relationship."

Walt does not, or refuses to. That distinction is unimportant: This kind of reach, which has become endemic to his work on Israel and the pro-Israel lobby, disqualifies him as serious on this matter.