It wasn't Israel who urged Bush to go to war in Iraq - it was the Saudis and the Egyptians
Contrary to what the radical Left would have you believe, it wasn't Israel or the Jews or the 'Jewish lobby' that urged George W. Bush to go to war against Iraq. It was the Saudis and the Egyptians. In the 30 pages he spends in Decision Points detailing the frantic diplomacy, military planning and consultations with international figures in the run-up to the Iraq war, Bush never once mentions a conversation with an Israeli official or member of a pro-Israel organization.Read the whole thing.
Bush does mention the threat of Israel being bombarded with missiles among his many concerns about fallout from an invasion – including the well-being of Iraqi civilians and the possibility of chemical weapons being used against US soldiers.
But when it comes to Middle Eastern pressure to declare war, he only describes Arab input: from Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar, who urged him to make a decision on whether to attack, and from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who said Iraq had biological weapons and would certainly use them against the US, an assessment Mubarak wouldn’t make public “for fear of inciting the Arab street.”
The picture Bush paints stands in stark contrast to the assertions of critics who charged that the “Israel lobby” was a major factor in the decision to go to war. Among the most vocal were scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who said of the Israel lobby that “the war would almost certainly not have occurred had it been absent.”
The only reference Bush makes to a pro-Israel figure having a role in his Iraq deliberations is the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, a supporter of military intervention whose opinion the president solicited as he weighed his options.
“Elie is a sober and gentle man. But there was passion in his seventy-four-year-old eyes when he compared Saddam Hussein’s brutality to the Nazi genocide,” Bush writes.
Labels: George W. Bush, Iraq, Israel Lobby
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:52 PM
4 Comments:
The bottom line that people need to understand with the left is that, to them, slaughter is not a reason to take forceful action to stop it. You see it in their silence on Sudan (once it ceases to be a club to beat Bush with) and you see it in their ignoring of Iran's (and Kenya's) post election slaughter(s). You even see it on the streets of the U.S., where the left does not want people to defend themselves against criminals (whom the left thinks of as pitiable people who had a bad childhood) invading their houses. They don't even want the police to take defensive action on behalf of civil society. Sounds like the Saudis and the Egyptians know the score when it comes to slaughter.
The sad reality is the war in Iraq was a disaster for Israel. The balance of power between Iraq and Iran provided some stability as their aggression was primarily directed at one another. But by taking down Iraq and allowing Iran to extend its tentacles into the middle east, we're seing now the destabilization that was held in check prior. The longer the Iran problem is punted the more proxies that will be spauned - Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, etc. Bush was honestly concerned with Saddam Hussein ataining WMDs and he did what he thought was right but without addressing Iran as well, a future leader wil not only have to deal with a stronger more malignant Iran, but with many murderous proxies as well. The Iraq war was dreadful for Israel.
Because if I learned one thing from eight years of Bush as President it's how trustworthy he is and how we can always take him at his word.
No, the reason why Israel had nothing to do with Iraq is because they had nothing to gain from such an invasion. Now a certain other country with one letter different is an entirely different story.
Because if I learned one thing from eight years of Bush as President it's how trustworthy he is and how we can always take him at his word.
No, the reason why Israel had nothing to do with Iraq is because they had nothing to gain from such an invasion. Now a certain other country with one letter different is an entirely different story.
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