Chairman of American Enterprise Institute Is Now Supporting a Realist

Jon Powers is an Iraq war veteran running for Congress in Buffalo as a Democrat. On his campaign website, the former army captain damns the administration's Middle East strategy:  

It is a choice between politicians who send other people’s sons and daughters to war without demanding accountability from government and someone who lived the consequences of Washington’s bad judgment as a soldier in Iraq.

It is a choice between a Washington culture that puts the interests of lobbyists and special interests first and someone who will put Western New Yorker’s first.

I have it from a reliable source that at a recent $1000-a-head fundraiser in New York for Powers, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (former aide to Colin Powell) spoke and Bruce Kovner, the chairman of the American Enterprise Institute, ponied up to listen to the Wilkerson and Powers. I've written to Wilkerson and Kovner with no response; but it's a moment worth registering. Wilkerson is a leading realist and critic of the neocons; he has said kind words about Walt and Mearsheimer. Kovner was the neocons' host. In addition to AEI, he has funded the neocon Manhattan Institute and the New York moonie newspaper, the Sun. It would seem he's getting misgivings about neoconservatism now that Baghdad is a charred cinder.

In fairness to Kovner, while he sponsored a virulent and martial ideology over the last ten years, the hedge fund king is an enigmatic financial genius whose true thoughts on political/cultural subjects are unfathomable. Frankly, I don't think Kovner knows just what he thinks. He's a giant funder of the arts and is also chairman of Juilliard. I saw him at Toni Bentley's book party; she wrote a book about anal sex. In this piece I wrote about Kovner, Norman Podhoretz told me that Kovner is a brilliant intellectual. (In the world of neoconservatism, I think that means, very rich.) But again, the guy's a genius with an intuitive grasp on markets; and this is an important sign of the decline of neoconservatism. Make that, the tailspin.

Comments

[sword of gideon]

Lebanon's Daily Star is perhaps not a typical Arab newspaper, but you wouldn't really expect that an editorial there announces that "Hamas and Fatah are a bigger threat to the Palestinians than Israel" - and you certainly wouldn't expect as conclusion a statement like "Israel has never looked so good."

Commenting on the flight of some 180 men who sought safety from Palestinian infighting in Gaza by escaping to Israel last week, the Daily Star reminded its readers that this was actually not the first time that Palestinians sought refuge in Israel:

The scenes of Israel coming to the rescue of Palestinians after a bout of Arab fratricide were reminiscent of the events of Black September, during which scores of Palestinians sought asylum in Israel to escape King Hussein's crackdown on the Palestine Liberation Organization. The only difference this time around is that instead of seeking refuge from a heavy-handed Arab crackdown, Palestinians are fleeing from the murderous hands of their own Palestinian brothers."

The bitter fighting between rival Palestinian factions was deplored by many Arab commentators; however, in the Western press, the coverage seemed somewhat muted, particularly if one imagined the likely outcry if it had been Israel, and not Hamas, that fired some 300 mortar shells and dozens of rocket-propelled grenades into the Gaza neighborhood of the Hilles clan, causing much destruction and leaving some dozen people dead and about 100 wounded.

These events inevitably put the spotlight on the dismal state of Palestinian affairs, and while many Arab commentators argued that both Fatah and Hamas had failed the Palestinian people, the criticism of Hamas was particularly sharp, not least because the group had taken control over the Gaza Strip with similarly unrestrained violence just over a year ago.

It was therefore especially interesting that the newsmagazine Spiegel offered an unusual look at the good life of Gaza's rulers. According to this report, "Gaza's de facto leader Ismail Haniya, has gained 28 kilos (62 lbs) and set up his office in the former government guesthouse - with an ocean view, of course." Far from sharing the misery that afflicts Gaza according to most international media reports, Hamas is apparently doing quite well. One of its sources of income is due to its control over the distribution of gasoline: "Anyone who wishes to buy gas must first buy an 'insurance policy' from Hamas, for about EUR170 ($264), in return for a coupon that entitles its holder to buy 20 liters (5.3 gallons) once every two weeks - even now, with Israel allowing 1 million liters (264,000 gallons) of fuel for cars into the Gaza Strip."

In addition, Hamas reportedly collects about $10,000 a day from the owners of the smuggling tunnels to Egypt; these "usage fees" are payable in cash to armed money collectors who wait at the tunnel exits. And the owners of the tunnels are apparently also doing quite well:

The king of the tunnel builders had given a dazzling party, with roses from Egypt and dancing into the early morning hours. Thousands of people came to the event to celebrate his wedding to his 15-year-old bride. He had chosen the girl, and her family gave her up gladly, because no one contradicts the man they call Abu Ibrahim. He is the richest man in Rafah and is believed to be worth millions. He drives a gold-colored Jeep and has built a multi-story commercial building ... Abu Ibrahim, 38, has Hamas to thank for his wealth, and Hamas owes its power in the Gaza Strip to Abu Ibrahim. ... At first he smuggled gold, cheese and cigarettes, but after the beginning of the second Intifada in 2000 his business shifted mainly to weapons. It was Ibrahim who helped arm the Islamists and provided them with the Kalashnikovs, ammunition and explosives they have used since assuming power in June of last year."

In addition to money and weapons, the enforcement of "order" and an increased measure of religious observance is another facet of Hamas' power. The man known as "Hamas' mufti" is resolved to introduce "the best aspects of the Iranian and the Saudi Arabian system", and the first steps have already been taken: religious study in schools has been extended, new minarets are being built everywhere in Gaza, alcohol is no longer available, and mixed dancing at weddings is no longer allowed.

This report about Gaza definitely makes for very worthwhile reading, not least because many analysts believe that if it was not for the presence of the IDF in the West Bank, Hamas would quickly take over power there, too. There are those who argue that Israel should therefore simply be prepared to control the West Bank for the foreseeable future. But the problem that is being overlooked in this reasoning is that the threat of a complete Hamas takeover will also lead more Palestinians to at least tacitly agree that "Israel has never looked so good" - meaning, as Sari Nusseibeh once noted, "that many Palestinians would feel more at home in a democracy shared with Israelis than in a Palestinian state run by Hamas."

[Rowan Berkeley]

sounds more like the decline of judaism as a whole, to me - not just 'the decline of neoconservatism.'

[Rowan Berkeley]

I mean, honestly, I think people like Phil are just running interference for 'the Jewish Idea,' which is and always was exactly what Meir Kahane said it was. That is its INHERENT NATURE AS AN IDEA.

[Rowan Berkeley]

It's quite interesting that Jews remain overwhelmingly incapable, psychologically, of problematising 'Jewishness,' or 'Judaism' in the global sense. The evasive manoevres used by virtually all Jews to avoid problematising their own 'jewish identity' are also standardised. For a very long time the evasive manoevre favored was the claim that the questioner simply wanted to convert the questionee to christianity. This remains a convenient way of avoiding reality.

[Rowan Berkeley]

I suppose what it boils down to is that people like Phil remain determined not to face the fact that 'judaism,' per se, is a genocidal, racist-supremacist world-view. Admitted, the jewish bible contains a few (completely nonfunctional) universalist bells and whistles, constantly quoted as evidence that judaism is actually streets ahead of all other faiths in its love for mankind, but frankly, this is just self-deception.

[charles Keating]

Origins of the Palestinian civil war:

Wurmser didn't want Bush to push for a democratic election for the Palestinians. When Bush committed anyway, Wurmser quit.
After HAMAS won (Wurmser's fear), what to do?

Vanity Fair obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804

[charles Keating]

It all depends on what "existence" is.