Peter Beinart, former editor of The New Republic – a magazine instrumental in getting us into every major war we’ve ever been in – and a born-again peacenik when it comes to Iran, wonders aloud:
“How can it be, less than a decade after the U.S. invaded Iraq, that the Iran debate is breaking down along largely the same lines, and the people who were manifestly, painfully wrong about that war are driving the debate this time as well? Culturally, it’s a fascinating question—and too depressing for words.”
The real cause of Beinart’s malaise isn’t hard to identify. It’s democracy, American-style, i.e. rule by the screamers, that has him sick at heart. Under our system of elected oligarchy, whoever screams the loudest gets the biggest piece of the policy pie. Since most normal Americans don’t think about foreign policy issues except when it’s thrown in their faces – a major war breaks out, or if the blowback from one of our overseas extravaganzas takes them by surprise – the debate on this subject is dominated by a triad of special interest groups: 1) The military-industrial complex, otherwise known as war profiteers, 2) the neoconservatives, who believe in perpetual war as a matter of high principle, and 3) the well-organized and wealthy Israel lobby, which has as its mandate to keep the US engaged not only with Israel but with the global network of protectorates, alliances, and client states that make up the American Empire.
Together with incidental allies (e.g. the Albanian Mafia during the Kosovo conflict), these three forces control the terms of the foreign policy discourse in this country, and little deviation from the party line is tolerated. When it comes to the pundits and the politicians, it doesn’t matter much whether they’re ostensibly liberal or conservative: internationalism of one sort or another is the order of the day. The “mainstream” media plays a big role in orchestrating this unanimity, in part because they’re easily manipulated – and often owned – by the very corporate and ideological interests pushing the War Party’s agenda.
