How the Anti-Iraq-War Movement was Stabbed in the Back
by Ami Isseroff, April 06, 2003

Americans sympathize with underdogs, loathe war and have no great love for President George W. Bush. This combination that should have made it easy to muster opposition to the war in Iraq, an operation of dubious value in the fight against terror, fraught with dangers to US foreign policy and image. Surprisingly, support for the war and for George Bush is high, according to polls for ABC/Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. About 70% of Americans support the war; most think the war is justified even if no weapons of mass destruction are found, and about half would support a war on Iran if it continues its nuclear program.

The reason for this support may be found not in the public relations efforts of the Bush administration, or the alleged nefarious hold of the “Zionists” over the US media and government, but rather in the anti-war movement itself. War opposition was co-opted early on by a variety of groups with their own unpopular agendas. They emphasized point after point that appealed to their own constituencies, but alienated Americans. They told Americans over and over that the war would help the causes they support and fight the causes they abhor.

“The war is about oil,” is a major theme of the demonstrators and the anti-war pundits, representing the “anti-globalization” and anti-capitalist interests. Few slogans could be better calculated to win support for George Bush and the war on Iraq. Americans hold a grudge against the Gulf state oil monopolies that raised the price of oil after 1973, and fear US dependence on Arab oil. The anti-war protesters told them that the war would put Iraqi oil in US hands and assure a steady supply. Visions of 25 cent a gallon gasoline recruited support for the war. Of course, the war is not about oil, and the US has in all likelihood made gentlemen’s agreements with its Saudi and Kuwaiti allies to maintain the price of oil, but the message got across.

Those who are still bitter about the fact that the demise of communism occurred under the reign of Ronald Reagan and the neoconservatives, pointed out disparagingly that the war is supported by a clique of “neocons,” and represents the same sort of strategy they claimed to have used successfully against the USSR. This reminded Americans that in the perception of many, the greatest victory of the twentieth century was won by the US by “standing tough” and using “winner take all” tactics, without support for allies or regard for “fair play.” If the policy that brought down the “Evil Empire” of the USSR would bring down the “Axis of Evil,” it had to be good. It made no difference that in fact, the Clinton government had contemplated regime change as well, after Saddam effectively blocked UN inspections in 1998.

The anti-Zionists however, outdid all the other anti-war advocates. The Palestinian cause was in desperate straits after the revelations of Palestinian Authority complicity in terror. The anti-Iraq war movement seemed to be a good way to get people marching and associate their cause with the Palestinian “resistance.” Saddam was pictured as a great defender of the Palestinians. This strategy paid great dividends in the Middle East and Europe, but in the US it was a grave error.

Saddam has funded suicide bombers and supported extremists among Palestinians. The events of September 11 have not made suicide bombers popular in the United States. One person interviewed in a poll prepared for the Washington Post, said, “I think the guy [Saddam Hussein] is a threat. If nothing else, the guy’s paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. That alone is enough to show his militant stance toward the West.”

However, the most disastrous tactic of the anti-war group was to try to convince Americans that the Iraq war was somehow in Israeli interests. Article after article insisted that the war was fomented by Ariel Sharon and his supporters in the US, by ‘Zionists’ and finally, by “the Jews.” A crucial exhibit in this campaign was the “Clean Break” document, prepared by an American Zionist think tank for use by right-wing Israeli PM Benjamin Nethanyahu. Articles in The Nation, The Guardian and The Boston Globe and Mail, as well as many imitators hammered home the message, based on the flimsiest evidence. They insinuated that the Clean Break paper, some of whose authors have influence or alleged influence in the Bush administration, was the real basis of the war, that would make the Middle East safe for Ariel Sharon. Private correspondence from supporters of this bizarre idea went so far as to insinuate that the “Zionists” in Washington who were promoting the war were agents of the Israeli government.

In reality, the Clean Break document, whatever its faults, was a strategy for making Israel independent of the US, and demonstrating that Israel did not want and did not need US troops or US money to fight its battles. This was needed, according to the neoconservative authors, to overturn the Oslo process and ensure victory over the Palestinians rather than accommodation. This is stated explicitly in the document. This line of thinking is diametrically opposed to encouraging a US war against Iraq. Further pressure on Israel for a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the “Roadmap” was an announced concomitant of the US - British Iraqi policy. That could hardly be a goal of Ariel Sharon or the Zionist right, and it would not remake the Middle East to Israel’s advantage. However, the facts were of no more relevance to this campaign than they were in judging allegations about the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” circulated by Henry Ford over 80 years ago.

Israel has been, and remains, immensely popular in the United States, in part because it is seen as a firm ally against Islamist fundamentalism in the Middle East. Tying Iraq to anti-Zionism was obviously a disastrous strategy. The anti-war movement could hardly have hurt Saddam and Iraq more if they had insisted that the war was recommended by 9 out of ten doctors as a cure for aging and impotence, and that Saddam was against Mom’s apple pie.

As the campaign reached a climax, it veered off into anti-Semitic hysteria. Representative James Moran insisted that the war would not be happening without Jewish support. An “Anti-War” coalition barred radical rabbi Michael Lerner from speaking out against the war at a rally. The fate of the anti-Iraq war movement was now sealed, because the American Jewish community has been a key factor in every major US social movement beginning with the civil rights struggle and the anti-Vietnam war protests. In the presidency of George Bush Sr, James Baker had said “F—the Jews, they didn’t vote for us.” Not many Jews voted for the son either, but the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic campaign made it impossible for Jews to support the anti-war groups with any great enthusiasm.

The anti-war strategy played into the hands of war supporters so well that it seems like it might have been choreographed by the CIA. How did it happen? Legitimate opposition to the war was co-opted by others, with different and unpopular agendas. For them, the demonstrations are not about bombed-out kids in Iraq, but about advancing their own causes. The tactic is familiar from the practice of V.I. Lenin and his successors. It is the same mechanism that is ringing the death knell for the Israeli peace movement as well.

Draft article

Copyright 2003 Ami Isseroff
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