Daniel Levy, not unpredictably, has what’s to my mind the best take on The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy that I’ve seen yet. He does a great job of highlighting the very real flaws in the Walt-Mearsheimer argument without turning that into mere triangulation in the face of their more deranged critics. The problems Levy points to, in my view, stem basically from the limits of Walt and Mearsheimer’s methodology.
Basically, as realists, I think they don’t really “get” ideology and the extent to which the World War IV view of the world exists as a freestanding, transnational (most influential, clearly, in US and Israeli politics, but also with some sway in the UK and Australia and some of its leading proponents in the US are Canadian, etc.) view of things that’s not “about” serving Israel’s interests or America’s interests or, indeed, anyone’s interests — it’s just wrong.
Previous in TP Yglesias
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the ThinkProgress Privacy Policy and agree to the ThinkProgress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policies as applicable, which can be found here.