Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic interviewed Time’s Joe Klein about, among other things, Klein’s recent assertion that Jewish neoconservatives have “divided loyalties.” The interview is quite a journey into the angry and emotional world of Joe Klein. Klein says, for example, that he is “very, very angry” at the Jewish blogosphere. When asked about why he puts the adjective “Jewish” in front of the word “neocons,” Klein pays homage to his own courage. “It’s about time,” he says. “I think everyone else is too afraid to do it.” He accuses those who have a different assessment of the importance of championing liberty in the Middle East as being guilty of “a very, very dangerous form of extremism.” Klein talks about how both the left-wing bloggers and the right-wing bloggers “hate me.” And he accuses people like me and Jennifer Rubin (a contributor to Commentary’s “Contentions”) of wanting to “stifle opinions that are different from theirs.”
“I’m certainly not going to back down,” declares Joe the Intrepid.
Rather than speaking in terms of standing up or backing down, perhaps it would be more useful to examine the quality and accuracy of Klein’s assertions.
1. When asked what he meant by the term “divided loyalties,” Klein claims, “I did not mean to imply that they were disloyal to the United States.” But, in fact, he did. Here is what Klein
wrote:
The notion that we could just waltz in and inject democracy into an extremely complicated, devout and ancient culture smacked—still smacks—of neocolonialist legerdemain. The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives—people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary—plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.
The terms “divided loyalties” and “dual loyalties” have a particular meaning and context; for Klein to use it as he did reveals his belief that Jewish neoconservatives are more loyal to Israel than they are to America. And that is a pernicious and despicable charge. Klein should not compound his calumny with dishonesty.
2. Klein says, “I think that my reading on the nuclear issue is, given the level of threats that they’ve been getting from the United States, and from Israel, it’s a logical thing for Iran to want nuclear weapons as a deterrent.” The United States and Israel, in other words, are the real culprits.
For one thing, the “threats” that Iran is receiving from the United States and Israel are based on Iran’s effort to gain nuclear weapons, not the other way around. If Iran gave up their quest for nuclear weapons, the “threats” would evaporate.
In addition, the historical facts refute Klein’s theory. In 2003, for example, the IAEA reported that “Iran has now acknowledged that it has been developing, for 18 years, an uranium centrifuge program, and, for 12 years, a laser enrichment program.” The IAEA also reported that Iran had produced small amounts of plutonium, generally only associated with nuclear weapons programs, between 1988 and 1992. The programs were secret and only came to light after the uranium enrichment program was exposed by an Iranian opposition group in 2002. To pretend that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are being driven by the “level of threats that they’ve been getting from the United States and from Israel” is silly.
3. Klein tells Goldberg:
[Neoconservatives] pick Ahmadinejad specifically because he’s the guy making the wildest antisemitic statements. I think that’s being done for political purposes, to scare the s*** out of my parents. It’s a Broward County strategy, it’s a Florida strategy.
That’s one interpretation; the other is that they “pick” Ahmadinejad because he happens to be the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and, as Goldberg himself has documented on his web site, has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel. That is significant. It is true, as I wrote in early 2007, that “the Iranian government has several different power centers, including the presidency, the parliament, the Revolutionary Guard, and the office of the Supreme Leader — currently filled by Ayatollah Khamenei, who ultimately oversees the armed forces and exerts great influence.” But to dismiss Ahmadinejad’s words, as Klein does, simply because he is not Khamenei — who after all was himself a key figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolution and a close confidant of Ayatollah Khomeini — is, I think, a mistake. We cannot know for sure what Iran’s intentions are or how they would act, or how Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt would react, if Iran gains possession of a nuclear weapon. But such a moment could not and would not be good, and for any serious-minded person it ought to be a source of real concern.
Pointing out Ahmadinejad’s words, then, might not be a “Broward Country strategy;” instead, it may be that Ahmadinejad’s words and intentions are worth noting before Iran possesses a nuclear weapon.
4. Klein refers to the idea of spreading democracy to the Arab Middle East as a “benign domino theory” and claims it represents a “really dangerous anachronistic neocolonial sensibility.” That’s an interesting way to describe it. There are others. For example, during the “Arab Spring” in 2005, this is what Klein had to say:
And yet, for the moment, Bush’s instincts—his supporters would argue these are bedrock values—seem to be paying off. The President’s attention span may be haphazard, but the immediate satisfactions are difficult to dispute. Saddam Hussein? Evildoer. Take him out. But wait, no WMD? No post-invasion planning? Deaths and chaos? Awful, but…. Freedom! Look at those Shiites vote! And now, after all that rapid-eye movement, who can say the Shiites and the Kurds won’t create a government with a loyal Shiite-Kurd security force? And who can say the Sunni rebels won’t—with some creative dealmaking—eventually acquiesce? The foreign-policy priesthood may be appalled by all the unexpected consequences, but there has been stunned silence in the non-neocon think tanks since the Iraqi elections.
Several weeks later, in a column titled “Look Who Has a Shot at the Nobel Peace Prize,” Klein wrote this:
Under the enlightened leadership of Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, the Shiite majority has played the democracy game with gusto. It has acknowledged the importance of Kurdish and Sunni minority rights and seems unlikely to demand the constitutional imposition of strict Islamic law. Most important, it has resisted the temptation to retaliate against the outrageous violence of Sunni extremists, especially against Shiite mosques…. If the President turns out to be right—and let’s hope he is—a century’s worth of woolly-headed liberal dreamers will be vindicated. And he will surely deserve that woolliest of all peace prizes, the Nobel.
So what Klein today calls a “really dangerous anachronistic neocolonial sensibility” was for him, just three years ago, an undertaking of the Bush administration worth, perhaps for the president, the Nobel Peace Prize.
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