Iraq's A Failure--Blame The Jews; Iraq A Success--Blame The Jews

Abe Greenwald notices that the fact that the surge is a success does not mean that you can't still blame the "Jewish Lobby" for being there:

After being labeled an unprecedented blunder for the better part of five years, the Iraq War is now conceived of as phase one in some ingeniously orchestrated grand plan to make the region safe for the Jewish state. “I fear they want a permanent presence in Iraq to reassure Israel,” wrote Andrew Sullivan recently. And yesterday he disingenuously claimed that I cited this aim as the initial rationale for invading Iraq. Yesterday, too, Joe Klein wrote that “an even more foolish assault on Iran, raise[s] the question of divided loyalties” among Jewish neoconservatives. Here we go again.

When the Iraq War goes badly, the critics talk about the lack of planning, the lack of exit strategy, and the general sense of hubris visited upon the endeavor. But once things look brighter, it’s straight back to the Jews.

Joe Klein did more than just casually write that attacking Iran was foolish. Here's the full paragraph:

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. And then there is the question--made manifest by the no-bid contracts offered U.S. oil companies by the Iraqis--of two oil executives, Bush and Cheney, securing a new source of business for their Texas buddies. [emphasis added]

Jennifer Rubin notes:

Perhaps he [Klein] is suggesting a new standard for Jews: take no position that cannot be construed as an example of dual loyalties. Or better yet, take no position which might benefit Israel and avoid the problem altogether.

Leave aside the non-Jewish supporters of the war, Klein offers not one smidgen of support that Lieberman or any other Jewish advocate of the war did not believe it was in America’s security interest to pursue the war and/or to prosecute it effectively. One can argue with the merits of those individuals’ positions without clumsily injecting an anti-Semitic canard into the discussion.

One can, but not many have been.
At one point, Democrats claimed that any criticism of their remarks on the Iraq war were a direct attack on their patriotism.
Apparently if Jews open their mouths at all about the Middle East, their own patriotism can be called into question.

It's an effective scam.

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