What Petraeus Really Said About Israel
Petraeus’s latest remarks, delivered yesterday at a press briefing in New Hampshire, make a number of commentators look extremely foolish. Among them: the idiotic Philip Weiss, who claimed that Petraeus was effectively endorsing the Mearsheimer/Walt version of how US foreign policy is made; Mearsheimer himself; Robert Wright, whom the New York Times provided with a platform to say that “Biden and Petraeus are right: America’s perceived support of — or at least acquiescence in — Israel’s more inflammatory policies endangers American troops abroad;” Jake Tapper of ABC News, who eleven days ago yelled the question, “does the intransigence of the Israeli government on the housing issue, yes or no, does it put U.S. troops lives at risk?” into the face of a rather worried-looking David Axelrod; and, of course, Hezbollah apologist Mark Perry, whose breathlessly excited piece for Foreign Policy’s blog, subsequently littered with clarifications, started this nonsense i