The US's geopolitical nightmare

The most fascinating indication of a sea-change within the US political establishment toward the Bush Doctrine and those who are behind it is the developing debate around the 83-page paper, first published on the official website of Harvard University, criticizing the dominant role of Israel in shaping US foreign policy.

The paper was initially trashed by the B'nai Brith and select neo-conservative writers as "anti-Semitic", which it is not, and one commentator tried to smear it as "echoing the views of former KKK [Ku Klux Klan] leader and white-power advocate David Duke", who has also attacked the Israel lobby.

However, profoundly significant is the fact that this time leading mainstream media, including Richard Cohen in the Washington Post, have come to the defense of authors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. Even certain sections of the Israeli press have done so. The taboo of speaking publicly of the pro-Israel agenda of neo-conservatives has apparently been broken. That suggests that the old-guard foreign-policy establishment, types such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft and their allies, are stepping up to retake foreign-policy leadership. The neo-cons have proved a colossal failure in their defense of America's strategic interests as the realists see it.

Asia Times