When their article came out I actually e-mailed some criticisms to Mearsheimer at his school web page. (He actually e-mailed back, albeit briefly). The first thing I mentioned is that whenever you have to preface a comment by stating that you are in fact not implying anything conspiratorial, it is usually down hill from there, just like when you say. “I don’t mean to be offensive, but…” I was also startled at how amorphous the “Israeli Lobby” was conceived, effectively every person in public life who didn’t agree with the authors on the subject. I suggested that the authors’ real problem was with democracy. As to the persuasiveness of their account, it should go over very well in Tehran and among the editors of the NY Times. I must add that Barnes and Nobles has pushed the hell out of the thing, with every store I have been in being completely overstocked. They just put the 20% off stickers on the book, so they may have just figured it out.
