I can’t comment about the book, not having read it, but here are a few notions:
1) US foreign policy puts *way* too much emphasis on Israel. I mean, we gotta hear about it every night on the news like it was the 51st state or something. We never hear about Argentina or the Ukraine or Thailand – nope, it’s all Israel, all the time.
Quick, name three things Israel has done for the US, apart from taking a $4 billion dollar a year handout, spying on us or selling US developed Arrow missile technology to China. Yeah, me neither.
2) The Iraq war is in no way irrational. In the wake of 9-11, it became necessary to remind the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, et al just how fragile their existence is, and that if they continued to tug on Superman’s cape, they’d find out what he’s capable of (and some of them may still). Rolling over Afghanistan was simply too easy, we needed to make an example of a more substantial military — and Saddam fit the bill nicely.
That purpose of that war was achieved the day he went into hiding. The last 5 years of our occupation is simply because we’re swell guys and don’t want to see innocents killed in the bloodbath that would have ensued if we hadn’t stuck around.
No, really. None of it is any more complicated than that.
