Lobster Summer 2009William Clark and Tim PendryAn exchange on New LabourTom EastonThe Jewish Holocaust: held captive byits remembrance or liberated by itslessons?Anthony FrewinFrost/Nixont or, a load of old dickTerry HanstockRe: spy history; I-ops; Iraq fall-out andmore

John McFallMoscow on the Hudson? BrianLanders' Empires ApartSimon MatthewsOn the Israel lobbyScott NewtonThe meaning of the BudgetRobin RamsayThe economic crisisThe political assassinations of theI 960sWhy are we with Uncle Sam?Paul ToddPre-emptive war, the Israel lobbyand US military doctrine

ISSN Ultr-t-[q3b

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57(The last hard copy Lobster)

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Lobster 57

Parish Notices

This is the final hard copy of LobsteF.... but notthe final issue of Lobster. I am merely giving up the labourof producing and distributing 1000 copies of a 50 pagemagazine. The next issue will appear

- in precisely which

form I haven't decided: a blog? future issues looking likethis?

- on the Lobster website, and it will be free. Check

the Lobster website in early December.I will repay outstanding subscription money as far as I

can; but be patient, this will take a while to do. I will startby repaying those who are owed the most and work fromthere.

If there are readers who do not have access to theInternet I can only apologise and suggest that such access,via public libraries, is no longer difficult to arrange andfrequently free of charge these days.

Producing Lobster has dominated my life for a longtime now and I am just tired of doing it. A couple or threeyears ago I thought that there was still a big differencebetween hard copy and the Internet, that the Internet wasn'tserious, with no ultimate legal requirement to get thingsaccurate. But, in practice, as the documentation in themagazine shows, we get almost all our information fromthe Net these days and the distinction between the twomedia no longer seems so important. We know what areand are not serious websites. Essentially Lobster has beenovertaken by technology. When hard copy was all therewas, producing a liule magazine, an alternative magazine,seemed a reasonable response to the state of the print mediaat the time. Now it doesn't.

And the supply of original material is declining. Thereis a lot of me in this issue because I had no other suitablecopy. (But if I was a young writer would I think of writingfor a magazine with a circulation of 1000 or would I put iton a website and be read by many more people?)

Robin Ramsay

Lobster is a member of INK, theIndependent

News Collective, trade association of theUK alternative press. wvyw.ink.uk.com

Contents

03 Reflections on the 'cult of the offensive': pre-emptive war,the Israel lobby and US military Doctrine Paul Todd

07 Why are we with Uncle Sam? Robin Ramsay09 America, Israel and the Israel lobby Simon Matthews12 Frost/Nixon

- or a load of old dick Anthony Frewin

14 The economic crisis Robin Ramsay19 It's all Jacques to me: an exchange on New Labour

William Clark and Tim Pendry2l Still hazy after all these years: the assassinations of the

sixties Robin Ramsay22 Moscow on the Hudson? Brian Landers' Empires Apart

John McFall24 The view from the bridge Robin Ramsay26 The meaning of the 2009 Budget Scott Newton27 Politics and paranoia Robin Ramsay29 Re: Terry Hanstock32 Sources Robin Ramsay34 The Jewish Holocaust: held captive by its remembrance or

liberated by its lessons? Tom Easton36 Books reviewedPhilip Augar, Chasing Alpha: How Reckless Groy.th and L-ncheckedAmbition Ruined the City's Golden DecadePaul Todd, Jonathan Bloch, and Patrick Fitzgerald, Spies, Lies, and theWar On TerrorDavid Cesarani, Major Farran's Hat; Murder, Scandal and Britain'sWar Against Jewish Terrorism 1945-1948Beatrix Campbell, Agreement! The State, Conflict and Change inNorthern lrelandGordon Thomas, Secrets and Lies: A history of CIA mind control andgerm warfareMichael Phayer, Pius XII, the Holocqust and the Cold WarPaul Feldman, Unmasking the State: a rough guide to real democracyWarrick Funnell, Robert Jupe and Jane Andrew, In Government WeTrust: marketfoilure and the delusions of privatisationFrancis Beckett and David Hencke, Marching to the fault line: The1984 miners' strike and the death of industrial BritainDick Russell, On the Trail of the JFK AssassinsFrank Cain, Terrorism and Intelligence in Austrqlia; A history of ASIOand national surveill anceJohn Diamond, The CIA and the Culture of FailureKen Hollings, Ll/elcome to Mars: fantasies of science in the Americancentury: 1947-5946 Tittle-tattle Tom Easton

Lobster on-lineAll but the most recent issues of Lobster areavailable on-line, for a small fee. Access via

CorrectionIn Lobster 56 I described Naomi Kline as an American. She isCanadian.

Pieces in this issue without an author are by the editor.

Summer 2009

Reflections on the 'cult of the offensive':pre-emptive war, the Israel lobby and US

militarY Doctrine

Paul Todd

In our book, spies, Lies and the war on Terror,l a central themeis the ascendancy of pre-emptive war doctrine in US militarystrategy and its impact on public perceptions and the constructionof po[iical narratirle. A parallel and closely linked concern is withthe overall current of irrationalism which took hold aftet 9lll,feeding and complementing the growth of pre-emptive doctrines.

In $-hat follows here there are four elements: pre-emptionitself as a constant trope in the history of warfare; the radicalrecrudescence ofthe concept after the advent ofnuclear weapons;the rising influence of Israeli concepts of war on US defencedoctrine; and the aggregation of all of these in the combination ofpolitical and strategic factors leading the Bush administration inthe run up to the Iraq war.

The term .war on terror' (woT) has been widely derided asboth epistemologically illiterate and a transparent catchall fordemagogy and the pursuit of long-standing agendas for militarismand crackdowns on civil liberties. There is also, however, a Sensein which WoT represents a functioning military concept for theUS, which can be located in the evolution of US strategic doc-trine. In the early 1980s, the first period of neo-conservativedominance in US politics, analysts of international relations werestruck by similarities between the 'new cold war' prosecuted bythe Reagan administration and the great power stand-off beforeAugust lgtq.r In both cases scholars noted the influence of a 'cultof the offensive' on military doctrine, and in pushing argumentsfor pre-emptive war. For WoT, however construed, pre-emption isclearly a sine qua non. But the very abstraction of the concept hashelpei advance doctrines of pre-emption across the board; andthis has been greatly expedited by a renewed period of neo-conpolitics in thebush administration and the determined push forihe Israeli strategic model. To be sure, pre-emption is far fromuncontroversial in Israeli defence doctrine itself, but for the USneo-cons and their avatars on the Israeli hard right, a cult of theoffensive has been not only strategic boilerplate but an activemoral imperative.

The ghost of Marx: warfare, technology and theparadigm of 1914For millennia, warfare has been an established - and indeed, cele-brated

- institution in the conduct of human affairs. As much

recent scholarship has shown, conflict has been central to bothtechnological/material advance and social cohesion.3 Progress wasnot secured without a price, however. writing in the 1850s, Karl

Mam observed that at certain stages in history, economic andtechnological factors can outrun the social and political capabilityto manage and control them. And nowhere was this thesis moretragically vindicated than in the outbreak of world war one,when a combination of ill-understood technological advance andthe entirely rational fear of losing the march - in an era wheremilitary prowess was a defining feature in national identity - ledthe European great powers into four years of mass destruction.The dominance, on all sides, of a 'cult of the offensive' was amassive contributory factor here and one widely recognised in theaftermath.+There was a wholesale commitment to disarmament,new international institutions and a shift to defensive militarystrategies, such as the (highly successful) UK air defence systemand the (less successful) French Maginot line'

The defeat of the second wave of offence cultists - NaziGermany, Imperial Japan - after world war Two brought a newperiod oiinternational institution-building. But this was put underimmediate threat by nuclear weapons. with the stakes of nuclearwar so inconceivably high, the idea that pre-emption was not onlythe logical, but indeed, the moral choice gained a fresh culrency'In the US there was intense debate about the possibility of count-ering the nuclear threat from the Soviet Union by pre-emptive firststrike on Soviet nuclear facilities, before they were fully oper-ational. Although subject to highly detailed planning, however,the protagonists of 'Operation Dropshot' were restrained by morerational voices in their aim to 'reduce the Soviet Union to asmouldering, irradiated ruin.'

The 1962 Cuba missile crisis - during which uS presidentKennedy,s successful efforts to rein in the pre-emptive argu-ments of airforce chief (and 'Dropshot' author) Curtis LeMaywere mirrored in the removal of operational missile control fromlocal field commanders by Soviet leader Khrushchev - inaugur-ated a new era of nuclear restraint between the superpowers. Insome ways technology itself had come to the rescue. The adventof 'survivable' nuclear systems, such as the Polaris submarine,underwrote the grim logic of Mutually Assured Destruction. But ifpossession of an assured 'second strike' capability shelved thelqsor dreams of instant success in pre-emptive atomic war, thepre-emptive concept itself was taking on a new life amongst thelesser powers sheltering under the nuclear umbrella'

The Summer of War - the other 1967The Middle East war of June 1967 is conventionally portrayed asa clear case of justified pre-emption by Israel. The surroundingArab powers, led by Egyptian president Nasser, had been

@n Van Evra, 'The Cult of the Offensive and theorigins of the First world war' in, Miller/Lynn-Jones/van Evra (see note2) Ibid, pp.59-109.

1 Reviewed below.I For a $.ide-ranging discussion of these themes see Steven E. Miller,Sean \I. Lynn-Jones and Stephen Van Evra, Military Strateg/ and theOrigins of the First World ll'ar (Princeton: PUP, 1991')3 See. for example, Robert Gilpin, Ll/'ar and change in world Politics(Cambridge: CUP, 1981)

Summer 2009

Lobster 57

pounding a drumbeat of aggressive rhetoric and military postur-ing. In April, Nasser had closed the Straits of riran, Israel's soleaccess to the Red Sea, and ordered the uN peacekeeping conting-ent from its buffer position in the Sinai between Egyptian andIsraeli forces. However, as Tel Aviv, London and washingtonknew, neither Egypt

- whose main combat capability was tied

down in a losing war in North yemen -

nor the hapless Syrianswere in any position to pose a credible threat. lndeed, the uNSinai force had been installed after an earlier episode of militarypre-emption by Israel

- the Suez crisis of 1956. Then the move by

British, French and Israeli forces to seize the Suez canal, occupythe Sinai and 'knock Nasser offhis perch' had led to the threat ofuS economic sanctions by an exasperated president Eisenhower,with the full support of the United Nations. The aborted Suezoperation, however, which had seen Israel,s army gaining easydominance over the poorly-equipped Egyptians, was launchedunder the governing strategic orthodoxy of Israeli militarydoctrine

- pre-emptive war.

As veteran Israeli politician and diplomat, Shlomo Ben-Amiexplains:

'Israel's military doctrine, as it was established by DavidBen-Gurion, has been based on the principle of offensivedefence...."security" was elevated to the status of a sacredcow, and the concept of pre-emptive war and the nation inarms to that of a vital existential philosophy., s

Moreover, as Ben-Ami further points out, many in the Israelisecurity establishment believed in actively fostering a state of'armed peace', wherein

'The new nation made up of immigrants from all cornersof the world had to be galvanised as a people in uniform, afully mobilised society.... the notion of a nation living on arazor's edge between war and a precarious truce became acollective state of mind.'6

And no-one held this belief more strongry held than the principalarchitect of the 1967 wal Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, wlo,as Ben-Ami observes, 'believed in resistance and permanent war,not in peace.'1

The fullest expression of Dayan's 'existentialist' approach tointernational relations came with the Israeli Blitzkreig of June, 51967. while the opening phase

- involving the simultaneous

destruction of Egyptian/Syrian air and armoured capability -

hadbeen meticulously planned in advance, with what Ben-Amiadmitsas 'Israel's assertion of her military deterrence [and] frequentlydisproportionate policy of retaliation' stoking the crisis atmos-phere,s the pattern of conquest on the ground evolved more exper-imentally, with even Moshe Dayan initially opposed to occu-pying the Golan Heights. In the event, however, the need for unityamongst the always fractious Israeli ruling coalition and .an irres-istible bacchanalia of passions'e ensured the triumph of the maxi-malist option

- and one underpinned yet more strongly by the

doctrine of pre-emptive war.

The USS LibertyThe utter single-mindedness of this doctrine was illustrated by the9 June Israeli attack on a NSA/uS Navy sigint ship, the uSS5 See Shlomo Ben-Ami, scars of war, wounds of peace

- the Israeli-Arab

trageSt (London: Phoenix, 2006), pp. 362-3.6 lbid. p.72.7 lbid. p. 1428 lbid. pp.95-7.9 lbid. p. 118.

Liberry. A prominently-flagge d, 455 foot vessel, festooned withradar and listening antennae, the Liberty was sailing slowly offthe Gaza coast, some twelve miles outside Israeli territorialwaters. The two hour-long Israeli assault, involving torpedo craftand Mirage fighter-bombers, took place after numerou, ..conr-aissance over-flights, on a clear day and with no prior warning.Although official enquiries in Israel and the US were quick toclass the incident as 'friendly fire,' the sheer scale of the Israeliaction, leading to 206 casualties (34 fatal) and the ship,s totalimmobilisation, suggests a wider agenda.r0

Although even Ben-Ami, a constant critic of Israeli securitypolicies and pre-emption in particular, condemned Egyptianclaims of USfuK collaboration in the Israeli war effort as, ,theBig Lie',tl much evidence suggests extensive and active cooperat-ion on the logistics and intelligence sides; and encouragement ofthe Israeli pre-emptive programme. Like Nasser in the North, theUK was also fighting a losing guerrilla war, in South yemen. Asin 1956, Nasser's revolutionary leadership was viewed as the rootcause of British travails in the Middle East, and there could be nomore satisfactory outcome for London than his defeat or removal.For embattled US President Lyndon Johnson, a strongly-heldZionism was coupled with the more expedient consideration thatan Israeli defeat of Nasser

- viewed as a straightforward Soviet

client -

could pave the way to his re-election. If emerging evi-dence suggests that Israeli hearry-handedness and genuine battle-field confusion had o'ercome initiar instructions for a light straff-ing attack by 'unmarked aircraft' 1*'ith hopefully minimalcasualties), and led to the recall of uS strikes on Egypt and theplan's swift abortion. the die was clearly cast for future uS-Israelstrategic intimacy.

The doctrine takes holdFor Israeli strategists, a declared policy of pre-emptive strike

-backed up by regular exemplar -

was a central component forgrounding the vital cuffency of deterrence: 'credibility'. In thenuclear realm, credibility was viewed by strategic theory, held bysuch as influential chicago analyst Albert wohlstetter, as criticalto setting 'escalation dominance' in episodes of threat-bargaining.The pre-emptive doctrine, however, has a fuither utility for policymakers in alliance management. For a great power it offers thepossibility of avoiding entangling and expensive force deploy-ments by simply issuing a pre-emptive guarantee. But for aninfluential ally, there are also wide 'wag the dog' possibilities

-

with nuclear weapons as the ultimate tail.In US-Israel relations, the issue came to a head during the

Yom Kippur war of october 1973. As pulitzer-winning NewYorker columnist and author, Seymour Hersh has established:

'Sometime in this period, the American Intelligencecommunity got what apparently was its first look, via theKH-11 [surveillance satellite], at the completed andoperational [Israeli nuclear] missile launchers hidden inthe side of a hill.... The launchers \\,ere left in the open,perhaps deliberately, making it much easier for Americanphoto-interpreters to spot them.' ll

This took place under healy US pressure on Israel to accept a uS-@ eration Cyanide; Wht,the bombing of the (JSSLiberty nearly caused Ll/orld War 3 (London: Vision, 2003) pp. lg_42; andalso Paul Todd, 'Robert Kennedy and the Middle East connection' inLobster 5l (Summer 2006).l l Hounam ibid. p. ll4.12 See Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option

- Israel, America and the

bomb (London: Faber, 1991) pp. 226-40lp.23tl.

I

Summer 2009

Lobster 57

Egyptian sponsored ceasefire and halt plans to destroy theEgyptian anny completely.

Beleaguered US President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger,sresponse was to order a US nuclear alert (DEFCON 3), aimedostensibly at the Soviets (and as many alleged, at Nixon,scongressional critics) but accepted by Soviet leader Brezhnevwithout demur, as a useful escape clause from an ungrateful clientand a losing Middle East war. For Nixon's mounting domesticopposition, however, the coded signal to Israel

- along with more

straightforward logistics arm-twisting by Henry Kissinger -

cemented a powerful emerging coalition in US politics. For whatwere beginning to be termed the 'neo-conservatives', it had beenprecisely Israel's repeated disavowal of pre-emption

- at US

insistence -

during the build-up to Yom Kippur that had causedthe initial Arab victories. Determined to reverse both the pressureon Israel and the multilateral diplomacy of Kissinger seen as themain cause. the neo-cons sought to shelve the existing andproposed arms treaties with the Soviet Union (the SALT process)and reconfi_sure US military doctrine toward pre-emptive war.

There *'as. to be sure, much opposition here. US/Soviet d6tentehad become fairly institutional by this stage, both in the politico-military establishment and with public opinion in general.Hon'ever, by 1975 hardline US Defense Secretary (and Kissingeropponent) James Schlesinger had succeeded in promoting'counterforce' as the new uS nuclear targeting doctrine. counter-force involves the precision targeting of enemy weapons systems,as opposed to cities ('counter-value') and was made possible byadvances in US warhead technology. To maintain credibility,though, pre-emptive options have to be present at every step onthe escalation ladder. Moreover Secretary Schlesinger made itplain that pre-emption in the conventional realm was still on thetable. Follou,ing the 'oil shock' of October 7973, and continuedArab pressure on the \\'estern powers. Schlesinger hinted at apossible US take-over of the oil fields in the Gulf, declaring that,'it is indeed feasible to conduct military operations fin the oilfields] if the necessity should arise'

- a stance enthusiasticaily

applauded by right-wing commentators, the fast-rising neo-concaucus in Congress and at grassroots level at the US petrol pump.

If Jimmy Carter's Democratic presidency of November l9l6had succeeded in seeing off the incumbent Republican GeraldFord and the conservative bandwagon of Ronald Reagan. thedebate on counterforce and pre-emption took on increasingmomentum, via the mushrooming network of neo-con lobbygroups such as the Committee on the Present Danger. While manydifferences existed in this milieu

- notably between traditional

consen'atives and neo-cons on blanket support for Israel -

therewas clear agreement on ditching the SALT treaties anddeveloping ballistic missile defence (BMD), which Nixon hadbargained away in the ABM treaty of 1972. Not widely noticedoutside the specialist literarure, the preferred location for a pre-emptive uS missile launch capable of overwhelming RussianABM systems (due to various technical considerations concerningthe angle of re-entry) was the Arabian sea.

Access to the Arabian Sea required secure facilities, preferablynot tied to the vagaries of a local host government. This had beenlong planned for, with a lease taken on the British-owned island ofDiego Garcia from 1964. During the numerous Senate andCongressional hearings on developing Diego Garcia, much DoDdisa'owal of leaked plans for submarine Launched BalisticMissile (SLBM) support and B 52 basing had failed to convincestrong Senate opposition from such as Gary Hart and EdwardKennedy. It had also signally failed to convince the Russians. A

little publicised but highly significant factor in drawing Sovietagreement on SALT t had been a de facto moratorium on bothexpanding the 'austere' island facilities and regular SLBMdeployment in the Indian Ocean.l3 Many in the US arms controlcommunity had hoped to formalise these understandings with atreaty for mutual restraint, if not complete demilitarisation for theIndian Ocean as a whole, and saw an opening in Carter,s firstyear. The US/Soviet talks had reached a final stage by 1978, butfaced mounting opposition from the 'new cold war'bandwagon inWashington. Finally, congressional hearings in 1979 shelved theputative Naval Arms Limitation Treaty (NALT) on the grounds ofSoviet actions in Ethiopia, but mainly on the basis that 'restrictingour ability to deploy Polaris missiles is not in the strategic interestof the United States.' In Soviet eyes, however, the US move intothe Indian Ocean represented one more stage on the road to pre-emption.

The New Cold WarRussian involvement in the 1978-9 Ethiopia/Somalia conflictshad been a gift to Washington hard-liners, notably NationalSecurity Advisor Zbigniew Bzrezinski, who was seeking ways tofurther entangle the bankrupt Soviet empire in protracted regionalwars, notably the gathering Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan became the testbed for the 'Reagan Doctrine, ofaggressively attacking the Soviet Union's third world allies andgrew into the CIA's biggest operation. But in parallel withguerrilla assaults on pro-communist regimes, the doctrine of pre-emptive nuclear war was also a gathering force. Reagan,s .StarWars' announcement of 1983, although presented as a defensivemeasure, was clearly a statement of intent, even if the actual tech-nology was (and remains) highly fallible. The alliance betweenpro-Israel neo-cons and more conventional cold warriors foundexpression in the 1982 'strategic understanding' between Israeland the LIS. And if hopes for a formal, NATO-style alliance werestymied by the disastrous Israeli invasion of Lebanon of that year-

a move explicitly defended by Prime Minister Begin as ,a warof choice'14

- pre-emption, nuclear and conventional, was becom-

ing mainstream.As Albert Wholstetter

- academic tutor to leading neo-cons

Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and overall movement guru -

was fond of pointing out, a pre-emptive option is the only rationalresponse to an overall assumption of adversary irrationalism.However, a stance predicated on deterrent irrationalism elides,necessarily, into irrationalism per se

- a point recognised by

Henry Kissinger in his famous (or infamous) advocacy of .mad-man theory' concerning the supposed utility of disproportionatemilitary threats.

'Remoralising US foreign policy,: irrationalism and therise of political religionThe power base of the Reagan Republicansrs had been increasing-ly drawing on christian fundamentalists, whose grassroots mobil-ising skills were rivalling those of AIPAC, and where a closealliance of 'Christian Zionism' was being forged. The price of thissupport was the fundamentalists' agenda of 'remoralising' USforeign policy

- that is a stance of black-and white, zero-sum

ffi Ambassador Paul C. Warnke, Washington, DC,May, 199 I . Warnke was head of the Arms Control and DisarmamentAgency and led for the US in talks of 1977-8.14 See Ben-Ami, (see note 5), p. 76.l5 Well captured by US writer Craig Ungar inhis The Fall of the Houseof Bush (London: Vista, 2008).

Summer 2009

Lobster 57

policy choices, whose expression was found in Reagan's ownfrequent recourse to Manichaeanism. Thus, at the close of theReagan presidency, we can consider the rise of three sources ofpolitico/religious-inspired irrationalism in the world system:Christian fundamentalists in the US; Zionist fundamentalist inIsrael and the US; and Islamist fundamentalists in Afghanistanand the Middle East, armed and bankrolled by the US to attack the'evil empire'.

There was also a fourth and more profound, if routinised,irrationalist wellspring

- market fundamentalism. This was the

moment of the 'End of History', wherein the workings of themarket were viewed as a source of moral value rather than asmerely an historically contingent means of organising aspects ofcollective social needs. But when combined with the developingdoctrine and technology for pre-emptive war, capitalism's drivefor 'creative destruction', eulogised by such as Michael Ledeenand earlier detailed in classic sociological analysis by MaxWebber and Thorsten Veblen, was to ground an altogether noveland unpredictable phase in post-cold war politics.

Reagan's administration, as we have discussed in our book,made extensive preparations for nuclear war-fighting (Star Wars,Pershing 2, etc) and on several occasions in 1983-4, nearly trigg-ered a Soviet nuclear response. With the former Soviet Unionitself embracing capitalist 'shock therapy' in the early 1990s, the'moral imperative' prop for nuclear pre-emption had droppedaway. Left flourishing, however, was the conception that US coldwar triumph was part of a natural order

- or at least, should be

made so. Hence, as we have also discussed, the efforts of PaulWolfowitz and Dick Cheney at the Pentagon to establish the pre-emptive principle as a part of the US strategic furnirure.

Despite mounting near-unilateral military efforts in Iraq andthe Balkans, the doctrinal case for pre-emption found few takersin a decidedly risk-adverse Clinton administration. Steeped in the'institutionalist' tradition in US foreign policy, Clinton/Gore wereuninterested in missile defence and had little rapport with aPentagon still firmly wedded to the 'Powell Doctrine' of eitheroverwhelming military force in extremis or, in practice, doingnothing. The neo-cons, however, were marshalling their forces. ARepublican congress, returned in 1996, had reinstated calls forBMD and had their demands partially conceded by a nowincreasingly distracted White House.

History will judge harshly?Throughout the Clinton administration the neo-cons had beenconstructing a broad-based alliance, drawing on the grassrootsstructures of Christian fundamentalism, the lobby skills of pro-(greater) Israel organisations such as AIPAC and JINSA, massivecorporate finance and media hegemons such as Rupert Murdoch.The two-term Bush administration and the embrace of pre-emptive war doctrine as US strategic mainstream was the result.

George W. Bush's National Security Strategy of the UnitedStates, of September, 2002 presented an unvarnished picture ofthe now ascendant world-view:

'Our enemies have openly declared that they are seekingweapons of mass destruction, and evidence indicates thatthey are doing so with determination. The United Stateswill not allow these efforts to succeed.... History willjudge harshly those who saw this coming danger butfailed to act. In the new world we have entered, the onlypath to peace and security is the path of action.'

These perspectives were forcefully restated in 2006:

'If necessary, however, under long-standing principles ofself defense, we do not rule out the use of force beforeattacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the timeand place of the enemy's attack. When the consequencesof an attack with WMD are potentially so devastating,we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangersmaterialize. This is the principle and logic of pre-emption. The place of pre-emption in our notionalsecurity strategl remains the same.lemphasis added]'

And thus, as many in the conventional 'realist' US policyestablishment were to deplore, the Iraq war of March 2003became America's own 'war of choice', with fabricated WMDclaims as the ostensible causus belli.

Reality though, returned to haunt the crippled Bush admin-istration with a vengeance. And if Bush and Cheney (and TonyBlair) had remained true to the last in cheerleading Israel's chaoticreinvasion of Lebanon of August 2006, plans for the mostambitious Israeli pre-emption yet

- the mooted air assault on Iran

of June 2008 16 -

were quashed as being 'extremely stressful' forUS forces.tz But it may have been a close-run thing. In December2005 US Strategic Command (STRA.TCOM) announced that anew Joint Functional Component Command for Space and GlobalStrike met requirements necessary to declare an initial operationalcapabiliry. 'Global Strike' assumes the capabiliw to launch over10,000 precision u'arheads on a giren target set simultaneously.The requirements $'ere met. rt said.. 'ibliou ine a ngorous test ofintegrated planxing and operational ereculr rrn,-apabilities duringExercise Global Lighming.' As w'as u'idei1'rept''ned. ' a success-ion of US military build-ups took place over this penr-rd. against abackground of Israeli manoeuvres in the Eastern \ledrterranean.

If, in September 2008, the all-too-visible hand of marketrealism has apparently put paid to the years of magical thinkrnsthat so transfixed post-9/11 debates on national security, the danceis clearly not over yet. Ballistic missile defence sites are springingup in former Warsaw Pact facilities in Poland and the CzechRepublic, transparently aimed at Moscow. Coup-mongering con-tinues against US opponents in Latin America. And perhaps mostblinkered of all, attempts continue to absorb former Sovietterritories Georgia and Ukraine into the NATO structure, after theUS-aided'colour revolutions' replaced corrupt ex-communistswith comrpt pro-western operators. Ukraine, it should be noted, isa leading player in no-questions-asked arms dealing

- one S.

Hussein was a leading customer -

and in Georgia, Harvard-edu-cated President Shackashvili sprung a no-brainer, predictableRussian response by launching a large-scale pre-emptive bom-bardment of breakaway South Ossetia, apparently in the beliefthat he was already in the club.

We can perhaps leave the last word to London Universityanalyst Dan Plesch, who has done much to shed light on thestrategic undergrowth here:

'A "successful" US attack fon Iran], without LN author-isation, would return the world to the state that eristed inthe period before the war of 1914-18. but s'ith nuciearweaPons.'te

16 See Jonathan Steele, 'Israel asked US for -rreen light to bomb nuclear

sites in lran', The Guardian,25 September 2008.l7 Chairman of Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen. quoted in Dana Milbank,'Not So Quiet on the Third Front' The ll'ashington Post,3 July 2008.l8 See Dan Plesch, 'Considering a War u'ith Iran: A discussion paper onWMD in the Middle East' (School of Onental and African Studies, 28August 2007)19 Plesch, ibid,p.70

Summer 2009

Lobster 57

Why are we with Uncle Sam?

I was a student here l from 1971-74 doinga social science degree;but more importantly, between 1976 and I}BZ I was on the dolemuch of the time and spent most of my days in the library here,educating myself in post-war history, American history, what wasavailable then about the intelligence services

- almost nothing

-

and the post-WW2 geopolitical order, centrally the Cold War andAmerican imperialism. Looking at the reading list for the intelli-gence and national security component of this course, what struckme was that almost none of its literature existed when I was here.I have read a few of the books on the list and none of theacademic articles. what could I say on a subject of whose contentI have read so little?

I have done what anybody would do: I looked at the liter-ature and found a way to use it for something I am interested in

-this country's relationship with the United States. Because thatrelationship is one of the central features of this course, althoughit is probably never stated as such. (I may be wrong about this: Ihave only seen a sketch of the course content.) Britain's military,intelligence and foreign policy organisations are more or lessintegrated into and subservient to their American counterparts.

From the American point of view Britain has been usefulfirst as being what George orwell called Airstrip one in the1940s, and Duncan campbell called the unsinkable aircraft carrierin the 1980s, for the US Air Force. Secondly, after the early1960s when US banks began moving their money out of Americato avoid taxation and President Kennedy's attempts to regulatetheir activities. Britain became the offshore banking centre ofchoice for wall Street. And thirdly. Britain has been useful asdiplomatic cover for American po*er. For sixry years Britain has'stood by' its ally, through the slaughter in Vietnam, half amillion dead Indonesians, mititary coups all o'er South Americain the 60s and 70s, hundreds of thousands of deaths in Guate-mala, El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s, right up tosupporting it while it killed somewhere between half a millionand a million Iraqis. Britain has been a bomber base, a taxavoidance centre for US banks and a diplomatic fig reaf of'international support'.

In 1962 Dean Acheson, who had been US Secretary ofState, said that Britain 'has lost an empire and has not yet found arole.' This is always quoted as being a greatprofundity. In fact itwas just nonsense. rn 1945 America became the new school bullyand Britain became the school bully's best friend. That has beenthis country's chief international role. Being the bully's friend hasits upside

-

you don't get hit -

but it is basically a degrading role,characterised by public grovelling and private bad-mouthing.which is what the British do to the Americans: they say nothingin public until the Americans fuck-up and then they mutter in theI This is an edited version of a talk I was supposed to give at HullUniversity

- but didn't. For reasons unknown the event was cancelled

without telling me why. when discussing by e-mail with the student whoinvited me what I would talk about, I suggested I write something andsend it to him. His initial reaction to reading it was 'Terrific, but thencommunication ceased. My guess is that someone in his department

- he

said he was studying war and Security Studies, and such courses arenever a million miles from the Ministry of Defence, even if they aren,tfunded by it

- took offence at my proposed text. But who knows?

corner about the dumb, incompetent, cowboy yanks, as they didmost recently over the debacle in Iraq.

You may be thinking that I am anti-American. Not so: but Iam anti-American foreign policy. My parents were in the Comm-unist Party until the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956; and Igrew up in a climate in which the instinctive reaction to anyforeign policy issue was: the Soviets are right and the Americansare wrong. It took me until I was well into my twenties to shedthat instinctive pro-Soviet reaction. But the other half of thereaction, the anti-American one, I have not shed. Because it iscorrect: the Americans were usually in the wrong. In part this isaxiomatic: imperialism is always wrong. In my view good imper-ialism is a contradiction in terms. The historical truth is that sinceWW2, when America became the world,s dominant power, apartfrom the famine in china in the late 1950s, most of the corpses inthis period have been created by America, its allies, its proxies, oras a result of America's meddling in the politics of other societies.Difficult thought this is to grasp for those of us living in this littleisland, after 1945 the US set out to monitor, surveil and, wherenecessary, regulate the entire non-communist world.

Because the UK and the US are allies, these simple histor_ical facts are excluded from this society's public understanding ofthe world, its public discourse, if you like. And, I would guess, itis excluded from courses such as this one. A module titled 'BriGish defence and security policy's role in supporting globalslaughter, subversion and terror'

- which is what US foreign

policy has largely been about since WW2 -

is not a module youwill find in many British universities. people who talk like this donot often get invited onto Newsnight. To talk as I am doing is tobe 'an extremist'. All of which raises the obvious question: whyhave this country's political, media, military and intelligenceelites supported the path of subservience, of being America'sflunkeys?

The factorsA number of factors are visible, though how you would carculatetheir relative weight I don't know.

First, there is the mutual history. Less than a hundred yearsago the American foreign policy establishment and the Britishforeign policy establishment were interlinked through a set ofnetworks created after wwl: the British end was the elaboratedRound Table network, the American end the council on ForeignRelations. This is the origins of the so-called 'special relation-ship'. while these networks declined in significance in the 1930s,the Anglo-American link was renewed during ww2 and carriedon into the cold war years and the creation of NATo under USleadership.

Second, as the British armed forces have not been powerfulenough since the end of the Second world war to defend theinternational capitalist order in which British overseas invest-ments are located, the British state tagged along with the Amer-icans who did have the muscle to police the non-communistworld.

Third, as the US developed global electronic surveillancesystems which the British state could not match, our secret

Summer 2009

Lobster 57

servants came to rely on US-generated intelligence.The fourth reason is that a large part of the City of London

is now owned by American banks, banks which British politicianshave been afraid to regulate lest they unplug their computers andtake them elsewhere.

And fifthly, and this may now be the most important factorof all, British state personnel and politicians individually benefitfrom the link with the Americans.

Here is the late Hugo Young's notes on a conversation withthe late Robin Cook, when Cook was foreign secretary in the firstBlair administration. 2 Young asked Cook why the British govern-ment supports the US so slavishly.

'Because of the Ministry of Defence's fonaticaldetermination to keep close to the Pentagon. Theywill never do anything that puts that relationship outof line. The truth is that it is the pivot of all militarycareers and a great deal of decision-making. Anymilitary fficer who has ambitions, has to keep closeto the Pentagon, because he needs to serve in NATO.The U,S ond the UK have dominated seriousappointments in NATO for years, for this reason. his the driving priority of the MOD to keep it thatway. They do not think in terms of national interest,but of both MOD interest and the American interest.'

And talking about the bombing during the war after the break-upYugoslavia, Young comments:

'Cook ....always had to be asked for torget

approval for each new bombing raid. Sometimes hetried to say no. Each time the MOD pleaded theterrible consequence of displeasing the USA. Fromthe USA's point of view, we gove them cover. Theycould always say we were doing it too.'

The striking thing to me is how banal this is. There is no theory ofthe world here. If you are a British general, diplomat, politician,by virtue of being America's gopher, you get to hang around thetop table and play with the big boys in a way that

- say

- their

Italian equivalents never do.

The threatYou may have noticed that the stick the Americans wave atBritish politicians who look like they might disobey US instruct-ions or create embarrassment is the threat of cutting the Brits offfrom the US intelligence feed. Now, what the British state canactually do with this intelligence, we don't know. Given the toy-town nature of our armed forces these days my guess would be,not very much. The British armed forces today could not, forexample, re-fight the 1982 war with Argentine: there are notenough British-flagged ships left to transport the troops andmaterial to the South Atlantic

To my knowledge since Suez in 1956 the British state hasrefused only twice to do what the Americans wanted. In 1965-66Harold Wilson refused to send British troops to Vietnam, despiteheavy pressure from President Johnson and threats to halt USsupport for sterling. Wilson refused for two reasons that I amaware of, The most pressing was that had he sent UK troops toVietnam there would have been massive problems with the left-wing of the Labour Party in and outside parliament. And in thosedays this mattered. The second reason was suggested by theformer SIS officer Anthony Cavendish, who told me twenty years

2 This is the only interesting section I noticed in a quick skim throughThe Hugo Young Papers (London: Allen Lane, 2008)

ago that Maurice Oldfield, when deputy chief of SIS, had warnedWilson not get embroiled in Vietnam. Oldfield had served as anSIS regional head in the Far East in the middle 1950s when theFrench were driven out of Vietnam and seems to have acquired amore rational appreciation of the situation there than theAmericans did.

After 1966 the counter-intelligence section of the CIA,headed by the loony James Angleton, came to believe that PrimeMinister Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent; and CIA counter-intelligence was the ultimate source of much of the disinfor-mation and smears about him and those around him in the middle1970s. This may have been pay-back for Wilson's temerity inrefusing to bend.

It is said, by Professor Richard Aldrich amongst others,that in 1973 Prime Minister Edward Heath refused to allow theAmericans to use British bases in Cyprus for intelligencegathering during the Yom Kippur war between Israel and some ofits Arab neighbours; and that this resulted in a temporary halt inthe US signals intelligence flow to the UK. Heath was defeatedtwo years later in a leadership contest by Margaret Thatcher,whom the Americans had been cultir.ating and promoting since1967 as a potential leader of the Consen'ative Party. This mayhave been pay-back for Heath daring to de[,'the Americans.

An American colonl'?Is Britain then just an Amencan colonr.'\ot in anv conventionalsense of colonl'. At anv rate. if u'e har e been ct-rlonised, we havedone it to ourselves. But if u'e ask horr much independence doesthe UK soverunent have? The answer has to be. u e don't know.The British state apparently gets most of its intelligence tiom theUS, and most of its weapons systems, notably its nuclear \\'eap-ons, which are also controlled by the US.

The day I wrote some of this a former British intelligenceofficer, Crispin Black, wrote in the Independent on Sunday of the'special relationship syndrome' :

'The Joint Intelligence Committee, the military, theintelligence services, the mechanisms that control our"independent" nuclear deteruent are all heavily"penetrated" by American influence. It is almostimpossible for a British minister to make o decisionon a range of national security and foreign policysubjects without the US being involved at every level.The UK's national security infrastructure runs on USsoftware which we have happily installed.'

The UK's economic independence is constrained by its member-ship of the World Trade Organisation and IMF, both controlled bythe Americans, and by the demands of the City of London, nowlargely owned by American banks. Most of our popular culture isimported from America, along with the central economic andcultural concepts which are in our politicians' heads: no biggerfans of all things American have there been than messieurs Brownand Blair following in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher. r

Since Suez in 1956 no UK government ha5 ever tried tofind out how much real independence u'e have. The curious thingto me is how little political interest there is in this. In this societyinfluence can often be measured by the amount of media noisebeing created. But it can also be measured by the silence aroundcertain subjects. By that standard, subservience to America is oneofour society's great no-go areas.

3 Brown and Blair, like Thatcher, enjoyed several freebie trips to the USfrom the US State Department while they were rising politicians.

Summer 2009

Lobster 57

America, Israel and the Israel lobby

Simon Matthews

The Israel LobbyJohn J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt

London: Allen Lane, 2007, f25

This account of the relationship between the 'Israel lobby' in theUS. the US state and Israel should be required reading for anyonewith an interest

- personal, professional or political

- in the

troubled affairs of the Middle East. The authors, both of whom areacademics, and both of whom support the right of Israel to exist,har-e produced an extremely interesting, detailed and carefullyresearched work. The publication of this book, and, one trusts, theeffect of its content seeping into the consciousness of policymakers, strategists and politicians of all types, may increase ourability to have a rational discussion about Israel

- its existence,

policies and relationship with the rest of the world -

without beingimmediately met with a counter barrage of accusations of anti-semitism and Holocaust denial from pro-Zionists.

Much of the value of the book consists of a catalogue of factspresented by the authors. Among these are the following:* Between 1949 and 1965 the USA gave Israel an average of$63m per annum in food aid and economic aid.x Between 1955 and 2005 the USA provided Israel with directmilitary and economic aid

- in grants not loans

- worth f 154 bill-

ion in 2005 prices.t This is equal to almost the entire Israeli spend-ing on defence during this period.* In addition the US military gives Israel considerable amounts ofmodern military equipment.* Because of this financial and military assistance Israel is todayranked as the 29th richest country in the world rather than consid-erably further down down the list, as would be the case if it reliedon its own natural resources.* In December 1962 President Kennedy referred to Israel ashaving a 'special relationship' with the US of the same type thatthe US had with Britain.* In the early stages of the 1973 Yom Kippur war

- marked by

some initial Israeli reverses -

the US promptly flew in hugeamounts of military aid to Israel and also supplied $2.2 billion ofadditional credits. As it transpired this did not have an immediateimpact, but had circumstances deteriorated the US aid would havebeen critical.* Six Israeli Leaders have addressed Congress

- more than any

other country.

I The Israeli armed forces are astonishing. The Israeli army, for instance,has 3,400 armoured fighting vehicles (tanks, armoured cars etc). On a pro-rata basis this would be equivalent to the British army having 34,000

-

enough for 68 armoured divisions. If this were the case the British armywould be the greatest military force ever assembled. Israel is probably perhead of population the most heavily armed country in the world.

* The Israelis (correctly) regard their relationship with the US asbeing without precedent in history.

None of the above are matters of opinion: all are facts,documented and sourced. The neutral reader may well wonderwhy more of this information is not in the public domain and why,for instance, the media do not use details like this as a preamblewhen routinely interviewing Israeli and US figures. Althoughthere are explanations advanced to explain the extraordinary con-duct shown toward Israel by successive US governments since1948, the authors examine these arguments and find themwanting.

But what do we make of this? If there is a criticism to bemade of the book it would be that it concentrates almost exclus-ively on the Israel-US relationship in the last 15 years. Had alonger perspective been taken, the material provided by theauthors would be seen as being less of a recent aberration andmore consistent instead with policies and objectives that havebeen systematically pursued over a much longer period of time.The authors argue that Israel benefits so closely from US foreignpolicy, and that US foreign policy is often so closely aligned tomeeting Israeli requirements, that it is far from clear in many casesif the US govemment is actually pursuing its own legitimateinterests.

What the authors mean by 'the Israel Lobby' (and its modusoperandi) can be traced back to the initial deliberations of theWorld Zionist Congress at Basle in 1897 and its adoption, follow-ing the many appalling pogroms inflicted on the Jews in TsaristRussia, of the explicit policy of founding a state of Israel in theMiddle East.2 Pre-1918 this entailed working with the OttomanEmpire to facilitate Jewish settlement in Palestine. The JewishColonial Trust was duly created in 1899 to fund this. As a result ofthese endeavours the Jewish population of Palestine rose signifi-cantly, from a small number of long resident indigenous Jews(perhaps 10,000 at most) to as many as 100,000 by 1910.:

Simultaneously with these efforts the World ZionistCongress sought to influence other nations and to create a climate

2 The World Zionist Congress effectively functioned as a government-in-exile for the Jewish people prior to the establishment of Israel. Itsfunctions are now discharged by the World Jewish Congress. 3 During this period, and for many years afterwards, the largest Jewishcommunity in the Middle East was actually in Baghdad. The smallindigenous Jewish population of Palestine is often overlooked. They werenot Zionist and do not feature significantly in the Israeli story. Somecaution is needed when interpreting Ottoman empire census data.

Summer 2009

Lobster 57

of opinion in favour of Jewish settrers. These were often portrayedas 'dynamic and European' in comparison to the rather indolentArabs. As early as 1908, winston Churchill Mp came out insupport of this and promoted the idea of a Jewish administeredarea in Palestine under the protection of the British Empire.During the First world war, the Zionist movement, unable todetermine, particularly in 1916-191g, which of the adversariesmight win, and being traditionally hostile to Russia and somewhatmore friendly to Germany, actively discussed the possibility of a'Jewish Homeland' with both sides. After l9lg, and the demise ofthe ottoman Empire, palestine was awarded to Britain as aLeague of Nations Mandated Territory. The Jewish Agency

-

established by the world Zionist congress -

volunteered toadminister a great deal of the palestine Mandate on behalf of theBritish, thus, helpfully, keeping the costs of running the area to anacceptably low level for the UK tax-payer. By the 1930s theBritish had come to realise that the best solution for the future inPalestine was not a l00vo Jewish Homeland but two smaller selfgoverning areas, one Jewish and one Arab; with, perhaps, Jerus_alem being a neutral zone guaranteed by the internationalcommunity. when this view was put forward by the peel comm-ission (1937) it was rejected by the world Zionist congress whichbecame markedly anti-British from this point onward.

Post warAfter 1945 various Zionist and pro-Israel settler groups in the USand Eastern Europe fought against the British, .uurirg the coll-apse of the Mandate. + They also fought successfully against theefforts of the united Nations to implement another version of thePeel Commission findings

- Arab state + Jewish state * neutral

Jerusalem -

murdering the I-rN Envoy in parestine, count Bema-dotte in September 1948 while he attempted to broker this.s onceIsrael was formally established in 1949 (the first Ben Guriongovernment being composed of the membership of the JewishAgency Board) it kept on good terms with both the UK andFrance, both nations being seen at that point as having morepower and influence in the Middle East than any other. AfterSuez, Israeli foreign policy recognised instead the predominanceof the US, with whom it had in any event continued to maintainclose and cordial relations. Hence the exceptionally close relation-ship remarked upon today by Mearsheimer and Walt.o

All of which proves what? Firstly, Israel and its Zionistsupporters have always worked with and sought the backing ofwhichever nations were most powerful at any giu"n point in timeto ensure that their overriding goal, a Jewish state of Israel, isachieved. In other words, Israel pursues its own interests at ailtimes. Secondly, and not fully spelt out by the authors, the .lobby,system is an endemic feature of US domestic politics. As well asthe 'Israel lobby' today there is, and has been since the lg50s, an'Irish lobby', after World War Two a .China lobby,, and, of4 The b"Gf taioa when Israel enjoyed supporr from both the uS and theSoviet power blocs was due in part to a number of the early Zionist leadersalso having good connections with the leadership of eastem European leftand communist parties. Much earry military assistance for Israel, in the1940s, came from Czechoslovakia.5 The murder of Bernadotte was organised by a small group that includedYitzhak Shamir, later prime Minister of Israel l9g3-19g4 and 19g6-1992.It took place during a critical period in the us presidential election cycreand when it was known that the incumbent president Truman was infavour of Bemadotte's proposals.6 And the Jewish popuration in the US exceeds the Jewish popuration inIsrael.

course, there is also the 'Cuba lobby,.zAn early example of US foreign policy being largely

determined by expatriate and politically active migrants-came inl9l7-1918 when substantial communities of Slovaks and ukrain-ians in the US lobbied for an independent 'czecho-Slovakia,, anobjective subsequently adopted by the Lansing Decraration onMay 1918. The US recognised the Masaryk gor,.--.rt on 3September 1918, when it controlled no territory, had not beenelected, and Austria-Hungary still very much existed as a legiti-1nate, internationally recognised and legally constituted body.sIn the 1950s George Kennan, who disapproved of the close USrelationship with Israel, commenting on the role played by the'captive Nations' (Eastern European dmigrds. ofien-of a rightwing or neo-fascist type), described

' . . ..compact voting groups in large cities. . . .able

to bring to bear on individual legislators....aninfluence far greater than an equivalent group ofreactive citizens are able to exert....,

To understand, then, the framework within which the US-Israel'special relationship' operates it is necessary to grasp that much ofuS foreign policy has always been determineJ, oi at least veryheavily influenced, by domestic interesr

-qroups ('lobbies') puttingpressure on politicians. In this context the Rolls Royce of .lobbies,are clearly the 80 pro-Israel groups in the uS, of which theAmerican Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIpAC)is the biggestand best organised. This is not a conspiracr. (rt doesn.t have to beunder the US constitution) and is openl' int'luential. AIpAC andits allies allocate campaign funding for candidates at all le'els ofpublic office, provided that they support Israeri policies. Theymobilise the Jewish vote to swing close electiom urd in a countrywhere most uS citizens know littre to nothing about either Israelor the Middle East, they (successfully) put into the public domaina version of reality that is highly partisan and often incorrect.

Another curious and completely legal feature of US arrange-ments that is remarked upon by Mearsheimer and walt. is theextent to which many US Jews, including many in positions ofeither public office or influence, have a ,dual ioyalty, _ i.e. asjoint US-Israel citizens they place as much reliance on their r.ie*.sas expatriate Israelis as they do on their position as uS residents.It is far from clear when considering as issue such as the \liddieEast whether the US dog is wagging the Israeli tail or'ice r ersa.

Equally alarmingly, at least to those on this side of theAtlantic, are the alliances that the various Jewish lobbr groupshave built with a dismal array of neo-conservatir.e organisationswho regard Israel as a key and significant parrner. This ttature,also known as American Jewish conservatism. ertends to thechristian Zionists, the End Timers and the chnsrran Right. Atypical outfit encapsulating this world vieu' are chnrrrans unitedfor Israel (motto: 'For Zion's Sake I will \ot Keep Silent'r. ri.hilethe most prominent christian Zionist. the Rer erend Jern Fals.ellhas proclaimed

'We are on the verge of a u'ar. . ..ri hrch u ill sen e asa prelude or forerunner to the turure Banle ofArmageddon and the glonous rerum erl Jesus

7 There are also vocal US lobbies ibr Taiu an and Srrurh Ke-rre&.8 This event, an early example possiblr tri uS rnspired 'resime change,,rapidly led to the disintegration of {ustria-Hunsan'. the most significantproblem of European diploma*'in the r91g-19,r9 penod. Robert Lansingwas the uncle of John Foster Dulles and

-{llen Dulles. It is not at all clearhow much either Lansins or \\'oodro* \\'ilson knew about central andeastern Europe' The Lansing Declaration was made during the uS mid-term Congressional E Iections.

l0 Summer 2009

Christ....'The logic here appears to be: (1) All truly patriotic US citizens arealso Christians; (2) Christians should believe in the literal truth ofthe Bible; (3) Israel was given by God to the Jews; and (4) TheBible says Armageddon will take place in Israel, presumably inour lifetime. Some of the Christian Right take this further to (5):in order to bring about (4) and the glorious salvation of all Christ-ians, Israel should undertake pre-emptive nuclear strikes againstnon-Christian nations.e

As a US voting bloc the Christian Right plus the Israellobby are formidable. The authors point out that the strength ofthis grouping is such that it enables Israel to deff US policy on thenot particularly frequent occasions that a US president tries toadvocate a contrary view. Thus, for instance, attempts to resolvethe occupation of the Golan Heights are invariably ignored,delayed or wrecked.

IraqPerhaps the most interesting chapter in the book deals with the2003 inr asion of Iraq which, the authors argue, was triggered byintense Israeli lobbying of the US and the provision by Israel ofmisleading intelligence to back up the view that an invasion and\\'ar \\'as urgently required. It is conclusively demonstrated byMearsheimer and Walt that neither oil companies nor US militaryaggrandisement generally caused the 2003 war. Rather, withouthaving to fight itself, it was Israel achieving its long term goal ofthe removal of Saddam Hussein and the cessation thereby of Iraqifunding for various troublesome Palestinian groups. The remain-ing target now for Israel is Iran and it is known that an Israelistrike on Iranian nuclear facilities as well as the selective assass-ination of key Iranian personalities are being considered.r0

What is the alternative scenario? Mearsheimer and Waltconclude that the current cost of US policy and the danger that itposes to the US itself is counter-productive in the extreme andmust change. Their view is that in an ideal world the US wouldtreat Israel like any other country. US politicians and strategistswould also define and publicly enunciate actual US interests in theMiddle East rather than allow the agenda on these to be largely setby the Israel lobby and the Christian Right. It is worth consideringhow skewed US policy over Israel has been in the recent past. Theofficial US view on Israel after 1949, for instance, was that it wasa 'major asset' in the Cold War. With Egypt and Syria dallyingwith the Soviet bloc during this period this might have had somevalidity. However Israel did not join or participate in any way inCENTO, the Middle East version of NATO, between 1955 and1979, the period of that organisation's existence. In any event itcould also be considered that part of the reason for Egypt andSyria having good relations with the USSR for much of this timewas in itself due to US support for Israel. Today it is claimed thatIsrael is 'a major partner in the fight against terrorisrn'. But if thiswere the case the absence of the well equipped (and US taxpayerffiaclysm favoured by the End rimers the Jews areincinerated whilst the Christian elect ascend to Heaven.10 Supposed Israeli intentions toward Iran currently feature regularly inthe press. See Daily Telegraph 17 February 2009 for instance, ,Israel incovert war on Iran's nuclear plans', which states 'recent deaths ofprominent figures in the procurement and enrichment process in Iran andEurope have been the result ofIsraeli "hits"....'

In 1990 Dr Gerard Bull, who had designed a 'super gun' for Iraq, andwho had also sold long range artillery shells to Israel in the 1970s, waskilled in Brussels. It is considered that either Israel or, possibly, Iran wereresponsible.

funded) Israeli army in both Afghanistan and Iraq is notable.rr Inshort, Israel is not a particularly useful asset. Ironically this con-clusion can only be reinforced when one remembers that thecontemporary debate about the Middle East and the 'road map'toward a solution to the conflict in the area still looks suspiciouslylike the BernadotteAJN proposals kicked into the long grass by theIsraelis in 1948: a'fwo state' solution, one Jewish, one Arab, withinternational guarantees for Jerusalem. If anything like this evercomes to fruition, opinion in the US may well reflect that theircountry's true role has been to pay Israel an awful lot of moneyfor a very long time to delay something first recommended by thePeel Commission in 1937.

And as for Britain? Very little mention is made of the UKhaving any role of influence on either US or Israeli-US policy.The authors positively discount Tony Blair playing any significantpart one way or the other in either Middle East events or the Iraqiwar. They do state, though, that Israel gets access on a muchlarger and better basis to US military equipment and intelligencethan the UK. The reader may also consider that the comments ofPresident Kennedy in December 1962

- that Israel had a .special

relationship' with the US similar to that which the US had with theUK

- are not accurate. There is no expatriate British voting bloc

similar to the Jewish lobby in the US and as a result Britain has nodiscernible influence on US foreign policy. Also the US does not'give' the UK military equipment

- it sells or leases it. Most

significantly of all, the UK borrows its nuclear deterrent from theUS, where Israel has been careful to maintain its own independentcapability.tz Despite this. and unlike Israel, British armed forcesregularly follow those of the US into conflicts and are frequentlyplaced under US command. It is hard to see why the US-UKrelationship is described as being particularly 'special'

- though it

is certainly unusual -

and the true role of the UK seems to be thatof a doormat.

It seems unlikely that very much will change very quicklyin the Middle East. It may be that the election of President Obamawill bring a different approach. All reasonable people would hopeso. The results of the last Israeli general election, though, do notindicate that it is a country considering a new approach to themany problems it faces. In the last resort Israel has been soheavily armed over the last 50 years by the US and has such asignificant arsenal of military materiel that any unwilling orintransigent Israeli government could sit tight knowing it wasrelatively secure until the term of office of any well meaning orliberal US President expires. It would retain the option duringsuch a difficult period of agitating

- via the Israel lobby

- within

US domestic politics, to convert elements of public opinion to itspoint of view whilst also seeking to demonstrate at all times that itwas part of 'the West' and a valiant first line of defence in the newwar against international Islamic terrorism.

This is a marvellous book but it could be business as usualfor many years to come in the Middle East.

I I Perhaps this is just as well: if the Israeli army moved into Afghanistanwhat chance would any moderate Muslim leadership in Pakistan,Uzbekistan or Iran have?12 Israel acquired its own nuclear weapons in the late 1960s

- initial work

on this project took place under French auspices. There is some evidencethat Israel assisted South Africa in developing a small number of nuclearbombs in the 1980s and even that a joint Israeli-South African nuclear testtook place in the South Atlantic in 1979. Nuclear disarmament in theMiddle East does not seem likely unless Israel agrees to divest itself of itsown weapons in exchange for other countries abandoning theirs.

i1 Summer 2009

Lobster 57

Lobster goes to the movies !

FrostNixonOr, a load of old dick

Anthony Frewin

When Frost/Nixon ftst appeared at the Donmar Warehousetheatre in London back in 2006I wondered why on earth anyonewould want to stage, to re-create, what was, essentially, a non-event. Why indeed? One can imagine mere actors relishing theopportunity to 'interpret' Frost and Nixon but who else would beinterested? This does rather tend to underscore Gore Vidal'sobservation that the only people who really enjoy themselves inthe theatre are those on the stage. Perhaps theatre is just for thebenefit of the actors and directors? It certainly seemed like it withthis one.

Now let's jump cut three years to 2009. Frost/Nixon hasbecome a movie land it's getting more plaudits and praise than thelast Big Thing (whatever that was). Here's what the film's websitehas to say:

'More than 45 million viewers hungry for a glimpseinto the mind of their disgraced former commander inchief, and anxious for him to acknowledge the abuses ofpower that led to his resignation, sat transfixed as Nixonand Frost sparred in a riveting verbal boxing match overthe course of four evenings. Two men with everythingto prove knew only one could come out a winner.

Their legendary confrontation would revolutionize theart of the confessional interview, change the face ofpolitics and capture an admission from the former presi-dent that startled people all over the world, possiblyeven including Nixon himself.'2

Huh? This is not how I remember the original television broadcastback in 1977 and it was widely regarded as an over-hyped wasteof time that delivered little or nothing (as can be seen in manycontemporary reviews). Where were the big questions on Nixon'sMcCarthy years? Alger Hiss? The campaign against Adlai Steven-son? Bugging the DNC? The 18 minute gap on the tapes? None ofthese questions were put by Frost.

What actually did Frost get from the disgraced president?Nixon recognised 'errors' but denied any crimes, obfuscated orrationalised anything inconvenient, only 'admitted' to what hadalready been established, and capped it all with a bid for sympa-thy. This orchestration was ladled with Tricky Dick's Hallmark-style phraseology, things like his mistakes 'were mistakes of theheart rather than the head' and so on.

The movie's tag line is: 400 million people were waiting for,:::*,, Well, they didn't get it then and they're not getting it

I Frost/Nixora: directed by Ron Howard, screenplay by Peter Morganbased upon his stage play. Cinematography by Salvatore Totino. Music byHans Zimmer. With Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell,Kevin Bacon, Toby Jones. Running time: 122 minutes.2

Frost and Nixon had, essentially, entered into a business part-nership. Nixon got $600,000 up front with 20Yo of the subsequentsales to television stations around the world, a prettv unusualalrangement. The film mentions the $600,000 but not the 20o/o.Nixon hoped to re-establish his reputation with the inten'iews(and make a fast buck or two in the process). while Frost primar-ily was out to rescue his career from the skids (he was then host-ing a raree-style show on Australian TVI). : And thus it was. Theidea, promoted by the film, that this was some sort of clash of theTitans where there could be only one u.inner is nonsense. Herewere two guys on the make, shor.r'-biz st1'le. The claim that Frost'nailed' Nixon is a lie also and Peter \lorean. the s'riter of thestage play and the film adaptation. bears the responsibiliry'for this.The film has Nixon admitting that he 'u as rnvolr ed in a "cover-up" as you call it.' Nixon's actual words \\'ere. '\'ou're u'antingme to say that I participated in an illegal cover-up. No!' Does thetruth matter to this u'riter? Apparently not. I guess he's got adramaturge's 'Get out ofjail free' card.

The film is quite watchable if you approach it as some throw-away fictional entertainment which, I suspect, may be hard to do(not for Philip French however, see below). Frank Langella is afine actor but his Nixon sometimes displays a humour and cuddli-ness that the original certainly didn't have. Mind you, it's headand shoulders above the ever emollient Anthony Hopkins inOliver Stone's film who plays Nixon like a paedophile on heavymedication. The only screen portrayal of Nixon that has evercome near to capturing that strange combination of resentment,bitterness, loneliness and, yes, wlnerability, was Jason Robards'in Washington Behind Closed Doors.q

How did Nixon view himself film-wise? In his more palmydays when he envisaged Hollywood making The Richartl -\norStory he thought only one actor could do himself justice

- Jack

Lemon (!)sLangella's performance throws into relief \1i,"'hael Sheen's as

Frost. Sheen's reliance on perkiness and breeziness as a substitutefor more mature stagecraft is irritating and supert-rcial, but thenFrost himself was always rather superficial. In tact. Frost himself,come to think of it, is a bad actor. \\-hener er he sot animated andshowed some emotion you alrn'ay's felt he \\'as c7.ril?g.that emotion.

3 Frost was wittily and famously' descnbed bl Kiqt' \luggeridge as 'theman who rose without trace.'4 A TV mini-series from 1977 drrected bv Gan'\elson. Robards'character is actually named President Rrchard \lonckron. but it's Nixon allright. The series was based on the roman-a-clef b1'ex-\ixon White Housestaffer John Ehrlichman. The Companr (1976). Surprisingly, a series neverreleased on video or DVD.5 In line u'ith this is N{ort Sahl's joke about a typical evening at homewith the Nixons: 'Pat is knitting a flag while Dick is on the sofa readingthe Constitution.'

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Lobster 57

That it wasn't the real thing.Matthew Macfadyen does a wonderful burlesque of the unct-

uous John Birt, 6 and there are good performances too from KevinBacon and Sam Rockwall.

The movie is quite enlightening on the comings and goings ofthe negotiations that lead up to the interviews, yet we have to takeits veracity on trust and the 'special Thanks' given to Sir (no less)David Frost in the film's end credits make one wonder whether alittle reality massaging didn't go on. I guess we'll never know.Not that we care.

Putting together the script for this wouldn't have strainedeven the most mediocre of writers. A real challenge for a realwriter who really wanted to try and understand Nixon would havebeen to have invented one of those imaginary conversations thatwere so popular at one time.z How about H L Mencken confront-ing Nixon?

This is certainly a movie you can afford to miss. It's for therubes who don't know their history and think they're getting someinside track.

The danger with this film is that younger audiences mightactuall1,' believe the hype, that this was an important politicalevent. something on a level with say, the Army-McCarthy hear-in_gs.: It wasn't.

One would also hope that the more responsible film criticsn'ould draw attention to just what is wrong with a film like this.But do they? None that I've read. Take the esteemed PhilipFrench (born 1933), the film critic of the London Observer.s Hisreview runs to a little under 800 words. The first paragraph is aonce-over of Nixon's career (HUAC, the Checkers speech,debates with Kennedy) and then we get this:

'In 1977 he fNixon] was finally sunk when David Frost....led him into saying on Watergate that 'when the Presidentdoes it, that means it is not illegal'....'

Oh, so it wasn't unttl then that Nixon wasfinally sunk, andby thisplucky little Britisher, Dave Frost. no less. And he hadn't been'sunk' before then? I grress resigning as the President in 7974,three years earlier, was merely some administrative detail of littleor no consequence?

Further on we have this gem of aparagraph:'FrostA.{ixon is a riveting film, sharper, more intense thanthe play. It brings to mind such forensic triumphs ofdramatic literature as Portia bringing down Shylock with

6 Or Lord Birt as he now is, the famous Armani-clad 'blue skies thinking'ex-head of the BBC renowned for his unfathomable managerialgobbledygook (regularly reproduced in the pages of Private Eye). Hisennoblement by the Revd. Blair is widely seen as a result of his friendshipwith Peter Mandelson, a former colleague at London Weekend Television.

Here's a bit of Birt biog that may be overlooked by future writers. I wasambling through the British Film & Television Year Book 1972-3 when Icame across a full page ad for Ernst Finster, 'The Finnish Pole Vaulter',huh? At the bottom it says, 'All enquiries c/o John Birt, London WeekendTelevision.'7 It didn't end with Walter Savage Landor. Try Robert Baldick's Dinnerat Magny s (London: Gollancz, 1971). Imaginary conversations betweenFlaubert, Turgenev, the Goncourt brothers, Sainte-Beuve, etc. Riveting.8 Captured in Emile de Antonio's famous documentary fiIm, Point ofOrder! (1964).9 The review appeared in the 25 January 2009 issue and is available on-line at complete with a photo of said critic in oracular mode. The Obsert er, aonce great liberal newspaper, is now in terminal decline with news beingelbowed out by lifestyle and entertainment featurettes and some prettyropey columnists, though I'd except Nick Cohn and Henry Porter fromthis description.

guile and subtlety in The Merchant of Venice, BameyGreenwald reducing Commander Queeg to a gibberingmess in The Caine Mutiny and the gentle liberal HenryFonda destroying Lee J Cobb to get his "not-guilty" votein l2 Angry Men.'

I doubt if the publicity machine behind Frost/Nixon could haveput it better. Here we have the interviews elevated to these'forensic triumphs of dramatic literature'!As my late good friendDavid Seabrook would have said with some irony, 'No mereentertainment this!' Unfortunately a lot of French's readershipwon't know any better and will swallow this guff.

The remaining five prolix paragraphs amble betweenoutlining the story and comments on the actors and so on, withoutever once confronting the accuracy or legitimacy of the movie.Prolix? Yes. Take this:

'Nixon, full of confidence, seeks to undermine Frost,using what Zelnick refers to as "mind games", though Idoubt if the term was used in those prelaptop andcellphone, long-hair and sideburns, broad-lapel, bell-bottom days.'

He could have just said 'I doubt if the term was used in 1977',which would have been simpler, and dispensed with the inventory(the 'pre' applies to the laptop and cellphone and all the otheritems. What he meant to say was 'in those long-hair and side-burns, broad lapel, bell-bottom, pre-laptop and cellphone days.'Wasn't there a sub to pick this up?) But why mention this at all?Just to let us know he was paying attention to everything? ('Boy,that French guy! Nothing escapes him!')

Now let's get to why I actually quoted this sentence. Forgetabout prolixity. Here's the real reason: French cannot be botheredto investigate and discuss the truth or accuracy of the movie, itsbasic premise that is, but here he is drawing our attention to asuspected anachronism in the dialogue! Is this what matters?Apparently so. And from this jive he makes a living (to para-phrase a line of dialogue in Stardust Memories)?

Let's take a detour while we're here. The term 'mind games'was avery popular term in the 1960s as anyone who can remem-ber that decade will recall. I think it grew out of the drug culturein the States. The Merriom-Webster on-line dictionary gives a firstoccuffence in 1963,t0 and in 1910 it was the title of a best-sellingpopular psychology book by Robert Masters and Jean Houston.rt

French couldn't even be bothered to get offhis ass and checkit out.

Finally, it should be noted that The Observer, not contentwith French's piece, produced an eight page 'advertorial' supple-ment on the movie. The small print on page fwo gives the gameaway: 'Produced by the Observer, to a brief agreed with UniversalPictures. Paid for by Universal Pictures.' Let's just hope if JasonStatham ever gets around to Hamlet the advertising budgetextends this far.

The much mourned Peter Cook said that the one big regret hehad in life was saving David Frost from drowning back in the1960s. Had he left Frostie in the swimming pool we wouldn'thave to put up with this travesty of history. Sic transit!

Anthony Frewin was an assistant to Stanley Kubrickfor overtwenty-five yeors and is the author of several books. Herecently wrote the screenplay for the John Molkovich film,Colour Me Kubrick.

1 0 ll Mind Games: The Guide to Inner lpace (New York: Dell, 1970).

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Lobster 57

The crisis

In Parish Notices in the last issue I wrote'there isn't much in thisissue about the economic situation because there really isn,t muchto say that hasn't already been said, for example by Larry Eiliotin The Guardian every week.' wett, I changed my mind ablout thatand here are the bits Ifound most interesting or useful.

OnIy one warning light on the UK economy: inflationThe Bank of England's Sir John Grieve stood down in Marchfrom his role in charge of financial stability at the Bank ofEngland. In an interview with the BBC,s Robert peston he tried toexplain how and why the Bank of England got it wrong:

'We didn't think it was going to be anything like assevere as it's turned out to be... Why didn,t we see thatit was so serious? I think that,s because....we hadn,t keptpace with the extent of globalisation. So the upswinghere didn't involve the big increases in earnings andconsumption and activity which we saw in previousbooms. We saw the credit, we saw the house prices, butwe did see afairly stable pattern of earnings, prices andoutput.' (emphasis added)

This is the heart of it on this side of the Atlantic. Economic policythinking between the years between 1979 and 1997, when NewLabour took office, had been dominated by the fear of inflationgetting out of control as it did between 1972 and l976.How manytimes did Gordon Brown boast of stability (meaning pricestability, of course) during his time as chanceilor? Twenty fiveyears after the events of the mid 1970s Brown still felt it necess_ary to demonstrate over and over again that Labour would not bethe party of inflation. (As if Labour had caused the inflation in the1970s!) The Monetary policy committee under New Labour hadbeen tasked to worry chiefly about inflation. All the other indi-cators

- the creation of debt, the external trade deficit, for

example -

were secondary. In the system in which Gordon Brown(and Grieve) thought they were operating, they didn,t matter. Itwas assumed that a rising money supply would produce inflation:too much money chasing too few goods, pushes up prices; and sowould a rising external trade deficit as the international varue ofsterling falls and pushes up the price of imports. So the inflationwarning light would come on in response to a wide range offactors. But neither the rising deficit nor the expansion of creditproduced the expected inflation The ever-growing trade deficitdid not push down the value of sterling becaui the foreigncurrency traders didn't care about the deficit, only about the rela_tive earnings on money deposited in sterling.r The ever_increasingmoney supply, or debt formation, didn't cause inflation becausethe Chinese and Indian economies were producing very cheap _increasingly cheap

- goods which didn't push ,p In" retail price

index. So the system trundled on, increasing credit formation anda growing trade deficit producing little inflation, except in theprice of houses, and that wasn't included in the inflation index. Asfar as the official system was concerned, all was apparently well

-Grieve's 'a fairly stable pattern of earnings, p.ices and ouput.,ffiick Cheney who famously said that deficitsdidn't matter any more.

As Grieve says, the Bank had identified the global bubble. one ofits own committees warning of the dangers of alr this creditexpansion in2006. commenting on this the Telegraplt noted atthe time:

'The City could face a financial meltdorn,n if the debtbubble bursts, with over a year,s worth of bank profits-

f.40 bn -

potentially being wiped off balance sheets,the Bank of England warns today. The Bank is issuinga stark warning about the potential damage a creditcrunch and a collapse in asset prices could cause to theeconomy and financial system......ln a worse_case scen_ario, a sharp fall in credit conditions *'orld-wide wouldhave devastating consequences for Bntain, the Bankwarns. It could cause a l.5oh contraction of the UKeconomy, a25oh fall in house prices and a 359/o drop incommercial property prices over three \.ears. accordingto the scenarios mapped out bv the Banl. Other maloicountries would suffer similar effects. ir savs..:

Revisiting this more than2 years later. the same \\-nter. EdrnundConway, commented that a good dear of the brame has ro rie withthe Bank's Governor, Menyn Kin_s. *ho .succumbed to thereceived wisdom spouted in the Cit1,' that secunrisarion

- the sale

of mortgage debt onto other in'estt.s -

had. reduced the nsk inthe banking system.....'3

Even so, why didn't King. Grier e and ,--t-r. raise interest ratesto attempt to stem the growth in lendrns and rhe rise in the priceofhouses and other assets?

Robert Peston gave one ans\\,er in his pier-e.'As others at the Bank of England har.e told me, theBank's Monetary policl cermminee berie'ed mistakenlythat the lending bin_se and asset-pne-e SUrg were semi_independent from actir in. in the real economy, and thatthey would er.entuallr. moderate without wreakingdevastating damage ro prrrspects for households andbusinesses.'

At one level I find this in,-'redible: ho*. could a monetaty policycommittee think thar a rendins bin-se (of all things) *u, ire-i-independent from the real ecLlnom\"? But the nroni*y,s inJlationwarning light had not c()me on.....

Grieve gave peston the rest of the answer:'If we'd used interest rates to try and address this asset-price credit gro\\1h.: *.e * ould have been holding downthe level of acti'in'else*'here in the economy, in manu-facturing. in other sen'ices. hording down the level ofemployment at a time u-hen consumer price inflation andearnings u'ere stable and reasonably loli.. And peoplewould ha'e said, you knou'. "this is a w'ilful reduciion inthe prosperiry, of the country".' :

2 Edmund Conu'ay City faces meltdown if debt crisis hits,, DailyTelegraph,12 luly 2006.3 He changed his mind

- see Tom Easton's book review below

- but too

late.4 He means borrowing against rising house prices.5 Robert Peston

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Lobster 57

In the first half of the quotation Grieve shows why the idea of'controlling' a system as complex as the economy using onlyinterest rates

- what Edward Heath derided in the 1980s as 'one

club golf ' -

doesn't work. In the second half he shows whyattempts to 'control' the economy using only interest rates ispolitically difficult: it causes unemployment. ln 1973, under theCompetition and Credit Control legislation, interest rates weresupposed to rise in response to rising inflation. But the economicconsequences are so severe

- what Grieve ponderously describes

as 'a wilful reduction in the prosperity of the country' -

that, likePrime Minister Heath in 1973, when push comes to shove mostpoliticians won't wear it.6

Further, as I reported in Lobster 53 (p. l2), the formerGovernor of the Bank, Eddie George, admitted that the Bank hadalso been active in creating the credit bubble:

'In the environment of global economic weakness atthe beginning of this decade.....external demand wasdeclinin_e and related to that business investment wasdeclining. We only had two alternative ways of sus-tainin,s demand and keeping the economy movingtbnvard: one was public spending and the other wasconsumption..... But we knew that we were having tostimulate consumer spending; we knew we had pushedit up to levels which couldn't possibly be sustained intothe medium and long term. But for the time being, ifwe had not done that the UK economy would havegone into recession just as had the United States. Thatpushed up house prices, it increased household debt.'7

The blame gameThe new chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA),Lord Adair Turner, has said its failure to spot the banking crisis inadvance was partly due to the style of regulation wanted by thepoliticians 'which suggested the key priority was to keep it lightrather than to ask more questions.'s This line was echoed the nextday by the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King:

'Mr King also claimed that financial regulators wereunable to stop City banks taking huge risks because theydid not get support from the Government and MPs.......Regulators who had criticised banks lending in 2006 or07 would have had "a massively difficult task" persuad-ing politicians to back them. "They would have been seento be arguing against success," said Mr King. Suggestingthat politicians were in thrall to powerful banks, Mr Kingsaid any regulator who challenged the banks would havebeen left isolated and "lonely".'e

6 Only Mrs Thatcher, with North Sea Oil revenues at their peak, couldafford to ignore this.7 As for what should be done, Grieve stated the obvious: 'Maybe we needto develop something which bridges that gap and directly addresses thefinancial cycle and prevents the financial cycle and the credit cycle gettingout of hand... I think we need to complement interest rates........ withsomething which is more financial-sector specific.'

This was echoed in remarks made by the Bank of England's CharlesBean, deputy governor for monetary policy on 16 February 2009 to foundat and by Lord Adair Turner, the new chair of the FSA, in The Economist'sInaugural City Lecture ,21 Jaruary 2009 at 8 2 5 Mar ch 20099 James Kirkup, 'Mervyn King, the Govemor of the Bank of England, hassaid it is "impossible to say" how much capital will be required to shoreup the British banking system', The Doily Telegraph 26February 2009.

Don't blame the regulators, blame the politicians.....But thisreally won't wash because there is no evidence that the regulatorsever appealed to the politicians for support. No doubt King isright about the kind of reception regulators would have receivedfrom the politician