How the Neo-conservatives and the Pro-Israel Lobby influence foreign policy

An article on the UK Times Online by Sarah Baxter entitled "Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran" perfectly illustrates how the Neo-conservatives and the rest of the so-called Pro-Israel Lobby have been incessantly influencing U.S. foreign policy behind the scenes. As Times Online puts it:

ONE of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged President George W Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire nuclear weapons.

Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement who has joined Rudolph Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

The encounter reveals the enduring influence of the neoconservatives at the highest reaches of the White House, despite some high-profile casualties in the past year.

For the most part, the Neo-conservatives always try to downplay their influence. In this case the meeting was essentially a secret meeting that never existed:

Karl Rove, who was still serving in the White House as Bush's deputy chief of staff, took notes. But the meeting, which lasted 45 minutes, was not logged on the president's schedule.

No one would ever have known about the meeting until Podhoretz publicly admitted or essentially bragged about it:

"I urged Bush to take action against the Iranian nuclear facilities and explained why I thought there was no alternative," said Podhoretz, 77, in an interview with The Sunday Times.

Times Online also tells us how the Neo-conservatives are already lining up to influence the next presidential administration:

... neoconservatives are helping to shape the foreign policy of Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner for the White House, who said in London recently that he would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.

Podhoretz has already explained his theory about Islamofascism to the former New York mayor. "He doesn't call it world war four, but I know he thinks it is," Podhoretz said.

This is pretty scary stuff. Life doesn't get much darker and more sinister. Nonetheless, most people remain blissfully unaware of what is going on or are merely callously or negligently indifferent.

-- Jack Krupansky