New In My Non Virtual Inbox

I was gone all day yesterday, but when I got home I saw my copy of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and I'm eager to give it a read. The originally essay certainly had its flaws, but it was much better than the demagogic counter-campaign it unleashed.

When you look at something like, say, Cuba policy it's unfortunate for our policy options to be circumscribed by the extreme views of a small domestic lobby, but it's not obvious that this has any fundamental significance. America's policies in Israel's neighborhood have, by contrast, taken on dramatically higher levels of significance over the past six years or so. The original essay prompted a little debate on this but, frankly, too little -- and I'm very eager to see what the authors have been able to do with some greater length at their disposal.