Blogger Alenda Lux emails about that Bromwich post at the Huffpo Michael Rubin referred to below:

Jonah, At his Huffington Post piece, Bromwich says the following: “The truth is that many new facts are in this book, and many surprising facts. By reconstructing a trail of meetings and public statements in 2001-2002, for example, the authors show that much of the leadership of Israel was puzzled at first by the boyish enthusiasm for a war on Iraq among their neoconservative allies. Why Iraq? they asked. Why now? They would appear to have obtained assurances, however, that once the “regime change” in Iraq was accomplished, the next war would be against Iran. A notable pilgrimage followed. One by one they lined up, Netanyahu, Sharon, Peres, and Barak, writing op-eds and issuing flaming warnings to convince Americans that Saddam Hussein was a menace of world-historical magnitude. Suddenly the message was that any delay of the president’s plan to bomb, invade, and occupy Iraq would be seized on by “the terrorists” as a sign of weakness. Regarding the correct treatment of terrorists, as also regarding the avoidance of weakness, Americans look to Israelis as mentors in a class by themselves.” I haven’t read the Mearsheimer/Walt book, though I did read the article, so I’d be embarrassed to read the book. But how does the above quote indicate the power of the Israel Lobby? It wasn’t Israel working through its American allies to convince the American people of the need for war with Iraq. It was Americans who had to convince Israel (even the Israeli hawks!) that the war was a good idea. What’s more, according to this quote, the Israeli hawks were finally convinced to support the war in Iraq, not because they believed it was in their interest, but because the Americans promised to fight Iran next. So, if Bromwich is correctly summarizing Mearsheimer and Walt’s argument, not only do they have the arrows in their causal logic pointing in the wrong direction, but their argument that American foreign policy is all to protect Israel is cast into doubt when Israeli hawks (Netanyahu for goodness sake!) can only be convinced that war with Iraq is good for Israel because the next step would be war with Iran. You see now why I’m embarrassed to be seen with this book.
Anyway, I wrote about the article last year when it came out. Chances are I’d feel the same way about the book. Mearsheimer and Walt should be grateful some of their appearances have been cancelled. That only increases the chance that they’ll escape this boondoggle with their reputations still somewhat intact.