Stephen Walt

You think about where that theory came from.

It came from John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, like back in sort of 20 years ago.

These two American international relations academics who come from the quote, unquote, realist school of international relations, which is basically the center right.

Yeah.

If you criticize Israel, you're dead.

Now, now, the, this is goes back to Jo- John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

They come up with this, uh, conceit, what should I call it? A conceit where criticism of Israel does not mean anti-Semitism.

Well, good luck.

Mm.

Stephen Walt, who is a longtime foreign policy talking head from Harvard, uh, had this piece in foreign policy.

Mm-hmm.

What Machiavelli would say about Trump.

Patrick, I'm glad you raised the issue about the Shia militia in Iraq because, John, one of the unintended consequences of the Iraq invasion in 2003 and now is as good a time as any is to recognize that and to remind some of our viewers that you, John, were one of the leading intellectual opponents of the Bush administration's decision to launch that preventive war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq invasion.

In 2003, he wrote a very important essay with Steve Walt called An Unnecessary War in Foreign Policy.

That was a version that appeared in the New York Times.

But one of the unintended consequences of that war was that by overthrowing Saddam Hussein and dismantling Iraq's Sunni-dominated political order, the US, as Patrick's implied, it effectively handed Iran control enormous strategic influence in Iraq.

I, I'm reading the book Is-Israel's Lobby, which is, you know, I highly recommend, and it's, uh, it was actually recommended by the author, one of the co-authors rather, of the Israel Lobby, you know, John Mearsheimer, and he remarked on how things have changed.

It's just that, well, back then, you know, he, he and Stephen Walt, they were really voices in the wilderness, immediately condemned as anti-Semites, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, and, and back then, too, uh, th-the political situation was really very different.

You know, it was the, the Zionists really controlled the discourse.

So I just did an article on John Mearsheimer's category mistake.

You know, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote a book called The Israel Lobby.

It came out about 20 years ago.

And in it, they said, it's not the Jews.

In this episode, he examines a powerful new book by Eli Clifton and Ian Lustig titled Israel's Lobby, America in the Grip of a Foreign Power.

Meir Scheimer explains how this book builds on, expands, and in many ways challenges the arguments he and Stephen Walt first introduced 20 years ago in their landmark work, The Israel Lobby.

He walks us through the evolution of the lobby's influence, how public discourse has shifted, how accusations of anti-Semitism have been weaponized to silence criticism, and how the collapse of traditional media gatekeeping has opened space for new voices to speak openly about U.S. policy toward Israel.

He explores the changing political landscape after October 7th, the rise of alternative media, the role of plutocrats and campaign finance, the pressure placed on universities, and the growing divide between American public opinion and Washington's political establishment.

He has fulsomely embraced Trump's policies to dismantle foreign assistance and ramp up deportations.

He's gone along with everything the president has proposed, even when it appeared that he was uncomfortable with it, says Stephen Walt, an international affairs professor at Harvard University.

In the Senate, Rubio was a leading critic of China, which he labeled a brutal totalitarian state that had lied and cheated to achieve its global position, and an unshakable defender of the U.S. military alliance with Europe against Russia's Vladimir Putin, whom he denounced as a war criminal.

NATO is one of our strategic strengths that we have in the world, Rubio told NBC in 2024, because China doesn't have these alliances, for example, and neither do the Russians, for that matter, or the Iranians.

Yeah.

Well, uh, before, before we started recording today, uh, you know, you and I were talking about, uh, uh, Stephen Walt for a bit, um, about his warnings in the 1990s about, uh, I guess the, the, the burdens and the challenges of hegemony.

That is you-- if you want to-- You know, when, when the United States was unconstrained and seemingly all-powerful in the early '90s, uh, the, you know, the key argument was this, uh, you know, in, in all the celebrations and the optimism, uh, you know, he wanted to shine some light towards the threat, which is, what does such a powerful country do when it's not constrained anymore? I mean, when there's no-- seemingly can do anything in the world, absorb any pain, uh, suddenly you would assume that the leash would be taken off on, uh, on the military industrial complex and run crazy over the world.

And, uh, you know, he compared it to a 500-pound gorilla, uh, with [chuckles], with, with no limitations.