‘Prince of Darkness’ Disowns Iraq’s Tragedy

Ramzy Broud 

As Iraq stands on the verge of a complete breakdown into mini sectarian states, former leading neoconservative and Iraq war advocate Richard Perle has chimed in on the situation on Newsmax TV. His statements in an interview given on Saturday were yet another testimony to the intellectual degeneration of a group that had once promised a ‘new Middle East’, only to destabilize the region with violent consequences that continue to reverberate until this day.

The Islamic State (IS), which didn’t exist at the time of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, has seized large swathes of Syria and, along helped by a brewing Sunni rebellion, stands in control of large chunks of western, northern and central Iraq.

At the time of the 2003 invasion, Perle was one of the leading so-called intellectuals who was known for his strong support of right-wing Israeli parties, and for his particular closeness to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He served as an advisor to the Netanyahu election campaign in the mid-1990s, and, along with other leading neocons, made Israeli security – read regional domination – a top American priority.

Perle is in no mood to accept any responsibility for Iraq’s protracted tragedy,  and in so doing he is behaving the same way as Barack Obama’s administration.

‘Conspiratorial Tones’

As for Perle’s new line of logic, he seems to feel that if you criticize the neocons, you are, well, more or less, an anti-Semite. Although the line is quite useful in the lexicon of Israel’s defenders, Perle’s use of the tactic reflects an unprecedented  level of desperation.

Perle said the term ‘neoconservative,’ is “often used to describe Jewish Americans because, as it happens, some of the original thinkers whose ideas have now been characterized by this general term ‘neoconservative’ were in fact Jewish, and it often carries conspiratorial tones on the part of people who throw the term around.”

One could in fact agree, except that the former assistant secretary of defense is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, which served as a major lobby platform for Israeli interests, and is also one of the organizations behind the failed Iraq war strategy.

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