September 13, 2013

AIPAC Sure Got Trounced on Syria, Didn’t They?


MJ Rosenberg dances a gleeful dance today about AIPAC’s failure to move the needle on Syria:

Reports from Capitol Hill reveal that AIPAC’s big lobbying day for war with Syria changed no votes. Not one

….The reason it failed can be described as a shift in the zeitgeist. The American people do not want to militarily engage in the Middle East again. It has had it — which is no surprise after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and even the democratic collapse in Egypt…. America is no longer buying what the neocons are selling. As Phil Ochs would say: we aint a marching anymore.

I’d dial down the triumphalism a bit myself, but Rosenberg does raise a question I’ve been wondering about too: What happened to AIPAC? Did they really get blown off as badly as they seem to have been? Did they not put much effort into this? Or was public opinion just too strong?

Frankly, the latter seems the least likely. Public opinion has never stopped them before. Nonetheless, they seem to have had about as much influence as Paul Krugman at a tea party meeting. So what happened?

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