The US national security elite, also known as the “blob”, wasn’t on the ballot Tuesday but its presence contributed to the massive repudiation of the Republicans and the sitting president.
Obama’s advisor Ben Rhodes originated the pejorative–the blob–to refer to the neocons who got all the major decisions wrong but somehow maintained a lock on policymaking, even when it was clear to the rest of us what complete fuck-ups they were. And, of course, the gang-that-can’t-shoot-straight has gone on to new adventures, including the AI driven Israeli Gaza genocide, and criminal attack on Iran that featured the assassination of the Iranian leadership and bombing of a girls elementary school.
But now that Trump and the Republicans have just suffered a massive defeat in the US midterms the blob is in disarray. Some pundits are calling it an earthquake, but for those of us paying attention this was predictable from the moment Trump and Netanyahu decided to attack Iran in February. Americans usually don’t care about foreign policy, but the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections demonstrated the limits of this truism, with over 70 percent of voters rejecting the attack on Iran initiated by the Trump administration.
Even Vice President Vance is blaming the attack on Iran for the GOP drubbing. He pointed to four answers the pollsters gave him about what voters said would win their votes back: ending the war, focusing on cost of living, putting “America First” and changing the U.S. relationship to Israel.
Foreign policy starts and ends at home. Most citizens are completely uninterested in foreign policy until it directly hurts their interests. Trump promised no new wars then broke his promise. The attack on Iran has made Americans poorer and feel less safe. His foreign policy has come home to roost and it was always obvious that it would. Voters who link their falling living standards to foreign policy choices will punish the parties responsible.
The neocons who make up the intellectual cadre of the blob are in shock, blaming everything and everyone but themselves and their patron–the genocidal state of Israel. Indeed, the main reason the blob is so defensive is that their support for the Zionist state is under scrutiny at a moment when Israel policy has never been more politically contentious. Notably, voters of all political persuasions displayed a massive rejection of Israel, which Vance said contributed to the stunning defeat. Indeed Americans are increasingly skeptical of and opposed to the current U.S.-Israel relationship to a degree that we have not seen before.
In an article for the Center for International Policy, Thanassis Cambanis, is hopeful that the elections results will lead to changes in US foreign policy. “The good news is that candidates and voters are breaking the blob’s shackles. They don’t want a foreign policy imposed on them which savages the world and leaves Americans worse off too. The blob’s consensus left no one safer or better off. The raw and open discourse about Gaza, Israel, the Iran war, and America’s destructive addiction to militarism and military spending suggests that the blob’s monopoly might finally be collapsing.”
One can only hope. We will know the Democrats are serious about change if they challenge the blob. There is a desperate need for a new Church and Pike Committees, that occurred post Watergate, where senators and congressman exposed CIA assassinations of foreign leaders; COINTELPRO; Operation SHAMROCK, an NSA domestic spying operation; and other abuses of power. In 1976, the House Select Subcommittee on Assassinations began its work, eventually determining that multiple shots were fired in Dealey Plaza.
Americans need to know why and how the US has waged one war after another. It should not just focus on Republicans and Iran, but should include the Democrats and Ukraine. And what about that whole war on terror rampage that featured invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, endless bombing and drone strikes and a world-wide archipelago of torture sites?
The goal should be to restore democratic oversight to US foreign policy, operating through a newly invigorated Congress, and all sources of foreign influence, like AIPAC, should be prohibited, and prosecutions and purges of the government and military should be part of it.
The blob needs to be dissolved in a bath of acid.
