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Thank you for contributing this research. I accept it as a good-faith representation of what you found.

I was particularly interested in exactly what Tom Friedman said so I searched Tom Friedman for the six-month run-up to the war. I ended up looking only at his 3/19/03 column entitled "D-Day" which begins as follows

President Bush is fond of cowboy imagery, so here's an image that comes to mind about our pending war with Iraq. In most cowboy movies the good guys round up a posse before they ride into town and take on the black hats. We're doing just the opposite. We're riding into Baghdad pretty much alone and hoping to round up a posse after we get there. I hope we do, because it may be the only way we can get out with ourselves, and the town, in one piece.

This column has argued throughout this debate that removing Saddam Hussein and helping Iraq replace his regime with a decent, accountable government that can serve as a model in the Middle East is worth doing -- not because Iraq threatens us with its weapons, but because we are threatened by a collection of failing Arab-Muslim states, which churn out way too many young people who feel humiliated, voiceless and left behind. We have a real interest in partnering with them for change.

This column has also argued, though, that such a preventive war is so unprecedented and mammoth a task -- taking over an entire country from a standing start and rebuilding it -- that it had to be done with maximum U.N legitimacy and with as many allies as possible.

President Bush has failed to build that framework before going to war. Though the Bush team came to office with this Iraq project in mind, it has pursued a narrow, ideological and bullying foreign policy that has alienated so many people that by the time it wanted to rustle up a posse for an Iraq war, too many nations were suspicious of its motives.

The president says he went the extra mile to find a diplomatic solution. That is not true.

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So what to make of all of this? It still seems to me that my (revised) traffic light metaphor calling MSM editorial opinion a “yellow light” is fair enough – it was a mixed signal.

Contrary to what I said, your left-column NYT editorial was unequivocal in opposition, at least on the eve of the fighting.

OTOH, your article from E&P mentions the Washington Post as “backing the attack,” although quibbling about diplomacy and timetable. I believe that this contradicts, by half, your comment that NYT and WaPost were totally and loudly against the Iraq war.

The Tom Friedman column that I quoted above is harshly critical of the administration’s management of the run-up to the fighting. But the weasel is entirely okay with “removing Saddam;” he would just like the president to have put together more of a coalition. But, at bottom, he was okay with a war in Iraq. He just wanted to get all nuanced about it when the time actually came to put an end to talk.

[DIVERSION: Like everyone else, I would have preferred the coalition to have been stronger, although I always thought that the incessantly critical media seriously understated its breadth. It is true that the war was never popular in European public opinion, but we usually count these things by the positions of governments. Looked at that way, I would say that it was France and Germany who looked like the odd ducks rather than G.B. and the U.S.A. But most of the American public was convinced by negative reporting that a 30-nation coalition including the U.S.A., G.B., Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Chez Republic, Japan, Turkey, and South Korea amounted to nothing but Bush and his poodle. Of course, most of these countries, Spain and Turkey come especially to mind, really did not have the stones for a tough job. But we did not need any help winning the war anyway. How helpful would France and Germany have been in winning the peace? My opinion is that we have a better (not good) shot a success in this venture without them. They would have been a continual, carping nuisance and finally would have walked out anyway after they got hit with a few IEDs.]

Back to your main point that “the whole premise is wrong.” I am not sure exactly which statement of “the premise” that you are referring to but what I am defending is my version, which was The American Jewish community, typically a source of much of the pacifist and internationalist sentiment in foreign policy, was surprisingly cordial to vigorous military action on this occasion. Their approval was crucial, IMO. (My version is slightly less broad than Moran’s, although I made it in support of his comment.)

It is certainly true, as you have pointed out, that Jewish sentiment on the war (even leaving the Neocons out of it), has been sharply divided and sometimes bitter. I believe that there was an angry and widely publicized (I may have read it here on FR) indictment of the Jewish community by an important left/liberal religious leader making exactly this point -- that Jews were busy quarrelling among themselves rather than occupying their traditional place as a strong voice of liberal “conscience” in the public discourse. (I am sorry that I can not cite it properly.)

I persist in the opinion that leading up to the war, MSM opinion was more cordial than I would ordinarily expect for a discretionary war. It is a subjective read. Believing that, I ask myself why. The special attachment of important Jewish opinion makers to the fortunes of Israel seems to me a compelling explanation, although I realize that what was once a highly predictable community of opinion has become rather chaotic.

I agree with your comment that this war may, in fact, may increase the jeopardy to Israel rather than enhancing its security. I don’t think that the recognition that a sympathy for the war on behalf of Israeli interest might not have been wise in any way discredits it as an explanatory motive.

You also made disapproving reference to the dual-loyalty thing. Although I didn’t mention it, it is a reality. It is an extremely delicate point, and I do not wish, by commenting on it here, to disparage anyone’s loyalty to the U.S. It is quite a special situation which has no parallel that I can think of. But it would be silly for anyone to even think of claiming that many American Jews have not had a profound concern for the fortunes of Israel (although, as I have conceded, many secular Jews now seem closer to British and French view on a whole array of interests including PLO sympathy). My sense is that the concern for Israel, in the hearts of many more traditional Jews, is, in fact, equal to or greater than the concern for the U.S., which is not to say that both sides of the “dual-loyalty” are not heartfelt loyalties. I hope this does not sound inflammatory; I do not intend it in a critical way. To me it is entirely natural and understandable that people would feel this way.

In a nutshell, every slice of the polity has its particular interests, and Israel is a special interest for many Jews. Jews also have, it seems to me, a huge influence in MSM (earned by intelligence and hard work). That influence has, on balance, weighed in opposite to a muscular, non-internationalist posture in foreign affairs. The MSM seemed to me to have pulled its punch in the lead-up to the Iraq war, although it is working overtime now. This all adds up, in my mind, to making the premise that a Jewish concern for Israel was a critical factor in letting this war go forward is, at least, a plausible supposition.

I have found this discussion interesting and have been influenced by things you have said, dervish. And I particularly thank you for your research.