Both of his parents were teachers and union loyalists, inculcating their son with left-leaning liberal politics [...]]]> Jewish Journal’s Danielle Berrin’s profile of Jeffrey Goldberg is well worth a read for those who want to do a little armchair psychology on Goldberg. It provides no shortage of material for analyzing his views with nuggets like this:

Both of his parents were teachers and union loyalists, inculcating their son with left-leaning liberal politics but not much in the way of a religious education. Instead, Goldberg forged his Jewish identity in response to some schoolyard anti-Semitism whose traumas left him longing for the so-called muscle Judaism represented by Zionism.

Jim has written an excellent blog post on the role of humiliation in forming the neocon psyche which, when read in the context of the description of Goldberg’s “Jewish identity,” offers some insights into how Goldberg may have gained his hawkish instincts.

But the points from Berrin’s article which deserve special attention regard Goldberg’s role in the hyping of an Iraq-al-Qaeda link in a 2002 New Yorker article and accusations that he is “peddling Israeli propaganda.”

Berrin writes of the response to Goldberg’s September Atlantic cover story (I blogged about it here) on the likelihood of an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear program (my emphasis):

The story has been both widely praised and reviled. Critics accused Goldberg of warmongering, framing the piece as a question of who would invade Iran — Israel or the U.S.? — rather than challenging the sense of another Middle East incursion. Charges that he was, yet again, prepping America for war stem back to a 2002 piece he wrote for The New Yorker, in which he claimed to have found evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. The piece was widely interpreted as an endorsement for the Iraq war, which, on some level, Goldberg regrets. He now admits having been wrong about Hussein’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction “like everybody else” but maintains the dignity of the story. “I will never regret taking a stand against a genocidal fascist,” he said. “Do I regret the atrocious manner in which the Bush administration prosecuted the war, and its aftermath? Of course.” Citing a report conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, he defends his claim connecting Hussein to al-Qaeda.

While I haven’t seen many critics attack Goldberg for “taking a stand against a genocidal fascist,” I have seen a fair number of criticisms of Goldberg’s reporting. His critics assign him considerable responsibility for having given mainstream acceptance to the false narrative that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was forming ties with al-Qaeda.

Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein wrote in 2006:

In urging war on Iraq, Goldberg took highly dubious assertions — for example, that Saddam was an irrational madman in control of vast quantities of WMDs and that Iraq and Al Qaeda were deeply in bed together — and essentially asserted them as fact. From these unproven allegations, he demonstrated that an invasion of Iraq was the only rational policy.

While Goldberg had plenty of company in being mistaken about the WMD’s and al-Qaeda ties, “everybody else” was not wrong — just the power players in DC As Michael Massing chronicles in his excellent 2004 New York Review of Books article “Now They Tell Us,” dissent was all around. Knight Ridder reporters questioned the premise for the war, but their newspapers were not read in DC. Rereading Massing’s take, Goldberg’s response is a lot like that of disgraced journalist Judith Miller.

Goldberg’s half apology, in which he defers blame to the “atrocious manner in which the Bush administration prosecuted the war,” closely mirrors the avoidance of responsibility displayed by neoconservatives like Richard Perle, David Frum, Kenneth Adelman, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, Michael Rubin, James Woolsey, Eliot Cohen and Danielle Pletka when they publicly decried the Bush administration’s execution of the war to Vanity Fair‘s David Rose in late 2006. The fact that the war was, in large part, engineered by these very neoconservatives (or colleagues who, quite-literally, worked down the hall) was conveniently overlooked.

Goldberg still stands by his 2002 New Yorker article in which he depended on Mohammed Mansour Shahab, a prisoner in a Kurdish town in northern Iraq, as his source to confirm the Saddam Hussein-al-Qada link. But, as reported by The Guardian‘s Jason Burke, Shahab is a liar and very little of his story which established the al-Qaeda link for Goldberg holds up to closer scrutiny.

In contrast, liberal interventionists (and Goldberg likes to portray himself as one) have offered more thoughtful apologies for their involvement in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. The editors of the The New Republic issued an apology in which they said “The New Republic deeply regrets its early support for this war” and in may 2004, The editors of The New York Times issued an apology in which the editors took responsibility for, among several failures, depending on “Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on ‘regime change’ in Iraq,” as trusted sources. The information provided by these sources was often misleading and, at times, completely wrong, and the Times admirably took responsibility for not fulfilling basic reportorial duties of double checking their stories.

Goldberg played an important role in convincing the U.S. public that invading Iraq was necessary and well-grounded in factual data about what turned out to be Saddam’s nonexistent ties to Al Qaeda and pursuit of chemical and biological weapons. That Goldberg “maintains the dignity of the story” — a story which served to disseminate falsehoods and brought the U.S. into a preemptive war which resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Americans and, according to the Iraq Body Count project, 98,585 to 107,594 confirmed civilian casualties — raises questions about Goldberg’s own (to borrow the term) integrity as a journalist. It certainly should make readers of his recent cover story on Iran ask themselves if Goldberg is reporting based on facts or finding facts to conform to his ideologically driven narrative. (Noam Sheizaf, an Israeli blogger, has written about how Goldberg, instead of cherry-picking intelligence, seems to have cherry-picked interview subjects.)

Berrin also touches upon that very question but then lets Goldberg off the hook.

She writes:

But the more insidious critique came when others denounced him for peddling Israeli propaganda, charging him with a deep, subconscious bias. As if somehow his Jewishness makes him unfit to write fairly about Israel.

In fact, Goldberg’s most salient critics don’t attack “his Jewishness” as a bias, but rather his seeming ideological bent in support of aggressive military actions against the enemies of Israel. Connected to this, but not the sole source of the charge, is Goldberg’s service in the Israel Defense Force, where he was a corporal and guarded Palestinian prisoners during the first intifada. A more apt example of criticisms, however, might be Goldberg’s apologia for the Israeli right-wing at every turn, such as his whitewashing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal rhetoric against Iran, or how he masks Bibi’s intransigence on an issue — settlements — which Goldberg himself claims to take a liberal stand against.

More importantly, Goldberg’s history of pushing for preemptive wars in the Middle East should give readers pause when he makes the case for an Israeli or U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. When viewed in that context, the title of Berrin’s piece could be downright sinister–”Journalist Goldberg changing the world one story at a time.”

“On Point” host Tom Ashbrook asked tough questions of Goldberg, confronting him with critics like Glenn Greenwald. Goldberg fired back that Greenwald had retracted his criticisms, thereby dismissing his arguments. In fact, [...]]]> Jeffrey Goldberg made a mistake on NPR yesterday, in appearances talking about his controversial new article for The Atlantic.

“On Point” host Tom Ashbrook asked tough questions of Goldberg, confronting him with critics like Glenn Greenwald. Goldberg fired back that Greenwald had retracted his criticisms, thereby dismissing his arguments. In fact, no such retraction happened. Greenwald points out that this was not just some lapse in memory about an event that happened long ago, but that it was a “complete fabrication” about commentary written last week (in Greenwald’s updates, you’ll find much of the back and forth between the two).

The accumulation of the small mistakes is troubling, given the prominence of Goldberg in the U.S. debate. This is even the case if his newest “article hews to a strictly reportorial perspective,” as his colleague James Fallows said. Errors of fact, no matter how small, are “reportorial” errors. Muddled reportage was a major disaster in the lead up to the Iraq War.

Goldberg himself has maintained that he was right about ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda-linked groups, but he stands corrected in his accusation that Saddam was actively trying to weaponize aflatoxin (unless he cares to respond). As Ken Silverstein pointed out way back in ’06, Saddam’s regime had looked into the cancer-causing poison, but hadn’t pursued it. Goldberg nonetheless stated as fact that Saddam had a “weaponization” program twice in the run up to the war — once on Slate and once on CNN.

Silverstein even points to this amazing line: Critics of the Iraq war plan have “limited experience in the Middle East (Their lack of experience causes them to reach the naive conclusion that an invasion of Iraq will cause America to be loathed in the Middle East, rather than respected).”

Are readers really expected, after the disaster that was Iraq, to wipe Goldberg’s slate clean? And even if they do, how many more little mistakes will Goldberg make before everyone realizes he’s walked them into another big one?

UPDATE (8/21/10): In the original version of this piece, I erred in reading Goldberg’s assertion on “All Things Considered” as a new break. I thought when he was talking about U.S. officials going to China to warn of Israeli unpredictability, Goldberg was conflating two events — namely the separate April trips by U.S. and Israeli officials, where opposite messages were delivered inre: China’s energy stability.

I was wrong. Goldberg was likely talking about a late 2009 trip by Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader where they did just that. A reader pointed me to multiple stories that said as much. My apologies.

After [...]]]> The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg appears to have come through on his long-awaited cover story outlining the “red lines” for an Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Judging by Goldberg’s extensive experience with pushing the U.S. into invading Iraq, it’s worth taking a very hard look at his arguments and predictions.

After reading through the Haaretz summary of Goldberg’s article, it appears more likely that he is part of a campaign to push the Obama administration into authorizing a U.S. military strike rather than having any particularly believable scoops about an impending Israeli attack.

The article, which thus far has only been obtained by Haaretz‘s Natasha Mozgovaya, reportedly lays out the scenario in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would give the go-ahead for a massive air strike on suspected Iranian nuclear sites.

Goldberg comes to the conclusion that there is a greater than 50 percent chance that Israel will go forward with such a strike and might not even ask for a “green light” from the United States.

Mozgovaya quotes Goldberg as writing:

“…one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran – possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq’s airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft….”

Goldberg claims that Israeli officials are very clear that the end of December is Netanyahu’s deadline to evaluate the effectiveness of “non-military methods to stop Iran.”

Mozgovaya writes:

And while Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, reminded Goldberg that “the expression ‘All options are on the table’ means that all options are on the table,” - the Israeli interviewees repeatedly questioned Obama’s resolve to actually do it. Some even asked Goldberg if he thought the American president was actually an anti-Semite, forcing the reporter to explain that Obama is probably “the first Jewish President” – but not necessarily Likud’s idea of a Jew.

But the reply he got from one official was, “This is the problem. If he is a J Street Jew, we are in trouble.”

And

According to Goldberg, all the Arab officials he spoke to didn’t think that the U.S. administration truly understood Iran’s ambitions. “The best way to avoid striking Iran is to make Iran think that the U.S. is about to strike Iran. We have to know the president’s intentions on this matter. We are his allies,” one Arab minister told Goldberg.

If one takes a moment to look through all the blustering about the potential for a massive Israeli military strike against Iran, it seems fair to ask, “What exactly is being accomplished with these overblown threats?”

A consensus appears to be forming in neoconservative circles that the best way to force the Obama administration to launch a military attack on Iran’s alleged nuclear facilities is to convince the White House that Israel is prepared to attack with or without a green-light from Washington. Of course to make this threat work, hawks need to convince the White House and the U.S. public that the Israelis just might be foolhardy enough to attack unilaterally.

Mozgovaya writes:

The results might be dire: It’s likely that the Israeli air force won’t have much time to waste in Iran, as Hezbollah will probably retaliate against Israel in the North and the fighter jets will be needed there. The unilateral operation might throw relations between Jerusalem and Washington into an unprecedented crisis, and might even unleash full-scale regional war with possible economic repercussions for the whole world, not to mention the cost of human lives.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a Corporal in the Israeli Defense Forces during the first Intifada, would seem like a useful messenger for those seeking to put pressure on Obama to either ramp up sanctions or, ultimately, commit the United States to a potentially disastrous military attack.

Indeed this strategy has been employed in recent months by The Wall Street Journal‘s Bret Stephens who, in his most recent column on Israel’s willingness to go-it-alone on Iran, warns that an Israeli attack is such a disastrous scenario that Obama should reconsider his own military options towards Iran.

Judging from Mozgovaya’s reporting, it looks like Goldberg’s upcoming piece will be  spearheading a campaign to convince the White House, Congress and the U.S. public that Israeli determination to stop Iran’s alleged nuclear program is unstoppable. The likes of Stephens and Goldberg will claim that the only way around a unilateral Israeli military strike on Iran is if the United States and its allies act first.

While their campaign might seem transparent, Goldberg has an impressive track-record of pushing the United States toward wars of choice under false pretenses.

Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein wrote in 2006:

In urging war on Iraq, Goldberg took highly dubious assertions — for example, that Saddam was an irrational madman in control of vast quantities of WMDs and that Iraq and Al Qaeda were deeply in bed together — and essentially asserted them as fact. From these unproven allegations, he demonstrated that an invasion of Iraq was the only rational policy.

I look forward to reading Goldberg’s piece in full to see what further evidence he offers of the “greater than 50-percent chance” of an Israeli military strike in the new year.