Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat with U.S. envoy Gen. Anthony C. Zinni in 2002

The Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, accompanied by a rise in insurgent violence in Iraq, has left the Bush administration looking shaky. But these setbacks aren't sufficient for the partisans and radicals determined to end the war on terror, and to return the country to its pre-Sept. 11 indifference to the Islamist assault on America.

From the beginning of the debate over Iraq, discrediting some of the war's more prominent architects has always meant one thing: smearing them as Zionist tools determined to drag America into a war for Israel's sake. It is a now familiar rhetorical drill: Claim that the war is an invention of the "neoconservatives," then produce a roster of the neocons that is solely inhabited by Jews.

Diplomatic flop turns accuser
The latest instance of this little trick was seen Sunday night on the CBS news show "60 Minutes," which featured a softball interview with retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni. Zinni rose briefly to fame in 2002 during a brief stint as Washington's envoy to the Middle East, an experience that gave new meaning to the word fiasco. The man was so ineffective that the post itself was obsolescent. The general who'd helped inflame Arab expectations that the U.S. would pressure Israel to appease Palestinian terrorists dropped from the public eye.

But there's no keeping a publicity-hungry ex-military man down. Zinni used the commencement of the war in Iraq to begin to try and even the score with his political foes inside the Pentagon. This campaign of self-aggrandizement via anti-war rhetoric has now reached its climax with the publication of a book (co-authored by techno-thriller maven Tom Clancy), coupled with the "60 Minutes" interview.

Correspondent Steve Croft played right into Zinni's hands as he described the Iraq invasion planners as "a group of policymakers within the administration known as 'the neoconservatives,' who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel. They include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle; National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby."

Following in the footsteps of other media outlets, including Business Week, that have played the same tune, Croft managed to list only those members of the administration who are Jewish. That's a neat trick when you remember that neither Bush, Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld nor any member of the Cabinet is Jewish. Nor did he mention the fact that a broad cross-section of the defense and intelligence establishment viewed Iraq and Saddam Hussein as threats to U.S. security and to the security of "moderate" Arab states.

Responding to previous criticisms of his singling out Jews, Zinni stretched his thin supply of credibility to the breaking point: "Because I mentioned the neoconservatives ... I was called anti-Semitic. I certainly didn't criticize who they were. I certainly don't know what their ethnic religious backgrounds are. And I'm not interested."

Given the confrontational culture of the "60 Minutes" genre, you would have expected Croft to nail Zinni for uttering such disingenuous tripe. At the very least, you would expect a follow-up question. But just because he plays "journalist" on television — like the rest of "60 Minutes" on-screen celebrities — doesn't mean he actually practices the craft of journalism. Zinni was allowed to get away with not only spreading a whopper of a lie, he wasn't even challenged to defend it.

Zinni's screed is, of course, just the tip of a growing anti-Semitic iceberg that stands ready to sink public discourse on the war into a morass of hate.

Other recent entries in the "blame the Jews" derby included Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-S.C.), who told the Senate that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been dictating policy to the White House and Congress for decades, and that the reason the Bush administration went to war was to gain Jewish votes.

Days later, another variation on the theme was voiced by United Press International editor-at-large Arnaud de Borchgrave, who wrote in a May 24 column in The Washington Times that the reason Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi was dropped by his former sponsors in the Pentagon is that he had reneged on a pledge to recognize Israel and sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state once he was installed in power in Baghdad.

Jews control everything?
The embattled Chalabi was never in any position to make good on such a pledge, and it's highly unlikely that the Pentagon demanded he even do any such thing. But if, like de Borchgrave, you are a longtime critic of Israel, anything — even an unsubstantiated story like this one — is fair game.

And for those who are fascinated with the bizarre anti-Israel slurs circulated in the Arab media, such as the disgusting lie that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 terror acts, another example has popped up. The conservative Web site NewsMax.com circulated a story on May 24 that claimed 'Israeli nationals' were behind the Iraq prison controversy. The unattributed report proved once again that in the anti-Semitic mindset, everything — even the perversions of out-of-control American reservists — can be blamed on Israel or the Jews.

Whether or not the war in Iraq proves to be a success (and heaven help the Middle East if our Islamist foes win), the idea that this project was all an Israeli plot is an obvious falsehood. Whatever possible gains in security the war inadvertently made for Israel are far outweighed by the potential boost to the American security and regional stability.

Should the tables turn in the coming months and American strategy is seen as succeeding in Iraq, you can expect to hear talk of Jewish plots cease. But don't worry, the next time anything else goes wrong, we know whose heads are going to be offered up on a plate.

Jonathan S. Tobin can be reached via e-mail at: jtobin@jewishexponent.com.