Stephen Walt, Harvard's Israel-Bashing Political Scientist, Implicated in Libyan Influence-Peddling Scandal

While many supporters of Israel are well acquainted with Stephen Walt, who co-authored the wildly controversial attack on the Jewish state in "The Israel Lobby," my familiarity with the Harvard political scientist goes back to the 1990s. Walt's theories on realism and the balance of threat in strategic studies formed a basis for my dissertation work. I had no idea that Walt was a far-left wing crackpot until the controversy over "The Israel Lobby" burst out in 2006. Even then I looked at it mostly as a matter of scholarly differences within political science. But since Walt became a blogger at Foreign Policy a couple of years back I've really gotten a handle on his hatred of the Jewish state. I went back and read The Israel Lobby in book-length, and I assigned the essay from the London Review in my World Politics classes. So it's pretty fascinating that Professor Walt is deeply implicated in the Libyan lobbying controversy that's been in the news this last couple of weeks. David Bernstein writes on this at Volokh Conspiracy, "Stephen Walt on Libya." And in the comments there especially, from Gary Rosen:

Walt is just one more in a long line of Western hypocrites who make[s] a living demonizing Israel while winking at her enemies which are mostly bloody human rights hellholes. He and his ilk have been hugely responsible for enabling the repression that infects the region.

Walt lied, people died.

So true, although Walt's precise location within the Libyan lobby is sketchy. He took a recent junket to Libya at the invitation of the Gaddafi dictatorship "to give a lecture to its Economic Development Board ..." The nature of the financing or compensation is unknown, but given that a number of other well-connected academic have previously traveled in these footsteps, it's obvious that Libyan lobbying efforts in the U.S. are paying off. And there's a detailed analysis at Elder of Zion as well, "Stephen Walt and Gaddafi's Libya." Following the links there takes us to a killer piece from Martin Peretz at The New Republic, "The Qaddafi family didn’t lack for Western allies." Folks should just click the link and RTWT. Peretz provides a beautiful background to some rather ignominious writing Walt's done recently on his Foreign Policy blog. Walt predicted that the Tunisian revolt wouldn't spread to the rest of the Middle East. Big mistake, obviously, and Walt offered a sort of apologia sometime later, at "What I got wrong about the Arab revolutions and why I'm not losing sleep over it." Peretz makes mincemeat of it all:

Smart man, this Walt! But spread, the revolution did, to Egypt even before it went elsewhere, which now makes it almost everywhere in the Arab world. Barely a month later, Walt had to admit in Foreign Policy, the journal that routinely carries his enormous mistakes in fact and in judgement, “What I got wrong about the Arab revolutions and why I’m not losing sleep over it.” But his was not just an evaluative error. It was a basic misunderstanding of Egyptian realities: “I underestimated the degree of internal resentment” in Egypt, which is the basic fact about Egypt, isn’t it? This is like a doctor saying, “I thought it was a common cold. I’m sorry; it turned out to be pneumonia.” The physician, if a person of conscience, however, did lose some sleep over his bungle, as Walt is proud to tell us he did not. Apparently, Arab life is cheap not only to the collapsing regimes but also to this Kennedy School professor. One thing is for sure, and it is that there’s no wisdom in taking his classes.

No, no wisdom there at all.

RELATED: "Libyan Opposition Leaders Slam U.S. Business Lobby's Deals With Gaddafi."