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Or maybe even 674 pages, the length of Douglas Feith’s recent opus, War and Decision.

As you can imagine, Israel does not figure prominently in Feith’s book, and you would never guess from reading it that, as early as 1996, Feith — along with David Wurmser and their common mentor, Richard Perle — was already thinking that the ouster of Saddam Hussein was the key to transforming the regional balance of power decisively in favor of Israel, thus permitting a Likud-led Israel to make a “clean break” from the Oslo peace process and “secure the realm” of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, as well as its pre-1967 borders.

I don’t intend to review of the book, at least now. But the map that appears next to Feith’s “Introduction” depicting Iraq and its neighbors as of 2003 offers some insight into his worldview and Israel’s rightful place — or, more precisely, its size — within it:

Not much space for a Palestinian state, is there? Good strategic depth around Jerusalem. Looks like the Golan isn’t supposed to revert to Syria, either. No suggestion of occupation. It’s all Israeli.

Incidentally, In his book, Feith claims that it was Fred Ikle that got him the undersecretary for policy job, but I have it on excellent authority that it was Perle, the only man who Rumsfeld (who himself referred to the West Bank and Gaza as “so-called occupied territories”) believes is his intellectual equal, whose recommendation was decisive. And it’s good to know that the Washington Post still considers Perle credible enough to give him space on its op-ed page to warn against the perils of multilateralism in dealing with Iran, as it did today.

Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.

Rep. Ron Paul addressed the House today warning about the consequences of the proposed US attack on Iran.

Ron Paul explains why he is opposed to the “compromise” FISA wiretap bill (June 20):

Mr. Speaker, I regret that due to the unexpected last-minute appearance of this measure on the legislative calendar this week, a prior commitment has prevented me from voting on the FISA amendments. I have strongly opposed every previous FISA overhaul attempt and I certainly would have voted against this one as well.

The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens’ communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable.

In addition to gutting the fourth amendment, this measure will deprive Americans who have had their rights violated by telecommunication companies involved in the Administration’s illegal wiretapping program the right to seek redress in the courts for the wrongs committed against them. Worse, this measure provides for retroactive immunity, whereby individuals or organizations that broke the law as it existed are granted immunity for prior illegal actions once the law has been changed. Ex post facto laws have long been considered anathema in free societies under rule of law. Our Founding Fathers recognized this, including in Article I section 9 of the Constitution that “No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” How is this FISA bill not a variation of ex post facto? That alone should give pause to supporters of this measure.

Mr. Speaker, we should understand that decimating the protections that our Constitution provides us against the government is far more dangerous to the future of this country than whatever external threats may exist. We can protect this country without violating the Constitution and I urge my colleagues to reconsider their support for this measure.

Update: Amy Goodman interviews Sen. Russ Feingold on his reasons for opposing the FISA bill.

A very good summary of how hard-line neo-conservatives see the world — and especially Israel’s place in it — can be found in an interview at the National Review Online’s (NRO’s) website by Kathryn Jean Lopez of Caroline Glick, the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post who also serves as the Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP). What comes through the interview is how hard-liners like Glick see the relationship between the U.S. and Israel (”the war against Israel and the war against the U.S. are one and the same”); the Manichean nature of the world (”freedom” versus “the forces of slavery and jihad,” “good” versus “evil”); how they conflate different threats (”al Qaeda and Iran” as a single “enemy” whose “ultimate aim …is global domination and the destruction of the U.S.”); their contempt for Europe (its “refusal to accept the true lessons of the Holocaust”); their Islamophobia (”genocidal anti-Semitism …has taken over the Islamic world”); and their need for an “enemy” to give order to their world (Obama “refuses to acknowledge that there is such a thing as an ‘enemy’ in international affairs. And as a consequence, he is unable to understand what an ally is.”) Glick is also furious with Condoleezza Rice and the State Department for their presumed influence over Bush and efforts to force Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. The title of the interview is “Shackled Warrior: Israel in Bondage.”

It’s worth repeating: Glick is the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at CSP, an organization whose board of advisers have included over the years, among many other senior Bush foreign-policy officials, the current deputy national security adviser charged with Middle East policy, Elliott Abrams. Now I don’t think Abrams is quite as radical as Glick or Gaffney, but the association is not one he’s ever renounced or distance himself from). Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy and protege of Richard Perle (another member of CSP’s board of advisers), has rejoined the board, and John Lehman, an adviser to John McCain, has long served on it. (Gaffney, Abrams, Feith, Perle and Lehman all worked in the office of former Washington State Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson” at one time or another during the 1970s.)

There is one other document that I have cited before which I think summarizes the hard-line neo-con worldview particularly succinctly. It’s by Dennis Prager, a California talk-show host who has stood by John Hagee despite McCain’s repudiation, and it can be found here.

Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.