Romney's Neocon Emmisary To Bibi

Truthout.org fellow Paul Mutter sent me along a puff piece on Dan Senor currently running in the Tablet webzine in which the former Colaition Provisional Authority (Iraq) spokesman is described as one of the two insitgators, along with Netanyahu’s chief strategist Ron Derner, of Romney’s trip to Israel. The article describes Senor and his relationship with Romney in glowing terms.

Senor has been a vital emissary over the past six years for Romney not just to the Israelis and the American Jewish community, but to a Republican foreign-policy establishment that, even today, remains somewhat alien territory.

”œDan was hugely helpful in introducing the governor to his friends and colleagues,” said Beth Myers, Romney’s longtime aide-de-camp and a top campaign adviser. ”œHe’s a huge validator.”

…Senor’s attachment to the Romney campaign in some ways returns him to the place he might have imagined being when he came home from Baghdad in 2004. ”œI want to be involved in policymaking on issues that I care about,” Senor told me. He has input into some of Romney’s public speeches, including the one he will give on Sunday in Jerusalem, and is a regular surrogate across the cable news spectrum.

Of course, the reason Senor didn’t get involved in policymaking when he returned from Iraq was his deep association with the toxic CPA, described by Michael Breen, vice president of the Truman National Security Project and an army captain in Iraq, as “the most dysfunctional organization of any in the last 100 years of American history…That is literally the time and the place that that country descended into chaos, and he was the guy telling the American people that it was going well.” He was also the guy writing speeches for the then Iraqi Prime Minister telling the world things were going well. Senor was no bystander to the meltdown.

Don’t worry, though, Senor did very well from his time out of policymaking circles, thanks to friends in high places. He founded a venture capital firm with John Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz, and became a millionaire. His old mentor Bill Kristol brought him in as a co-founder with Kristol and Robert Kagan of the neocon Foreign Policy Initiative, a resurrection of the old Project For A New American Century band or warmongers. He’s got a cushy job with billionaire hedge fund manager and biggest Romney backer Paul Singer too, possibly thanks to his friendship with the Bush family and Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz. Oh, and he wrote a book with his brother in law – conservative Jerusalem Post writer Saul Singer, who is married to Senor’s sister Wendy – who is General Director of AIPAC in Israel. The book, Start-Up Nation”, “presents Israel in an extremely positive light as a bastion of entrepreneurial spirit and technological achievement. It skirts a discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians, or even the wealth inequality within Israel, thereby dovetailing nicely with recent public relations efforts by Israel to shift attention away from its problems and toward its achievements.” It’s a best seller in Israel and one of Bibi’s favorites. When Romney touches down in Israel, Dan Senor will be the joint by which the Israeli tail wags the prospective Republican administration dog.