Former S.C. Senator Ernest Fritz Hollings voted for the disastrous Iraq war resolution in '02 because he bought the WMD malarkey, he says in his new memoir (from Univ. of South Carolina press). Hollings writes that the real reasons for the invasion were Oedipal (doing what daddy couldn't) and oil-fed, but that neoconservative plans to democratize the Middle East were the driver. "He [Bush] was determined to invade and democratize Iraq to secure Israel pursuant to Richard Perle's plan of 'Clean Break.'" Hollings studies the Clean Break plan that Perle, Doug Feith and David Wurmser tried to sell to Netanyahu.

When George W. Bush was elected president, proponents of "Clean Break"

hit pay dirt. Suddenly, those who favored striking at Iraq held seats

of power.

Hollings's argument is now an endless off-stage refrain in American public life, thereby exposing the haplessness of the press. Isn't it time the media finally took a close look at Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,–a George Lucas title if I ever heard one–and ultra-Zionism as a factor in neoconservative thought? The answer of course is No.