Against the background of an increasingly more urgent debate over the sources of conflict in the Middle East, the growth of ISIS, the refugee crisis, and the role of the US armed interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria; this question takes on great importance: Who is setting Middle East policy in the US? These and other topics were addressed at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on March 18, 2016, at the conference on Israel's Influence.
Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson is the highest ranking US foreign policy whistle blowers to date. He was Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff from 2002-05 during the fateful time of the US war on Iraq.
Before coming to the State Department, Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army. During that time, he was a member of the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College (1987-1989), Special Assistant to General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93), and Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia (1993-97).
He is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. As early as 2007 Wilkerson stated in a Dutch documentary that AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was highly influential in the Bush Administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. He also states that "ever since 1948 Israel has been a foreign and security policy problem."
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