This may be what I was remembering. It has a quotation by Sununu. I've excerpted large sections from this link below:
thenewrepublic.com
Bush has been quietly courting the Arab-American vote for weeks, playing on the frayed nerves of a community anxious about Joseph Lieberman's vice presidential candidacy and enraged by events in Israel. Arab-American voters in Michigan, approximately 4 percent of the electorate, could tip the all-important state to Bush—as many believe they did for Republican Governor John Engler in 1990—and, as such, are fast supplanting Cuban-Americans as the GOP's favorite ethnic constituency. Nor does Bush have anything to lose by courting them. With Lieberman on the Democratic ticket, he wasn't going to get the Jewish vote anyway.
The love affair began in September, at the Arab American Political Action Committee's "candidates' night," to which the Bush campaign dispatched Poppy's White House chief of staff, John Sununu. Sununu whipped himself into a frenzy, declaring, "[Bush] is the man that can deal with the issues we care about. I have to tell you, as one whose family still has property in Jerusalem that belongs to us [Sununu is of Palestinian descent], I guarantee you there is a difference between George Bush as president and Vice President Gore. I'm worried not only about the right of return, but I want to return with rights to get my property back." A week later the campaign sent Condoleezza Rice, the Texas governor's top foreign policy aide, to Michigan to meet with Arab-American leaders. The day after that, Bush showed up himself.
He didn't come to talk about prescription drugs. According to Neil Abunab, an AAPAC committee member, Bush pledged that "he would be more evenhanded" in the Middle East. . . .
The fact is, neither Bush nor anyone else seems to know what his policy toward Israel will look like. W.'s camp is deeply divided between former Reagan administration officials, who actively support Israel, and former Bush administration officials, whose attitudes toward the Jewish state are cool at best. And, as the jockeying for jobs in a W. administration enters its final stretch, there is mounting evidence that Poppy's circle is gaining the upper hand.
The divisions on the Middle East flow from a broader philosophical dispute. The Reaganites among W.'s advisers, such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, take the neoconservative view that America has an obligation to stand by its fellow democracies, not least Israel. Bush père, by contrast, believed America's primary interest in the Middle East was oil. And, not coincidentally, he was more hostile to the Jewish state than any other president in recent memory. Angered by pressure from pro-Israel groups, President Bush famously complained that he was "one lonely little guy" under siege from "powerful political forces." Secretary of State James Baker advertised the telephone number for the White House switchboard and publicly admonished Israel to call "when you're serious about peace." (Behind closed doors, he reportedly blurted, "Fuck the Jews.")
Former Bush père counselors like Brent Scowcroft, Dick Cheney, Rice, and Richard Haass, not surprisingly, see W.'s foreign policy agenda as Bush II. Indeed, all are devotees of realpolitik who view the United States as a country with no special mission other than to safeguard its material interests. "One has to understand [the latter camp's] view of Israel as a subset of their larger worldview, which doesn't understand that power comes from ideas," says David Wurmser, a Middle East expert close to the Reaganites. On Israel, adds a senior Bush adviser, "There will be a struggle [between the two groups] for Bush's soul after the election."
Cheney's record is particularly unnerving. By helping destroy Saddam Hussein's war machine, of course, Cheney greatly enhanced Israel's security. But, judging from the rest of his record, there is little evidence that this was one of his primary goals. As early as 1982, he argued that resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict "must include the formation of a Palestinian state." After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Cheney criticized the Reagan administration for not having been "tougher on Israel." He has also vowed to "argue as persuasively as I know how" for a "more balanced policy" in the Middle East, opposed relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and voted for the controversial sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. More recently, as an oil executive, Cheney lambasted the influence of "domestic constituencies" on U.S. foreign policy, and, as Bush's running mate, he has championed a softer American stance toward Iran, adding that he would seek to persuade Bush of the position's wisdom. |
