ABSTRACT
Seven years into the ‘War on Terror’, and America’s more recent quagmire in Iraq, the Jewish Holocaust continues to cast a long shadow over politics, ethics, law, and international relations. In some respects, it has come to frame American national identity and foreign policy. Indeed, the bloody insurgency in Iraq seems to have spawned renewed interest in the Holocaust. The December 2006 conference in Tehran promoting Holocaust denial signals the depths to which some leaders will go to deny Israel’s legitimacy. It demonstrates how deeply the geopolitical problems of the Middle East are seen to hinge on the horrors of the past and how they are interpreted. And while Iranians spread lies about the Holocaust, neoconservatives David Frum and Richard Perle have provocatively and erroneously declared that America is facing a threat of genocidal proportions: ‘There is no middle way for America’, they argue, ‘It is victory or holocaust’.2 Into this mix, Iran is a potential target of further US military intervention.
