Mearshirmer and Walt are indeed authorities, but they get their authority from their knowledge of the history of US-Israeli relations.

But it is you that have chosen to contradict Walt's thesis, and you have done so on the basis of the most trivial nonfact, that a Neocon gave Saddam, a nemesis of Israel, chemical weapons. Can it be said that your skepticism is based on a purely isolated event about which you made a false assumption. Why would a Neocon help Saddam if he were Israel-centric, was the conclusion we were to draw, and that was the evidence you provided to contradict Walt.

Weak tea, but since I have neither the time nor inclination to carry this on any further, as I said above, let's agree to disagree and leave it at that.