Is Another Holocaust Inevitable?
You know you are in trouble when it takes former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to dispel some of the gloom about the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel. But that is what happened at last month's Herzliya Conference on National Security. The annual conference has become the most prestigious venue in Israel for discussions of Israeli and global security by high-ranking political leaders, military figures and academics.
Netanyahu said: "I am optimistic, and my optimism is not baseless, because I understand our capabilities….”
His remarks (surprising coming from someone who regularly utilizes apocalyptic rhetoric about Iran) were a dose of reality in a political scene that has become increasingly dominated by gloom-and-doom fantasies replete with references to the imminence of a second Holocaust.
The fear, of course, is that Iran is on the verge of producing nuclear weapons and will, if in possession of them, use them almost immediately to destroy Israel.
Netanyahu's statement was a reminder that Israel is far from helpless. It is a strong military power and, although he would not say this in so many words, reportedly has 200 atomic weapons of its own.
A nuclear attack on Israel by anyone would be suicidal and there are few, if any, governments in the world that would be willing to sacrifice millions of its own people to eliminate its enemies. (Those who argue that Iranians or Muslims in general – unlike Westerners -- would happily see their cities destroyed and their children consumed in a nuclear jihad are talking nonsense. The Mullahs themselves are calculating and dangerous; they are not suicidal. And it is they, not Pres. Ahmadinejad, who call the shots).
Nevertheless, Israel’s powerful deterrent is continually being downplayed by those who insist that the Israeli state is essentially as vulnerable as the Jews of Europe were in 1939.
Of the dozens of articles and speeches which express that fear, one stands out. It is by Benny Morris, one of Israel's top historians who made his name by exploring the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem. He is no right-winger (although he has moved rightward lately) which makes his words especially significant.
In an essay in the "Jerusalem Post," called "This Holocaust Will Be Different," Morris offers this prediction.
"One bright morning, in five or 10 years, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran's acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go-ahead.
"The orders will go out and the Shihab III and IV missiles will take off for Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa and Jerusalem, and probably some military sites, including Israel's half dozen air and (reported) nuclear missile bases….
"With a country the size and shape of Israel (an elongated 20,000 square kilometers), probably four or five hits will suffice: No more Israel. “
For Morris, this horrific denouement is the result of policy choices that have already been made. "The buildup to the second holocaust (which, incidentally, in the end, will probably claim roughly the same number of lives as the first) has seen an international community fragmented and driven by separate, selfish appetites - Russia and China obsessed with Muslim markets; France with Arab oil - and the United States driven by the debacle in Iraq into a deep isolationism. Iran has been left free to pursue its nuclear destiny and Israel and Iran to face off alone."
The most distressing part of Morris's analysis (or prophecy) is its utter fatalism. “America will do nothing. Iran will get the bomb. Iran will use it on Israel. Israel will be destroyed. It's all inevitable.”
He does not even propose ways for Israel to avert this catastrophe.
Like most of the gloom-and-doom school, Morris believes that the only thing motivating Iranian policy is the desire to eliminate Israel. But Iran’s dangerous game of nuclear brinksmanship is about much more than Israel. In fact, it is primarily about the United States. That is why many believe that negotiations would be productive. In negotiations with the United States, Iran can demand recognition and security guarantees from Washington while we can demand an end to nuclear bomb development, an end to their meddling in Iraq, an end to support of Hezbollah and endorsement of negotiations as a means to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This is why American politicians are not jumping on the war-is-the-only-option bandwagon. As former Senator John Edwards recommended in his speech at Herzliyah. "Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons." We “need to support direct engagement with the Iranians….It is a mistake strategically to avoid engagement with Iran."
Or as Sen. Hillary Clinton says: “We have to keep all options on the table, including being ready to talk directly to Iranians should the right opportunity present itself. Direct talks, if they do nothing else, lets you assess who's making the decisions -- what their stated and unstated goals might be. And willingness to talk sends two very important messages. First, to the Iranian people, that our quarrel is with their leaders, not with them; and second, to the international community, that we are pursuing every available peaceful avenue to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.”
But the gloom and doomers disagree. Moderate Israeli writers Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren wrote, in a story in last week’s New Republic that “negotiations between the West and Iran….would be the worst of all options.” Why? Because the timing is wrong. “The time to have negotiated with Iran…was immediately after the initial U.S. triumph in Iraq, not now, when the United States is losing the war. Under these circumstances, negotiations would only buy the regime time to continue its nuclear program.”
For me, the most offensive aspect of the gloom-and-doom scenario is how antithetical that analysis is to the fundamental tenets of Zionism. The purpose of Zionism was to establish a strong sanctuary for Jews in the historic homeland. That sanctuary exists. Israel is, according to the analysts, the 4th strongest military power in the world and it is a nuclear power.
Pretending that Israel's situation in 2007 is like that of the Jews of Europe in 1939 is absurd and a desecration of the memory of the Six Million. Would anyone argue that the Holocaust would have taken place if Polish Jews had both nuclear weapons and a way to deliver them to Berlin? Of course not.
It was Jewish powerlessness that made the Holocaust possible, powerlessness that ended following Israel's establishment, the advent of the Israel Defense Forces and the development of Israel's nuclear deterrent.
If the existence of a militarily strong nuclear Israel, a nation 6 million strong, with an army second to none, has left Jews in as precarious a situation as 60 years ago, then Zionism was a failure and the existence of Israel is fundamentally worthless.
As a lifelong Zionist, I obviously do not accept that premise. Having come of age following the Six Day War, I simply cannot buy into the idea that Israel cannot accomplish what it needs to in order to secure its survival. Those who argue otherwise have either given up on Israel or are trying to scare either their fellow Israelis or Americans into a military strike at Iran before all other options have been tried.
Enough is enough. If we have learned anything from the Iraq war or the summer war on Israel’s northern border, it should be that wars, no matter what the intention of their architects, have unintended consequences and sometimes unimaginable ones.
Those who hold out the terrifying image of Israel reduced to dust by Iran as a means to produce a willy-nilly rush to war could, perversely, be setting the scene for the catastrophe they most fear.
The gift of prophecy can be a wonderful thing if it helps avert disaster. However, the ritualistic invoking of the Holocaust, the suggestion that Israel is militarily helpless, and self-fulfilling prophecies of doom, are deeply offensive -- except of course to one Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Can’t you just see him as he reads Benny Morris, the Herzliyah transcripts, and the New Republic cover story? I can. And he’s laughing.
It doesn't matter in the least what Iranians or Muslims in general think. What matters is the thoughts of those with a finger on the button. As we all have seen again and again that there plenty of folks that hate the Isrealis more than they love their children. But the really scary (at least to me) thought is there are those that see those killed in an Isreali counter strike as getting first class tickets to paradise. In other words, not a horror to be avoided, but an outcome to sought with all available means.
The sons of the prophet are noble and bold,
and quite unaccustomed to fear.
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah
was Abdul Abulbul Amir
February 2, 2007 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for this post. The only thing that will "save" Israel is for the US to treat it like any other country, not like its pet.
February 2, 2007 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I see no evidence that the Mullahs are suicidal. The idea that a nation, at its high point in power and influence (thanks to the Iraq war) would willingly self-destruct is absurd.
Do you think Hitler would have initiated the Holocaust if Germany would have been destroyed by the Jews? Unless you say yes, then you are arguing that Iranians are some primitive life form even lower than the Nazis. Maybe you are.
February 2, 2007 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
AIPAC isn't going to be happy.
February 2, 2007 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have that pet thing backwards. Isreal treats us like a pet rottweiler
February 2, 2007 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary spoke at AIPAC in Manhattan yesterday. They loved her hardline rhetoric on Israel but when she talked about negotiating with Iran, the room went deadly still.
These people want war. Eventually Hillary and the other Dems will realize that there is no way to court the war lobby's favor without betraying everything they believe in.
February 2, 2007 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
And meanwhile, back in the USA, the dominionists and theonomists, aka the "white-bread Christians," are seeking control of the military apparatus for their own "ends." Not a happy confluence of events.
-I. S. Skivar
February 2, 2007 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course they want war, they are sitting fat and happy in America. If America goes to war against Iran on behalf of Israel, we will be smashed to our knees economically, at least, within five to seven years.
February 2, 2007 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think psychologists call this "transfer" - seeing in others what you see in yourself.
http://www.dispatch.co.za/2001/04/10/foreign/GCAUSE.HTMFebruary 2, 2007 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
All we are waiting for is another terror event, real or staged. My favorite scenario is an 'accidental detonation' (or so it would be billed-- "Oh my God, the terrorists have nukes!") of a low-yield nuke along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, but even a relatively minor attack in the US might be sufficient to silence the American people into accepting an enlarged, Total War On Terror. And there's no way we can stop a real attack, or figure out the truth behind a faked one, until too late.
And today's news has it that Iranians have been captured in the West Bank. What a coinkydink.
February 2, 2007 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Iran has been judged to be "just 5 years away" from nukes for the last ,a href="http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=8367e0e9-149b-4a1e-9c74-1a979bd3e325&k=72529">25 years.
If anyone has any reason to worry about "existential threats" by WMDs, its the Iranians. Iran was the victim of WMDs - chemical weapons provided to Saddam by the US during the Iran-Iraq war. It is the Iranians who are facing nuclear-armed states all around - including the US which has blatantly and overtly threatened Iran with nuclear first-strikes already (in violation of international law) as well as Israel which has proven to be aggressive and expansionist & refuses to give up the same weapons it accuses Iran of having.
One of the problems is that Israel defines obtaining the technology for a nuclear fuel cycle as being the same thing as "getting the bomb".
By this definition, both Brazil and Argentina now have "obtained the bomb" and Egypt has announced that it will soon have it (and along with South Koream, was caught conducting secret undeclared nuclear experiments) and Japan and the Netherlands also have it. In fact, more and more nations will be seeking "the bomb"
(A New Global Nuclear Order By Alissa J. Rubin LA Times Oct 15 2006)There is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. Iran's nuclear program is economically justified, which is why the US supported it. Nuclear power is the energy source of the future and no nation will simply give it up. Iran has allowed more inspection than legally required, and has offered several compromises on the nuclear issue which would address any legitimate concern for weapons proliferation - and all of its offers of compromise have been ignored by the Bush administration.
We are left with the only reasonable conclusion: that nuclear issue is a pretext for a war whose real purpose, far from saving Israel from a Holocaust, is to establish and promote Israels ambitions in the region by removing first Iraq, and now Iran as a strategic competitor.
February 2, 2007 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Everything Iran has done is allowed under the NNPT. They have indeed violated the treaty's disclosure requirements, but one need only consider Iraq's experience at the hands of the Israelis understand their reticence to disclose details and locations. And there is, as you say zero, evidence that they are trying to build a bomb, or that they have violated the substantive provisions of the treaty in any significant way.
And of course, any Iraqi disclosure of its enrichment program is far more than the world has ever gotten from Israel about its nuclear program.
February 2, 2007 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if this guy has been out partying with LTG Boykin.
February 2, 2007 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you see evidence that they seek to spend eternity in paradise and believe martyrdom is a good path to that end?
The sons of the prophet are noble and bold,
and quite unaccustomed to fear.
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah
was Abdul Abulbul Amir
February 2, 2007 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Iraq invasion was also not about gaining oil for the US market. That could always be done by purchasing oil on the open market. But, the real $$$$ to be made by invading Iraq were those supplied by the US Treasury, and those went to Haliburton, the US contractors in Iraq, and, in the future, the US oil companies who hope to gain exclusive rights to develop the Iraq oil fields, taking a substantial cut off the top of the income from those oil fields.
I would be astonished if the Bush administration is waving swords at Iran for reasons that differ much from their reasons for invading Iraq. Again, Israel does not enter the mind of the "decison maker". The only place where Israel affects the Bush administration and the Congress's thinking is when the checkbooks come out - the checkbooks of AIPAC.
Hoppy in Sacramento
February 2, 2007 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
At this point in the timeline, the only thing that will save Israel from itself is for the reality-based majority of American Jews to get organized, and loud, and quickly.
February 2, 2007 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Iran breached their Safeguards agreement, not the Treaty itself, by failing to report some nuclear activities. THe IAEA has explicitly stated that all fissile material has been accounted for in Iran and none have been diverted for weapons. Iran has also allowed all the inspections it is legally required to permit, plus more.
Iran breached her safeguards by failing to inform the IAEA of the importation of uranium from China and obtaining centrifuge technology from Pakistan, among other things (Legally, Iran was under no obligation to report the construction of the sites at Natanz and Arak in the first place, despite all the talk about "discovery" of these the "clandestine" sites.) Several other countries have been caught doing far worse- such as Egypt and S. Korea - but you don't hear about them much.
In any case, the IAEA stated that the undeclared activities did not have any relationship to a weapons program. Iran attempted to obtain this technology - to which it was entitled to have - overtly by entering into contracts with several other countries, only for the US to sabotage the agreements. That's when Iran resorted to clandestine means to obtain the technology.
But even then, the fact that Iran was planing to develop a nuclear enrichment program was never a secret, and the Iranians had announced it on their radio, and UN inspectors had visited Iran's uranium mines in 1992.
The only damning "evidence" against Iran consists of the inference of what Iran "could do" with enrichment technology at some indefinite point in the future. According to that argument, no one should have any technology because they "could" use it to make bombs one day. No matter how much inspections Iran allows, there is no way for the IAEA to "prove" that Iran could not do theoretically something in the indefinite future. No one can.
February 2, 2007 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
The fatalism of many Israeli/Jewish intellectuals concerns me. Right now the nuclear threat in the Middle-East is posed by Israel. Looking back on this past summer and Israel's response to Hezbollah's taking of 3 soldiers combined with this air of fatalism worries me. What would be Israel's response if a terrorist group detontes a radiological "dirty bomb" in either Tel Aviv or Haifa? Are they going to feel compelled to respond "in kind" to whoever they feel is "responsible" for allowing the attack to happen deploying one or multiple nuclear weapons? Yep...fatalism scares the ever loving shit out of me.
That being said Iran under no circumstances should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. MJ makes the point that the mullahs might be hardline but not suicidal. I agree, but that isn't the problem. The current mullahs aren't going to be around forever. Everybody eventually passes on and there will be new mullahs calling the shots eventually. And with a high level of respect for "Martyrdom" by some followers of Islam who is to say that at some point that one or a group of them will become suicidal and launch a nuclear attack against the infidels in the name of Allah, Muhammed and Islam.
Fatalism does exist on both sides and the longer the Israeli-Palestinian issues remain unresolved that fatalism will be nurtured and will continue to grow...and then the prophesies will become self-fufilling.
February 2, 2007 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Gulf, the Saudis both have more to worry about from Iran and have less to defend themselves with than does Israel. Every Israeli I have heard discuss Iran acknowledges its great danger to Israel, believes the U.S. will not adequately deal with Iran and is fairly confident that Israel can deal with Iran on its own.
I am constantly amazed at the need of some to focus on Israel as the puppetmaster of the U.S. Likely a very dangerous miscalculation.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
February 2, 2007 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
True when when I say that the nuclear issue is a pretext for war, I don't mean a pretext just for a US policy of war. I mean a prextext for the Israeli policy of war, a policy that AIPAC then foists on the US through the Israel lobby and Israeli agents of influence (aka the NeoCons.) That's what they did in the case of Iraq too. What benefits Halliburton got out of it was just icing on the cake.
What we've seen is that the entire US governmental system - from the WHite House to the Pentagon to the Congress - has been fundamentally infiltrated by these agents of Israel who can "stovepipe" intelligence and freely use the US media as their loudspeaker system in order to march this country into a war, and every check-and-balance has failed to control them. They get what they want, and Israel wants to fight Iran to the last US Marine.
February 2, 2007 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
They don't "hate the Israelis more than they love their children". They can't offer a decent life to their children, and under the circumstances, seeing their child die fighting against what they see as the oppressive power with its boot on their necks seems like an acceptable option.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
February 2, 2007 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Iranians were legally entitled to use chemical weapons against Iraq when they were attacked by chemical weapons - but they didn't.
Considering that we spent 60 years planning various way to "win" a global nuclear catastrophe, and almost came close a couple of times of launching the missiles, and we're making "user friendly" and "mini-nukes" to be used on a "first strike" basis in violation of international law and our explicit prior promises, I don't think the Iranians are the ones the world has to worry about. How many nukes do WE have lying around? Why assume we're any more responsible? Who is actually threatening whom with nuclear weapons?
February 2, 2007 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Arab states of the Persian Gulf, along with the entire Islamic Conference Organization, and the whole Non-Aligned Movement, have explicitly supported Iran.
That's a majority of the nations of the world.
As for the "puppetmaster" analogy - when our leaders go and pander to a foreign country and swear up and down that the foreign country's security is foremest to them, what do you call it?
February 2, 2007 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I wasn't clear (or too nuanced) with my comments hass. I agree that right now Iran isn't the country to worry about in terms of being a nuclear threat. I agree with MJ's take on the "sanity" of the current mullahs. They (Iran) could become a threat in the future if the wrong people with wrong ideologies come into power. So I fully oppose the Iranians being allowed to build "the bomb".
And of course with the current administration, with their views, in place we represent a nuclear threat too...
February 2, 2007 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you see evidence that they seek to spend eternity in paradise and believe martyrdom is a good path to that end?
I see no evidence of that. If they wanted martyrdom, they could easily have attained it in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, or elsewhere. They are happy to send others to be martyrs if it helps keep the public on their side, but put their own asses on the line? No.
February 2, 2007 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's clear to me that many of the right-wing Israelis are completely paranoid and see anti-Semitism as the major force for almost everything that happens in the world. And paradoxically, as the Holocaust recedes further into the past, this paranoia only seems to get worse.
What are the dynamics causing this, and is there any way to change them?
February 2, 2007 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've mixed feelings about this response. Is AIPAC powerful? Yes...I mean is there a "pro-Persia" PAC in D.C.? Of course not.
Yet I think the word "infiltrated" might be pushing it though.
February 2, 2007 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, well, yes. They will feel compelled to respond, and they should do so. You're talking about an attack with a freaking dirty nuclear weapon, here.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
February 2, 2007 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
So you think that if a radiological suitcase type "dirty bomb", that might kill anywhere from 100-1,000 Israelis (at absolute most!!!), is used against Israel it deserves a full nuclear response of detonating a warhead over Damascus or Tehran that will result in anywhere from 100,000 - 300,000 deaths in either case?
February 2, 2007 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most of our wars have included strategic missteps based on the decision makers basing their war plan on certain false assumptions of a previous war.
You seem to be assuming some WWII conditions are valid today but ignoring others.
There are a few false assumptions in the 1930's that helped lead to WWII and the Holocaust.
1) Germany has very limited territorial goals. It would be crazy to imagine that they really intend to make good on their Statements of a philosophy that will span the globe.
2)They are roughing up the Jews, but they don't really intend to go beyond that. That would be crazy to think they believe their own stated goals.
3)Hitler does not control the whole government now, so even if he believed this stuff he doesn't have the power to act on it. We are safe now, we have time to talk.
4)If we negotiate with Hitler and we get a piece of paper and wave it over our head, then Hitler won't do anything. We are safe right now, we have time to talk.
5)Our technology (UK and US) and the ocean has always protected us and will continue to protect us. We are safe now, we have time to talk.
These assumptions were not only wrong, but the fact that we held these beliefs encouraged Hitler.
Lets consider these regarding the Stateless Islamofascists as well as the Statebound radicals and the gray area between the two.
1) Iran and it's Shia's might be filtering through to Iraq and "temporarily" in Lebanon, but if the west behaved in this way or that they would be satisfied and their territorial desires would be satiated. Their calls for Global Jihad is just talk, they don't really believe that...False for AQ and Iran.
2)Israel is currently being roughed up, but these people don't really want to kill all of them, that would be crazy. They don't really believe their own rhetoric.
3)Many have pointed out that Ahmedinijahd doesn't control the whole government. Some point to Ayatollah Yasdi losing in last months election as proof that He can not win total control for now. But Hitler created chaos and outmaneuvered his rivals. The burning of the Reichstag and the manipulation of Hindenburg. If Yasdi and other Hojjatieh Ayatollahs team up with the President, he has total control. How confident can we be that armed with Nukes, he won't be able to pull off that coup in 3 years, 5, 15. We might be safe for now, but if Yasdi cronies get in, they have the Nukes and Yes, they do believe this stuff.
4)What would a piece of paper from Iran do for us? It didn't work with Hitler and what have we learned after 15 years of Saddam. He manipulated the UNSCRs and agreements to his advantage, because he had the time to do it. Our time to remain engaged is limited. They have Youth and will and we have neither. Our society has a "clicker" attention span and if a conflict is not wrapped up by the end of primetime and the guy gets the girl, we get upset. They can wait us out.
5)Our technology is worthless if we don't have the will to use it. OBL and Ahmedinijahd openly state that we are weak willed and do not have the stomach to fight them for long, regardless of the threat that they pose. If Israel or the US thinks that our weaponry is a guarentee to protect us forever, then we are doomed. 911 and other attacks have proved that oceans and technology can't protect us without the will to fight back.
Mr. Rosenberg, if you see no evidence that the Mullahs are suicidal then you are imagining that they are monolithic. There are Ayatollahs, like Ahmedinijahd's mentor Mesbah Yasdi that agree with his escatological final solution. Some would have thought the Nazis were on a suicide mission just because our desire to live and let live is assumed to be their world view also. Hitler believed he could achieve what he considered the highest heights and live through it. He knew their was a risk and he took the risk and lost.
The Islamo fascists and the Hojjatieh are not all suicidal although some are, but they are willing to take risks that may kill a lot of people in order to fulfill their twisted view of the New Global Caliphate and the Apocalypse.
If a stateless Islamofascist could Nuke Israel, where does Israel retaliate, how is thier impressive "Power" and technology going to act as a deterrant. What if Ahmedinijahd really does believe what he flaps his gums about from the time he rolls out of bed, till the time he goes to sleep. If he believes it and leaves Tehran for a few days sits in a bunker and lets loose on Israel, he can survive it, so does that make him suicidal? Who comes after him? Does the US invade a nuclear armed Iran? He has nukes right. Does the US launch ICBMs and risk setting off a nuclear chain reaction with other members of the atomic club?
Israel is not powerless. But like Gulliver, their power is tethered by a thousand smaller threads of pressure from powers that surround them and from within. Do they have the will to defend themselves?
How can one believe that a finite amount of oil will eventually run out, but not believe that the nuclear club will grow? It is inevitable. Groups like the Nazis and the Islamofascists will be with us in the future. Like the scorpion on the back of the turtle, the Nazis did not want to live and let live. Their desire to take down their neighbor supercedes their aversion to the risk of their own destruction.
When a group like this acquires the Ultimate weapons, the rules of the cold war, the rules of WWII, and the rules that applied in the six day war are out the window. We are in a new struggle. They DO mean what they say. We might be somewhat safe now, but we don't have time, they do. They don't have a limited appetite, they want it ALL. And finally, if as a boy someone had told me that a rising nuclear power in the middle east would come along and his hero and idol was Adolf Hitler and his favorite past time is debunking the holocaust and promising that it is at his religious core that he follow through on killing all the Jews, I would have asked, what is the world doing to stop him. The answer? Waiting. Wanting to talk to him. Hoping to give him things to bargain.
If we argued the same way back in 1939, how many people would argue that Britain threatening war if Poland is invaded is initiating a war of choice that did not threaten its own territory.
It is true war has unintended consequences. What the British decided in 1939 was that there are times in history where action and inaction are both almost too scary to face. But face it they did.
Action might be scary, but fooling ourselves into thinking that inaction has nothing to fear is stepping onto train from which there is no return.
The Islamofascists want to have it all and you are in their way.
He has already said, no shiney trinkets from the west will deter him. He believes like his idol what he says. The Jews go first. All of them. I believe them. ...and yes, they are crazy.
February 2, 2007 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
All this over who has the better imaginary friend.
February 2, 2007 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine said:
This statement seems quite correct, but one has to wonder whether we hasten the rise to power of the most extreme elements by treating Iran as an international pariah and refusing to negotiate.
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. --Paul ValeryFebruary 2, 2007 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Allies
February 2, 2007 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Its true, the current Religious leadership will not remain forever. If my children live for another 80 years, what are the odds of Radicals obtaining a nuclear device during that time? Pretty high. I don't like the odds.
February 2, 2007 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Officer Friendly at the fifth precinct carries a gun. He must be a threat to become a serial killer.
February 2, 2007 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a "pro-persia" lobby. It opposes the current Iranian government.
February 2, 2007 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! Yup, that's what it gets boiled down to, on all sides.
February 2, 2007 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Israels neighbors laid down their arms, is there any doubt that Israel would have no reason to invade nor would they. If Israel laid down its arms, is there any doubt that they would all be dead by nightfall of the following day.
Whether Israel has disclosed its nuclear enrichment programs is of much less concern to those who want peace in the world than those who want war.
February 2, 2007 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think we have aided in creating the extremism in the Iranian government wordie. A long time ago (maybe up to 15 years) we should have re-engaged Tehran. We have continually treated them as a pariah which reinforces the extremist message of "the West is not to be trusted". Iran has long wanted to to normalize relations with the West and we refuse. Part of the reason is our 2 closest allies in the region, Israel and the Saudis for different reasons, do not want us to do it. The Iranians (due to their resources, large population and technological advances) will become the regions premier "superpower" if allowed to. At some point Iran will have to be dealt with and absolutely not in a military sense either. They will make it impossible for us not to deal with them.
February 2, 2007 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you're talking about the MEK (also known as the MKO or the People's Mojahedin or National Council of Resistance of Iran etc), these are Marxist-Islamist terrorists who were the most violent element in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, then had a falling out with Khomeini and ran off to Iraq, where they were supported by Saddam and actually fought against Iran during the Iran-IRaq war, yes they're around and do regularly lobby Congress despite the fact at least theoretically they're barred from such activities as they are on the same terrorist list as Al-Qaeda. However, the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington has decided to use them, and so people like Raymond Tanter of the pro-Israeli think tank Washington Institute for Near East Studies has been promoting them as have monsters like Ledeen and Gerecht.
There are other Iranian goups, like the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) but they are non-partisan.
Several Iranian pro-Peace groups have joined up to form Campaign Iran which is opposed to war and sanctions. It would be great if TPM actually invited one of these people to contribute instead of the same old has-beens and folks who have no real qualifications on Iran, don't speak the language, and have never actually set foot there. I suggest Dr Trita Parsi.
February 2, 2007 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong people with wrong ideologies can come into power...anywhere. See Bush.
February 2, 2007 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong people with wrong ideologies can come into power...anywhere. See Bush.
February 2, 2007 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Radicals where? In Iran or Israel or the US? How much more radical does the Bush administration have to get before it is recognized as a threat that far surpasses Iran, right now. Legalized torture, elimination of habeas corpus, rendition, pre-emptive nuclear war, "signing statemetns", invasions, total surveillance over the people, cluser bombs used on civilians... need I say more? The Iranians could only dream of having these powers & capabilities!
In fact, I predict if we all live long enough, aliens may invade earth. So, lets play it safe and nuke the moon today. Hey, it "could" happen!
February 2, 2007 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a lot of allies which makes a lie out of the Bush administration's claim that Iran is "defying the world".
February 2, 2007 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where are we going to get the money, and where will we get the troops?
For some reason people always seem to think that war is free.
February 2, 2007 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or, we could have re-engaged them as few as three years ago, when they provided significant help in our Afghan operations, and expressed a willingness to have a wide-ranging series of discussions with the USA.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1115/p01s04-wome.htm
AND
The White House is demanding, before it will consider clearing the op-ed for publication, that I excise entire paragraphs dealing with matters that I have written about (and received clearance from the CIA to do so) in several other pieces, that have been publicly acknowledged by Secretary Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and that have been extensively covered in the media.These matters include Iran's dialogue and cooperation with the United States concerning Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and Iran's offer to negotiate a comprehensive "grand bargain" with the United States in the spring of 2003.
Flynt Leverett in http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001829.php
February 2, 2007 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me be clear I am no happier in the fact that Israel, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, the US, the UK, France, etc. etc. etc. have "the bomb". It is human nature that SNAFU's eventually always happen. All of 'em should be dismantled as far as I am concerned. Their only purpose is to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in a single attack...
February 2, 2007 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Will someone please tell me what the evidence is that supports the idea that Iran is the giant ogre in this, as I see it, fairy-tale world we are living in?
Other than the rants of Iran's president who seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to the American president - popinjays strutting their stuff on the world stage - I can find nothing to support Iran's march to world domination. Thanks.
February 2, 2007 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Trumpeted Anti-Semitism charges are a crutch (which allows Zionist to evade any self-criticism - the seige mentality writ large) and a convenient way of smearing critics whilst monopolizing victim-status. Its also a good way to lay a guilt trip on Europeans and Americans.
Read Prof. Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry
February 2, 2007 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where do you think we're getting the money right now? China, of course. They're the biggest purchaser of US Bonds.
February 2, 2007 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I was Lebanonese I'd have plenty of doubts, I won't even mention the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.
February 2, 2007 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't you remember whenever there were Israeli casualties in any of its many wars, the comparison was frequently made (and I approximate here) "128 Israelis killed is equivalent to 6,400 American deaths, given Israel's small population of only 5 million."
Thus was laid the psychological groundwork for today's operative assumption, viz., that when the casualties are not skewed radically and even overwhelmingly in Israel's favor, a cosmic injustice has been done.
February 2, 2007 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, this era almost makes me nostalgic for MAD. Back then we all had school desks we could hide under...
February 2, 2007 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
And do you think they're going to give us any more money? (Actually Japan holds more bonds than China.)
February 2, 2007 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
They have been making overtures to us, that have gone ignored, since Clinton's 2nd term. Our 2 closest allies in the region don't want us to talk to them and want to see Iran remain isolated. So Tehran does more and more provocative gestures trying to get our attention. And the current US administration is the wrong one for them to get any more provocative with. Our current leaders are as unpredictable (and maybe more so) as the Iranians are...
February 2, 2007 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Deep down, Iran (and any other country's) reason for getting nuclear weapons is preventative. It's alot less likely that the US or anyone else is going to invade your country and co-op your oil, etc if you have nuclear capacity. Done!
February 2, 2007 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL...pining for the good old days when all we had to worry about was The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Bev?
We used to joke about "the instructions" when we were kids. For us this is how it went:
1. Get under your desk
2. Put your head between your legs
3. Pucker up and kiss you ass goodbye...
February 2, 2007 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...I can find nothing to support Iran's march to world domination. Thanks...."
How about every other word that comes out of his mouth.
February 2, 2007 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
And as Lewis Black pointed out, "they were wooden desks..."
February 2, 2007 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
And just to repeat again...no argument out of me. ;)
February 2, 2007 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just thought I would throw this in:
Made me kinda want to investigate further:
All rightie then... slight conflict of interest possibly...? Maybe why Pelosi wanted Murtha rather than Hoyer?
February 2, 2007 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess we simply discount what they SAY and how they ACT and project our own sense of values on them … isn't that exactly how G. W. and Co. got us into this in the first place (by assuming democracy is a first principle)?
And I suppose the routine sacrificing of children in their war against Iraq, as they sent they sent them through the mine fields with the "keys to heaven" around their necks causes Mr. Rosenberg no pause in his evaluation.
That's why I love TPM - it's proof that the right and the left are both cultural imperialists in theory even if not in practivce.
February 2, 2007 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some people think peace and freedom is free
February 2, 2007 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was Gingrich last year about the Israeli's killed by Hezbollah Missiles. The 1,000 Lebanese killed by Israel would be the equivalent of 100,000 American deaths, not to mention the Lebanese still being victimized by the cluster bombs that Israel dropped in the last 48 hours or the mines that they left in Lebanon years ago and refuse to give a map for.
Or what we're responsible for in Iraq. 600,000 Iraqis would be the equivalent of 6,000,000 dead Americans.
February 2, 2007 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are...that's why warmongers despise them so much, there's no money in it.
Nice deflection though it was, you still haven't answered the question - how do you propose we pay for another war?
February 2, 2007 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember being angry when Reagan said we would compensated the INNOCENT - as though not all of the dead were innocent - who died when the Vincennes shot down that Iranian airline on a scheduled flight.
Surely, Iran is more sinned against than sinning vis-a-vis the US. The US conspired with the British to force that God-awful Shah down their throats and arm him against his own people for 25 years. I believe there was even a move to give the Shah nuclear technology.
February 2, 2007 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
The fear, of course, is that Iran is on the verge of producing nuclear weapons and will, if in possession of them, use them almost immediately to destroy Israel.
Since such an attack would bring massive retaliation from the United States, and since even a successful surprise strike against Israel would not save Iran from an Israeli counterstrike, this assessment is based on the idea that the Iranian regime is a crazy suicide cult, and that the country is just one big suicide bomber waiting to set off its explosives belt
But in fact, there is little evidence of this. The regime, while theocratic and given on occasion to some wild rhetoric, seems to behave like a state: it grows its economy, it manages its accounts, it invests heavily in educationg its people, it engages in long term public works projects, and it plans for the future in many other ways. Iran shows every sign of a government and state that plans to be a around for a very long time. There really is very little reason to think that collective suicide is on the Iranian agenda.
But it is precisely in order to prevent any deeper radicalization, and to forestall the possibility of accidents in military calculation, that talks with Iran are so necessary. Negotiations with Iran would help to end its partial isolation, and would incorporate the country further into the global state system. And preventing weapons development is more likely to be accomplished through verifiable treaty arrangements than through an unsustainable and wildly destabilizing series of preventive assaults, harebrained revolutionary regime change schemes, or sanctions in perpetuity.
If Israel is so worried about this sort of attack, it should consider the effect of a strike on Iran on the political health of the region and on its own security. It should consider the effect of the mass proliferation of bitter and implacable enemies such an attack would spur.
Israel is a very small country in territorial terms, has a memory of genocidal actions against its people and is justifiably scared of nuclear attack from some enemy. But frankly, the whole country is also more than a little nuts.
I also think that hard line demagogues are exploiting the paranoia of the Israeli population to further pursue an expansionist agenda. My perception is that some of Israel's most aggressive leaders and foreign friends are not really worried about nuclear attack from Iran so much as as they are worried about the impact of a US opening toward Iran on continued US support for intransigence and further expansion in the colonized territories.
Finally, Israel has burned itself several times by empowering an ally or collaborator of convenience against a present threat, only to find that collaborator later evolves into an even more dangerous enemy (see: Hamas). The current movement against some Israelis and their US friends to make common cause with Sunni states against Iran, and in the process to stir up anti-Shia religious fanatics who live in those states, will almost inevitably come back to haunt them. Those same fanatics have whole chapters devoted to Israel in their demonologies, and to intensify their fanaticism against the Shia will surely serve to intensify their fanatical hatred of Israel in the process.
February 2, 2007 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ,
I hope you have negotiated a contract with Josh Marshall to pay you based on the rate of comments elicited, because with this string of posts about Israel - a topic that excites passions like no other, and that people apparently never tire of - you have found a winning formula for record-setting levels of comment volume. :)
February 2, 2007 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, first of all, that story is approaching urban legend status. There is no proof whatsoever that the so-called "keys to heaven" military campaign for lack of a better expression, happened. The only "proof" that was offered was an Iranian dissident, who Richard Perle introduced to a writer at the New Republic. The next story was offered by an IT tech who claimed to have seen the Iranians rope twenty children together and send them out from the trenches into no-man land. Then of course the story began escalating to where the Iranians were kidnapping kids off the street, taking them to the front lines, making them roll themselves up in blankets to contain the blood and body parts and forcing them to clear mines at gunpoint.
Now if we're projecting our values onto them, it would behoove us to remember that children have been used throughout the history of western civilization as "troops" in war. In our own civil war we took children as young as twelve years old as "volunteers".
It is always so much easier to think that your enemy is less than human, that he doesn't grieve over lost children, or their culture doesn't treasure life the way we do, or they want to die for their cause. By doing that, we can rationalize the crime of war.
It's ironic that you call us "cultural imperialists" when you deny them even the human emotion of loving their children.
February 2, 2007 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, I guess I'll have to renegotiate my "contact" with Josh.
:-)
February 2, 2007 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, I guess I'll have to renegotiate my "contract" with Josh.
:-)
February 2, 2007 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel is a small country run by non-Arabs surrounded by countries run by Arabs. Her position will always be precarious, until and unless she invades her neighbors and takes over their countries - not likely in our lifetimes. One would hope that she would be mature enough to realize that the bully who pops up every once in a while in her neighborhood is just that - all talk and no walk.
Ahmadinejad is a blow-hard who, desperate to stay in power, spills rhetoric in hopes that it will keep him in office at least until the next election. Israel is and will continue to be the scapegoat for any Arab leader who's desperate to keep his job.
February 2, 2007 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a funny thing:
When the previous reformist Iranian president (Khatami) was in office, and was making great efforts to reach out to the United States, the same NeoCon sorts were advising against taking him seriously on the grounds that Iranian presidents legally are not very important since they don't run the military or intelligence services or the country's nuclear program anyway.
When Ahmadinejad is elected and says provocative things, all of a sudden he's presented as "THE LEADER" of Iran, and its assumed that he must run everything in Iran and can launch nuclear weapons right and left by mere whim.
Why is that? Could it be that there are forces in the US that don't want the US and Iran to start to get along, because it would be contrary to their (read: Israel's) Interests? HHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM?
February 2, 2007 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
There certainly was a move to give nuclear technology to Iran under the Shah - in fact Iran's existing research reactors and a small supply of nuclear fuel was given to the Shah, and several current members of the Bush administration approved of past nuclear deals with Iran.
SOURCE: Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy, By Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Sunday, March 27, 2005.
See the old news articles from those days here at
Iran Affairs
In fact it was recognized way back then that Iran would have to develop nuclear energy soon in order to keep up with domestic energy demand while being able to export oil.
So in effect, by demanding that Iran give up nuclear enrichment, we're demanding that Iran risk its people to starve and freeze in the near future.
SOURCE: Iran needs nuclear energy, not weapons, Le Monde diplomatique
February 2, 2007 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually I'm the one who deserves to be paid.
February 2, 2007 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look at the topic, Bev. If you were a Jew in London in 1940 and said freedom is free, there is no price to pay for it, People would have asked you how you expect to maintain your freedom. Poland was not able to pay the price for freedom. France was not able to pay the price for freedom.
The salons of Paris in 1930s were filled with bohemians discussing world affairs as if it were a parlor game. When the panzers rolled under the eiffel tower the game was over.
They lost their freedom.
Since you have no idea what has been done to pay for your freedom, you obviously fail to understand the value of it. There are brave men and women paying the price for it right now and you dishonor the price paid by all previous sacrifices to allow you to live free.
It was not a deflection. You threw such a fat pitch over the plate, Someone had to hit it out of the park.
If someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night, and you feel like your life is in danger and you may lose your freedom to live, Let's make sure to stop the police outside of your front door and ask them, "Wait, I know Bev is inside, but first let's have a long discussion about who will pay for this".
After all, the police might use violence to rescue you Bev, and being that I'm not a warmonger, I would hate for the police to use violence to protect your freedom. That's too high of a price to pay for your freedom.
Defense of life and liberty is our highest priority and if you aren't aware that its paid for, then how can you understand a discussion of the sacrifices that are necessary to defend them.
Hope you are enjoying your freedom, Bev, it just sprouted out of the ground just for you.
February 2, 2007 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean like Cheney racing to the Middel East to meet with the Saudis?
Supported Iran? As Shlomo Bin-Ami says today the Sunni Arabs are pulling closer to Israeli not because they love Israel but they expect the U.S. to desert them and Israel will be their main protect against the Shiites.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
February 2, 2007 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your reference to the puppetmaster was to a post mentioning Israel. The question you asked was an extension of the reference to Israel. Israel is one of our allies.
But if you are now refering to the other nations you mentioned, if it "makes a lie out of Bush, etc..." OK, let's toss it in the file of Bush lies and take a look at it. Please tell me how many countries "explicitly support" Iran as you say. You mentioned the Persian gulf states. I guess are including Kuwait in that group. How about Qatar where the US military base "Al Udeid" is located. Maybe Dubai , United Arab Emirates is supporting Iran. Maybe Bahrain?
And regarding Castro and Chavez supporting him, yes there is a serious problem with his growing carnival of nutjobs. Even in Ahmedinijahd's own country last month an influential Cleric criticized him for globetrotting to Latin America, and drawing so much negative attention from the world.
But you give me an estimate of how many billions support Iran and what it is they are supporting.
There are times when one could imagine that even if the majority of the world was siding with a tyrant that opposed us in war, that we might still put American interests first.
February 2, 2007 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The US is a greater threat to civilization than Iran? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.
I have to agree with you on one thing. You have convinced me.
You have convinced me that Aliens from the moon are living amongst us...right here on earth. They are retaliating against yet another imperialist invasion of the Lunar surface this time.
They are called "Loonies" and your repeated spewing of Non Sequiturs has convinced me who their leader is.
February 2, 2007 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You gotta love democracy
February 2, 2007 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Er... Have you checked our military inventory, spending, and recent war activity recently vs. Iran?
February 2, 2007 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
You forgot to mention the Pro Ahmedinijahd group, Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN), that Joe Biden has been taking campaign funds from.
The fact that he is approaching friends of that nutcase for campaign money might be scary if he had a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but whats really scary is the group knows he is going to lose. They are giving him money because he is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and this is their version of buying a night in the Lincoln bedroom. That's scary.
February 2, 2007 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
In Clinton's final days in the White House there is the famous story of him fielding a call from Arafat where he literally cussed out the PLO leader and called him every name in the book and basically said to him how he was a fool because Clinton had given him every bargaining chip he could have ever hoped for and more and Arafat blew it off. Clinton served a valuable purpose in this regard. He proved that Arafat never wanted peace with Israel. He wanted them all Dead. I would have cussed him out to.
February 2, 2007 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah nice story. Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, even Israeli peace activist agree that the "generous offer" by Israel which Arafat rejected was hardly anything of the sort
http://gush-shalom.org/generous/generous.html
February 2, 2007 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like a case of libel to me.
February 2, 2007 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel is "our" ally? Really? BEcause I thought allies were supposed to, you know, HELP a country and not suck out their tax money, sell their weapons systems to the Chinese, and start wars that we have to finish.
February 2, 2007 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I should double check my sources next time.
Given that you're right about the "urban legend" status of the aforementioned anecdote, please explain which of the other "projected attributes" listed aren't explicitly confirmed by the very words of the people you're insisting share these values.
MJ has clearly made the exact same mistake that G.W. and the neo-cons have. Totally ignorant of the status of his own western-Hellenistic-Judea-Christian presuppositions, he naively assumes those he's referring to share his most basic assumptions.
This is NO DIFFERENT than the similarly naive Neo-con assumption that Iraq's middle-eastern-Islamic-tribal-fideistic mindset shares as a first principle western ideals of democracy and liberty.
Just like G.W’s pride was not the only thing grievously harmed by his naivete, I suspect MJ’s naivete will not be the only thing that suffers when a nuclear weapon is detonated in Israel. At least MJ will have the consolation that his decisions didn’t cause it.
February 2, 2007 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ummmm....Iran is the place where your "Judeo-Christian suppositions" started. I think you should read up on the influence of Iran on world religions - including Judaism.
February 2, 2007 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to agree. The Mullahs no doubt hope to go to paradise some day but meanwhile they are enjoying a good substitute for Paradise right here on Earth what with their stolen oil wealth and power over a nation. The government of Iran is notoriously corrupt, the usual result of mixing politics and religion, much like the medieval Papacy, which managed to be both fanatical and persecuting while reveling in all the good things of life at the expense of the Faithful. For such men, Paradise can wait.
February 2, 2007 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
What exactly is your point? Modern western assumptions (with clearly Judeo/Christian and Hellenistic roots) are really themselves based on more ancient Persian (or Mesopotamian) values? Outside of the lunacy of such a position - so what!? Does that mean G.W. was right? Or that MJ was right? Or that MJ isn't making the same mistake as GW ... or is MJ really GW?
February 2, 2007 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: They can't offer a decent life to their children, and under the circumstances, seeing their child die fighting against what they see as the oppressive power with its boot on their necks seems like an acceptable option.
Oh bullshit. Israel is not oppressing Iran! The only ones oppressing the Iranian people are their own government.
February 2, 2007 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Night Draws Near", by Anthony Shadid (Washington Post reporter in Baghdad), P. 29, interviewing an Iraqi vet of the war against Iran:
"Nothing in the war made sense to Emad, who saw only farce. No one actually wanted to fight. No one except the Iranian volunteers, fired by religious faith, with the keys to paradise around their necks. They turned out to be little more than human sandbags..."
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
February 2, 2007 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
First let me point out the obvious flaw in your analogy - I'm already paying for police protection, so a "long discussion" isn't necessary, unless they're idiots, the police know who is paying their salaries.
Secondly, I'm not a "Jew living in London in 1940" or a "bohemian in a Paris salon" - which is meaningless in the U.S.A. in 2007. No sentient person can offer as an argument that there are historical parallels to 1930/40s Europe - the President of Iran is nothing like Hitler, Iran is nothing like 1930s Germany and the United States is not in peril of being overrun by "Islamofascists" (although I do worry somewhat about the "Christofascists" in this country.) and forced into "Islamoslavery" by "IslamoIranians."
Your attempt at emotional blackmail by claiming the sacrifice of others in support of your argument, is an indication not of my disregard for their sacrifice, but of your willingness to use them once again as a deflection from the question at hand. I don't "dishonour them", you do by your pius, patriotic humbuggery while you call for their deployment in a meaningless, unprovoked attack on a country that has not attacked us nor has the means to do so.
As to your nonsense about the "price of freedom", freedom is maintained by the goodwill, the trust and the faith of the people in their government. No one is more a slave than a people who are relentlessly serving and feeding a war machine that keeps them in debt and working as indentured servants to pay that debt. You don't need guns to enslave people, you need only trap them in a neverending cycle of debt, keep them in constant terror of "enemies" and curb their rights in the pretense of protecting them.
You have no concept of the cost of war - what it means in the expenditure of lives, treasure and the wasted years of those young men and women fighting a war. My son's USAR unit is being deployed (again) within the next ninety days, do you really think I don't "understand" what those kids are sacrificing?
"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go."
Siegfried Sassoon
February 2, 2007 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, uh...no extra fee for posting double comments.
February 2, 2007 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
May I offer a bit of engineering analysis, and ask how likely a complete bolt-out-of-the-blue attack might be? If that sort of attack is really plausible, without literally years of warning that Iran is developing their capability, perhaps preemption makes sense. As an aside, attacking a centrifuge cascade will be most destructive when it is up and running. The centrifuges, handling highly toxic and corrosive uranium hexafluoride, run at almost unimaginably high speeds. In attacking them, the trick is to interrupt power to all their electric motors at once. As they slow down, unless the Iranian engineers are very,very good, they will get unbalanced and explosively tear themselves apart. Right now, the estimates are that they don't yet have enough centrifuges for more than research purposes, although a 30,000 centrifuge cascade could give enough uranium for several bombs per year. As I will examine below, they will need more than a few. They will also need to step up their missile manufacturing and testing, which by definition can't really be hidden -- rockets' red glare is not just poetic.
In the estimates to follow, I am not going to assume Israel increases its arsenal, although they may harden their facilities. Assume Israel has 200 nuclear devices, although some estimates take it as high as 400. It's a guess how they have deployed them, but I'll take a guess that 20% are for tactical or contingency use, and 80% are for strategic use.
While Israel is reputed to have developed nuclear artillery rounds, given that the US long ago retired its shells in favor of missiles and aircraft-delivered bombs. The US also found short-range nuclear missiles more of a complication than not. I will, therefore, assume Israel has 40 gravity bombs, which would be delivered, in lob-toss trajectories, by F-16I aircraft at shorter ranges and by F-15E's on more distant or difficult targets.
Of the remaining 160, I'm going to take a wild guess at the submarine-launched capability using an enhanced sub-launched Harpoon missile, and suggest they have 18 for their 3 Dolphin submarines. The remaining 142 are on Jericho II or III missiles.
None of Israel's enemies have appreciable antisubmarine capability to stop a missile-armed sub. On the other hand, unless operating in a surge, one typically has 1 naval unit deployed for every 3 in service. So, there are 6 missiles in effectively invulnerable launchers.
Of the remaining 142, the immediate question becomes the extent to which Israel has (or will) put them into hardened silos. There's nothing magic about silo construction for people that understand really reinforced concrete. In general, the US assumed that it needed at least two accurate nuclear warheads, with a yield from 50 to 340 kilotons depending on accuracy, to take out a missile silo. US Minuteman and Trident missiles have enough throw-weight, and the US has enough knowledge of miniaturization, to put several multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV), each carrying a thermonuclear warhead, per missile.
There are reasons to believe that Iran does have some MIRV technology, but the weight-carrying capacity generally understood of the Shahab-3 makes it a bit questionable that they could lift MIRVs, or miniaturize the bombs well enough to get ones small enough for MIRV use.
Assume Iran wants to annihilate Israel's major cities, but also disarm Israel sufficiently that it takes minimum damage. To go against the Israeli Jericho force, Iran will need at least 248 missiles and warheads, assuming they do not solve the miniaturization problems. Given that Israel has US Patriot PAC-3 antimissiles covering its cities, it's not clear how many missiles would be needed to break through. Let's guess at 10 per city. In addition, any attacker would want to take out the nuclear development center at Dimona, the missile depot at Zacharia, command and control, fighter-bomber bases (apt to have hardened hangars), etc.
Is it getting across that Iran would need 300-plus missiles and warheads for a non-suicidal attack? Is it plausible that the manufacturing facilities for all this, as well as the missile emplacements, could be done in secrecy in underground factories, and then suddenly whipped out to the amazement of the world's intelligence agencies?
If the Israeli arsenal is closer to 400 devices, as some suggest today, the Iranians might need another 200-300 warheads. Even if they solve nuclear MIRV, that's a lot of missiles. The US started with small numbers of MIRVs and worked up over several generations of missiles and reentry vehicles.
I also might add that the US has specialized satellites for the detection of the heat plume from missile launches, which worked quite well against SCUDs. If the US made it known the output of those intelligence satellites would be made available, in real time, to the Israelis, the Israelis could adopt a "launch on warning" doctrine. While those 300 plus Iranian missiles are heading for their targets, Jericho missiles could be launching and as many aircraft getting airborne before their bases disappear.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 2, 2007 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The point is when you start invoking "Judeo-Christianity" as the basis of an US versus Them hate screed, remember which side They are on.
February 2, 2007 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Feel free to email my words to Joe "Clean Kinnock" Biden. I'll meet him in court any day of the week if he can pull that foot out of his mouth.
February 2, 2007 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup
February 2, 2007 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Urban legends have a way of becoming conventional wisdom and "memory"
Remember the intense propaganda atmosphere those days:
01/31/1987 Orange County Register
An Italian film company has been ordered to pay $400,000 to the government of Iran after a local court found that film sequences showing atrocities allegedly committed by Iranian soldiers were fakes.
The ruling ended a three-year battle by the Iranian Embassy in Rome against Racing Film and Titanus Film, producers and distributors of the 1983 documentary "Sweet and Barbaric."
The film was widely publicized for a scene in which Iranian soldiers used two Jeeps to pull the arms off an Iraqi prisoner of war. Another scene showed a close-up of an Iraqi prisoner being executed by an Iranian soldier with a pistol shot in the neck.
Stills from the film were widely used by newspapers and magazines around the world. Iraqi officials produced them on many occasions as evidence that the Iranians were maltreating their prisoners of war.
But six court experts, aided by blow-ups of the crucial scenes, found that the filmmakers had used actors who not only staged the atrocities but reappeared in different roles, both in Iraqi and Iranian uniforms.
Still photographs from the film shown in court clearly revealed the weapons held by the actors were made by an Italian manufacturer, of a type not issued by the Iranian army. And the actor whose arms were torn away could be clearly seen with his arms strapped to his body beneath his uniform in the courtroom blow-ups.
February 2, 2007 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes yes, that's all fine - but the Iranians COULD join up with invading Martians who will carry their nuclear weapons for them. See? It COULD happen and We can't wait for the mushroom cloud!
February 2, 2007 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could you be confusing the Administration's belief in mushroom management versus mushroom clouds? Keep
'em in the dark and feed 'em bull exhaust?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 2, 2007 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is a nice story. I take it you think Bubba was being a little insensitive to the little terrorist.
I always try to take a close look at the links that are posted here. I had heard of that leftist group before so it was kind of fun reading what they have to say.
Let's see, they said:
The Iranian leadership is REALLY quite sane. And Iran having Nukes is no big deal. We'll get used to it.
More paranoia about the Jews in the White House secretly controlling everything. Run they're everywhere!
And an enlightening and serious article about How George W. Bush is responsible for the current unrest in Gaza because he ASSASSINATED Yassar Arafat.
Oh Well, I'm with Clinton on this one. Arafat deserved to get ripped a new one.
Thanks for the weblink to moonbat central.
February 2, 2007 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fine. Don't worry about moonbat groups that aren't here to respond. How about some engineering analysis of what the Iranian threat would have to be to be credible, or are you getting your information on the credibility of their threat -- and the correlation of nuclear forces -- from marsbats?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 2, 2007 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Catchy title, Mr. Rosenberg, and guaranteed to generate another 300 comments from the same people making the same arguments they made in your last three posts.
I can write a better and more realistic Second Holocaust scenario than Benny Morris.
"For years, the Israelis had known Saudi Arabia possessed nuclear weapons. The Saudis banned UN weapons inspectors from entering the country in 2004 and it was common knowledge in intelligence circles that the Saudis financed Pakistan's nuclear weapon program in return for a pledge from the Pakistanis to provide the Saudis with access to its nuclear weapons stockpile.
The reasons for the spectacular failure of Israeli intelligence to prevent or even anticipate a nuclear attack by the Saudis are complex and varied but historians will probably attribute corruption within the Israeli government as the principal factor.
For too long, Israel had relied on a steady flow of cash from the American Jewish community to influence US policy towards Israel. The policy was meant to discourage retaliation against Israel for its out-sized interference in the political and economic affairs of other countries.
But resentment towards Israel began to build within the US military after the military confirmed, with cooperation from a sympathetic Russian government, that the Israelis had sold top secret US weaponry technology to Russia, China and several other countries for a combination of cash and economic opportunities. Those sales combined with the revelation that Israeli spying in the US was far more extensive than had previously been known caused a growing faction within the Pentagon to quietly conclude that Israel had severely compromised national defense and posed an ongoing to threat to US security.
After an exhaustive investigation into the causes of economic chaos in Russia in the '90s, the Russian government concluded that Russian Jews, both inside and outside of Russia, had conspired with US financial and energy companies to facilitate the transfer of Russian energy assets to US corporate ownership.
Both US and Israeli intelligence services had severely underestimated Russian nationalism by assuming that all of Russia was "for sale"and the significance of the arrest of Russian oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsk, was downplayed in the US media. Influential NY Times columnist, William Safire attributed the arrest to "anti-semitism" while others attributed it to Russia's growing authoritarianism. In reality, the arrest had been spurred by Khodorkovsk's plan to sell a big chunk of the Russian oil business to US interests.
The finances of certain powerful and very wealthy Americans had become so intertwined with their counterparts in the Middle East that an unspoken agreement was reached in that the US would not retaliate against a nuclear attack on Israel but rather would move immediately to prevent even more horrific nuclear devastation..."
That's all I have time for at the moment.
February 2, 2007 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny how you zeroed in on "Judeo-Christianity." What happened to "Western" and "Hellenistic?"
It would help if you joined the conversation (start by reading what was written).
February 2, 2007 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait a minute...a poster who cites WorldNetDaily as a reliable source is now speaking of the website of gush shalom, a reputable Israeli peace group, as "moonbat central"?
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. --Paul Valery
February 2, 2007 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've told you before, I am very impressed with your engineering perspective on world affairs and the detail of your posts. I just think sometimes you rely too much sometimes on analysis of issues from the prism of technology. A nutty group with the desire and the will to build a WMD and use it is often more dangerous than one that has the materials to build one.
Again I like your information on the number of cetrifuges, etc. It brings a unique perspective to the discussion.
By the way, What is your take on the latest on the new centrifuges installed in Iran
Link Here
February 2, 2007 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, If you think GWB assassinated Arafat like your "reputable" friends at Gush Shalom, then you deserve each other.
I read the nutty links you send me to. If they come up with moonbat ideas, either defend them with facts or agree that they are bonkers.
February 2, 2007 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
As to the centrifuges, even 50,000 is enough to make a few bombs. This doesn't worry me.
The interesting question that no one has mentioned in public: where does the electrical power for these come from? Most countries that do centrifuges or gaseous diffusion put the plants near large hydroelectric dams due to the huge electrical power requirement. Were it to be a fossil-fueled power plant, it would be a big one.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 2, 2007 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The prism of technology often reveals that a feared thing isn't practical within current constraints. Didn't you ever watch Star Trek? "Kiptin, I have the engines goin as fast as a canna, but ye cannot revoke the laws of physics"
I built a scenario that realistically involved hundreds of warheads on both sides. Israel may well be able to shoot down a small number of Shahabs. I'm not going to assume the entire Iranian leadership, and it is a complex assortment, is suicidal.
Like Aum Shinyo, that managed to spray Tokyo with a culture of anthrax that would have killed millions -- if the population of Tokyo chewed cud and mooed a lot? Or going to all the effort to make sarin, without any real thought into how to disperse it? They were wealthy, homicidal, and had some scientists of middling competence.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 2, 2007 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nicholas Burns, our under secretary of state who spoke at the Hezliya conference tried to explain why US interests in the region superceded Irans. A quick look at a world map indicates each nations relative proximity to the region. He broke this piece of shocking news: "Iran is seeking a position of dominance in the Middle East". Imagine.the gall! I say, send a couple of battle groups if they insist on destabilizing our region.our "sphere of influence"!
February 2, 2007 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't it possible that the phrase in question is not meant literally but metaphorically?
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. --Paul Valery
February 2, 2007 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have heard some of our soldiers tell funny stories about some of the insurgents botched attacks comparing them to the keystone cops, but follow that up with, "They only have to succeed once". If they have the will, eventually they will get it right and succeed.
Are you saying that the strain of Anthrax in Tokyo was not dangerous to humans or that all anthrax is not dangerous? I thought 5 or 6 people died here in the 2001 attacks.
February 2, 2007 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, you are right again on something. We did sell missile technology to the Chinese that they are now using against us. But hey, we got a good price for it, right? Charlie Trie and Johnny Chung and the People's Republic of China got to exercise their right to participate in our electoral process in 1996 by giving lots of money to the Democrat Party.
10 years later, China has missiles that are so accurate they can now shoot our satellites clean out of the sky. And Hillary still has Happy memories of all that Chinese money flowing into the White House. Good times.
February 2, 2007 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have come to the conclusion that MJ is a rePublican infiltrator who has come to sow dissension among us so that we cannot (1) stop the war in Iraq, (2) prevent a war in Iran, (3) hold Bush and Cheney accountable, and (4) restore the New Deal.
Sorry, MJ, these posts are driving wedges.
February 2, 2007 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, it is very important that we all come to a consensus. Go New Deal.
February 2, 2007 11:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Big deal. This crazy rabbi's a lunatic. Do the math, just how much damage could Israel do with 200 nuclear bombs? They're probably bigger than the Hiroshima one was, but still....
Cairo=5. Damascus=3. Amman=2. Riyadh=1. Terhan=10 (for good measure). Karachi=4. Islamabad=4. Dubai=1.
Opps! With 170 bombs left over Israel could kill off 1/3 of Middle Eastern Moslems before breakfast!!
February 2, 2007 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love it! I love it! I love it!
To AIPAC, "Quit treating U.S. like your pet rottweiler!!"
That was good, Klyde
February 2, 2007 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
Good news????
February 2, 2007 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
WHAT!?!
If Palistinians suddenly threw their hands in the air and said, "Ok, no more resistance, take whatever you want", the entire West Bank would be a settlement.
February 2, 2007 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Those who argue that Iranians or Muslims in general – unlike Westerners -- would happily see their cities destroyed and their children consumed in a nuclear jihad are talking nonsense."
Where would anyone get such a silly idea that muslims would be willing to sacrifice their own children to murder Jews?
http://www.pmw.org.il/indoctrinaying%20%20children%20to%20violence.htm
http://pmw.org.il/asx/PMW_UmmAjrami%20171104_9.asx
http://pmw.org.il/asx/PMW_MeccaShahid_7.asx
http://pmw.org.il/asx/PMW_SanaAida.asx
http://pmw.org.il/asx/PMW_momVirgins_7.asx
http://pmw.org.il/asx/PMW_Shadi_mom_7.asx
http://pmw.org.il/asx/PMW_momGun_7.asx
http://pmw.org.il/asx/PMW_Fuda_9.asx
http://www.pmw.org.il/asx/um_nidal.asx
February 2, 2007 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real danger to Israel, to Iran, and to all of us, of course, is that the mighty US military is controlled by madmen in the White House who are now preparing a naval/air attack on Iran. That's their solution to the Iraq disaster, escalate it into Iran. They have shown us that they are fully capable of that insanity, and all the signs are there just as they were in the run-up to attacking Iraq.
February 3, 2007 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I'm curious about what solutions anyone has come up with for dealing with Israeli paranoia. I mean, first it was an Iraq atom bomb that was feared. Now it's an Iranian atom bomb that feeds the fear. Next it will be the Pakistanis, etc. Now, not to ignore that these are real problems. But the reason they become seemingly enormous doesn't emanate from objectivity.
One approach to violent paranoid (and psychotic) episodes involves a lot of haloperidol and halfway houses. This is only efficient for relatively small numbers of people.
The more traditional solution to dealing with violent paranoid fanatics is to put pressure on them- frighten all of them, physically contain as many as possible, kill the ones who choose to attack-until the remainder chooses fatalism and negotiation.
Achmedinajad is a smart man, and he with the Iranian Right and the Bush camp and the Israeli Right and Center are in a competition to achieve each other's containment and the exploit the vulnerability to fear each side possesses. Achmedinajad is doing quite a job on the Israelis- and who knows, maybe he can lure/goad their right wingers and American supporters fully into political selfdestruction.
It's the politics of lunatic asylums.
February 3, 2007 1:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aum did two sarin attacks, a minor one in 1994 and a major one in 1995. IIRC, in the latter there were about a dozen fatalities and about 3000 people reporting to hospitals, many of the later with anxiety but no poisoning. Several of the fatalities physically handled, without protective clothing, the punctured plastic bags of sarin and had direct contact. These were subway system employees. Whether or not they knew what they were handling, they got the bags into an isolated space and clearly saved lives at the cost of their own. I wish I knew their names; I salute what was undoubtedly heroic whether or not they knew they were dealing with certain death unless treatment very, very luckily got to them.
Japan was very lucky that Aum got most of the way around the bases, and then tripped over their own feet before getting to home base. Their sarin was quite impure and unstable, but they completely screwed up the dispersion, which, to be efficient, is harder than it looks.
Sarin (GB) is a liquid in a munition, and, in all military munitions, gets help in dispersing and vaporizing. This can be an explosive burster, which is less preferred unless the heat of the explosion is kept low -- in a binary munition, one of the precursors will burn. For that matter, the much more lethal VX will catch on fire and be neutralized in a substantial percentage of burst munitions. Spray tanks or spray bomblets are preferred to explosives.
Aum Shinyo just took plastic baggies of GB into subway cars, punctured them with the sharpened tip of an umbrella, and walked away, relying totally on leakage and evaporation. Even a firecracker in the bag would have greatly increased casualties.
As to the anthrax, not all strains affect all animals. Some strains are dangerous to many kinds of mammals, but the one Aum used came, IIRC, from a dead cow in Australia, and they probably assumed anthrax is anthrax. It's not -- they got a strain that only infected cattle. While some of the strains imported by Iraq did affect humans, others were veterinary interest only -- this is an example of dual use. Getting the culture, however, is the easiest part of making a credible biological weapon. As with chemical agents, the hard part is dispersing as an aerosol. Remember, these are live cells, even if spores, which will die at high heat -- standard sterilizing is 121 degrees Celsius for 15-20 minutes.
As a minor historical note, the first weaponization of anthrax, by the UK, was in airdroppable cattle feed. The target was German cattle, which would have had a substantial effect on German food supplies.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 2:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, risperidone and the other new atypical antipsychotics might work better than haloperidol. Did you notice my blog post -- I am not making this up! -- that there is a new White House Executive Pastry Chef, who is the coauthor of Desserts for Dummies. Maybe GWB wants to learn to bake.
Now, if the cookies had antipsychotics...
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 2:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Assuming you are serious, isn't it better to learn to cope with the wedge issues now, even before the primaries? These are good questions for candidates; they help us recognize bad answers even though me and you and MJ and LEL will certainly have some different value for bad.
Most successful armies have the rule "train like you fight; fight like you train" or Patton's "sweat in training saves blood in combat." The key thing for politics is to treat the run-up to elections as training, without eating one's own, because Rove is going to slam lots harder wedges than MJ. Might as well train with these before the combat of a general election campaign, or even an impeachment.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 2:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
China, apparently after several failed attempts, managed to knock down an inactive Chinese weather satellite in low earth orbit (LEO), a satellite for which they had exact orbital information. In other words, it was the sort of well-known target that has been questionable in national ballistic missile defense (NBMD) tests.
Not all satellites are in LEO. Some of the most critical, most communications satellites are in Clarke or geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO), far higher and out of the reach of anyone's antisatellite (ASAT) capability. Our Defense Support Program satellites that detect missile launch are also in GEO.
GPS satellites, which also carry the Integrated Operational Nuclear Detection System (IONDS), are in higher-than-LEO Medium Earth Orbit. Communications satellites that cover the polar regions are in highly elliptical variants of MEO. Some signal intelligence and wide-area imaging satellites are in MEO.
The Chinese capability is a potential threat to weather, close-look imaging, and certain classes of signal intelligence collectors. If this becomes a serious threat, there was an accidental disclosure of the US MISTY-ZIRCONIC-NEBULA technology for making satellites stealthy to the earth. Essentially, this is an inflatable "venetian blind" between the satellite and the earth, which "opens" only when the cameras or sensors need to look at something.
So, aside from the fact that satellites are above the sky, the Chinese have demonstrated a fairly primitive prototype. They needed a large missile to launch it; the US prototype was launched from a fighter and didn't need large missile bases. The Soviets may have had ground-based lasers that could hurt LEO satellites.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 3:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
To Good 4 America:
Well, I wouldn't want to divert you from your 24-7 activities stopping the Iraq war to contemplate the likely next (Iran) war, the survival of Israel or the suffering of the Palestinians.
Bush-Cheney are planning a war on Iran now and you are worrying about wedges or wedgies.
However, I would be delighted if the neocon wing of our party simply left and became Republicans. If my posts help, in some small way, to make the neocons feel that they have no home in the Democratic party, fine with me. There are only about 600 of them anyway and they belong in the GOP.
February 3, 2007 6:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you'd been living under 40 years of military occupation you'd send your sons to die and do it proudly.
The moralizing of the invader. I got no sympathy for u son.
February 3, 2007 6:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is always some excuse to kill. And some types always find them.
I guess I'm an idiot. I'd always try negotiations first. You can't reach agreement, you walk out.
And, Jiminger, no one could possibly look at our history and think that we are all too happy to sacrifice our sons in stupid wars. Nah, who's think that.
February 3, 2007 6:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is from Edwards at the Herzliya conference:
"As to the American people, this is a difficult question. The vast majority of people are concerned about what is going on in Iraq. This will make the American people reticent toward going for Iran. But I think the American people are smart if they are told the truth, and if they trust their president. So Americans can be educated to come along with what needs to be done with Iran."
http://www.herzliyaconference.org/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp? ArticleID=1728&CategoryID=223
If any American President tries to "educate" the American people that they have reason to fear Iran, that President will be lying. I wonder what kind of mushroom clouds and yellowcake counterparts Edwards would cook up.
February 3, 2007 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
MJ:
I agree that bidding a fond farewell to the neocons is a good thing, assuming I'm not one of them. I'm starting to wonder based on the tenor of the interesting debates you prompt MJ.
Query, and with all due respect: is someone who lives for the spirit of Oslo, has opposed the Iraq War from the start, who believes that talking to Iran and Syria is a good thing, and who believes for reasons he's not been able to yet cogently articulate that, in the long run, the Iranian people are natural allies of both the United States and, yes, Israel, still capable of being a neocon because he or she feels a need to defend Israel beyond rote reiteration of its technical right to exist?
Conversely, any scuttlebutt inside the Beltway among progressives about welcoming the disappearence of folks on the other extreme of the equation? Assuming, as I believe you've stated, that folks who favor the obliteration of the Zionist entity, have little influence on actual policy, is there any thought given to how such folks might serve to alienate and prematurely fragment a progressive coalition that has historically included Jews?
I can listen to you MJ, because I believe you really do have Israel's best and long-term intersts in your essence and at your core. But I also think you're fed up with the stubborn refusal of so many who see no wrong in what Israel does, and you are even more fed up that these folks influence policy.
Still in all, if people are going to change minds on a grander scale, I submit that two fundamental realities must be recognized:
1. Yes, the Holocaust has been invoked to score cheap political points, but the scars of the Holocaust still permeate deep, not only among survivors, but their children, grandchildren, and among fellow Jews. Anyone who thinks that you can work through this by essentially saying, "grow up, Israel has nukes now, so just chill", is simply wrong. Jews have contemporary and historical reasons for distrust, plain and simple, just as the Palestinians have contemporary and more recent historical reasons to distrust Israel and its supporters.
2. Crticism of AIPAC and its allies for being too powerful is something I have and will continue to express agreement with, and I recognize that it is cause for concern. My ultimate concern is how best to combat the Israel right or wrongers. That said, anyone who believes that it's just academic in the eyes even of open-minded Jews to separate legitimate criticism of powerful lobbying groups from centuries-long diatribes about Jewish control is just wrong, plain and simple. And, by analogy, the "control freaks" I see on here have much in common with the Israel "right or wrongers" who lead with the Holocaust, in that the "control freaks" often lead with what is nothing more than a disingenuous political weapon, namely that it's "brave" or "courageous" to speak out against Israel in this country.
Balderdash. It may be brave and courageous for a Democratic politician in the Senate to vote against this or that resolution pertaining to Israel, but that's because AIPAC and it's allies are effective and well-funded lobbyists. That is a separate and important issue, and should be distinguished from arguments about Jewish control over the media and ultimately the content of the debate on the American street.
In short, anger at our fellow American Jews and their stubborn refusal to see the nasty side of Israeli policy is certainly understandable. Acting to change that stubborn refusal by lashing out, as some do, can only be so productive (at best). I submit that the prospects of changing this stubborn refusal are diminished further by ignoring the pain and impact of cancerous attacks on the fundamenal integrity of the Jewish State, by ignoring those who speak of Israel's wars as being the sole responsibility of Israel, by excusing terror (as opposed to trying to understand and address the root causes of terror), and, yes, even by challenging the existence of a Jewish national identity in the first place.
If you think I'm all wet on the above MJ, then let me know. I don't wish to pontificate for my own benefit. I am a big boy if you and your readers think my contributions are unworthy of this site.
February 3, 2007 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am only half serious. A little bit of trying to remind people here that we often work together... It is getting hot in this kitchen.
I generally agree with MJ's view below, as well.
February 3, 2007 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, you are right, like so many things with the Chinese, the full threat has not yet materialized. As I have stated before in other discussions, such as Iran, I am trying to look at the long view.
Before the Chinese campaign finance scandal, Chinese missiles had most of the technology to lift large payloads into space, but the gyros and guidance were horrible. With the help of companies like Loral they were able to leapfrog ahead maybe 15 years or more and save a lot of money. Like the space race and the arms race, time and money is important.
Did the Loral technology play a part in the Satellite kill test? Knowing the crude technology that they used before, how could it not. Is the Chinese technology as good as ours? No way. Even if they might be basic by our standards, the closer they are to our military technology, the more costly it is for us to compete and defend against. The argument that you made with Iran that they are not capable today,, is true but in the long view, This will cause us problems at some point.
True, there is no monopoly on campaign scandals. Look at Duke Cunningham. This particular one thoughwas unprecedented and has implications that continue to reveal themselves to this day.
February 3, 2007 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I mentioned earlier about criminal release of military secrets to China, there is also reckless release of military secrets. I believe the dual use anthrax that Iraq received came from the US during the 80s.
Thanks for the detailed post.
February 3, 2007 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
So who are the American Christian right planning to kill in their religious boot camps?
February 3, 2007 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Based on an early post, Edwards has already self-destructed... Fake liberals must go. In a way, the wingers have self-destructed, through the help of Iraq. It takes awhile for this to take effect.
February 3, 2007 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have to do better than that? Justify why you think Iran is a greater threat -- Do you know more about Russian and Chinese military imports than we do.. Explain?
February 3, 2007 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bslev,
You make enough good points that I am going to respond in several posts. The lifetime of a long reply, when two or more cats assist at the keyboard, is questionable.
This brought up several things for me, and I may free-associate a little.
I was born in 1948, so I don't have any direct memories of the Holocaust. As far as I know, I didn't lose any family. What terrified my grandparents, with whom I lived in the early fifties, was Joe McCarthy reminding them of the Czarist Okhrana (secret police). My mother was in the German occupation, and was shaken by her visit to Dachau; I still have the pictures.
As I grew up, I came to a belief that if the US ever became totalitarian, it would come from right wingnuts. As a consequence, I studied the Nazis' rise to power and methods of operation, motivated more by "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it" rather than "never again". The first implies a plan; the second does not. My personal research included not just extensive book reading, but taking advantage of being in DC to go to documents in the National Archives. My German is very limited, but, dictionary in hand, I was able to get the gist of some things, and the more important ones were translated. After a time, I think I understood, and that includes both human tragedy and logistics.
I have to say that I was disturbed by the placement of the Holocaust Museum near the Mall, giving many the impression that this is an official (at least Smithsonian) museum. Compounding that was the way visitors to it came to me, emoting that I had to go down and look at the piles of shoes and other relics, "to understand".
In point of fact, I had seen photographs of such things years ago, before knowledge of the Holocaust was "fashionable". Asking questions of my visitors, however, I discovered they really had little knowledge of how the persecution (pre-Endloesung) and killing worked, how the Nazis had concealed information, and how the slime had gotten control of a country. When I'd get the emotional appeal to visit the museum, apparently so I could get upset, I'd start reciting "Obersturmbannfuhrer Oswald Pohl, commanding WVHA. Sturmbannfuhrer and Kriminalkomissar Christian Wirth, Inspector of Concentration Camps..." To me, it was more important to know at a detailed level. That's the way my mind works, and I continue to try to learn.
What does strike home personally is the nuclear threat that had been over me for decades. It was unfortunate, in a way, that I was one of the few people in my junior high school, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, who was quite familiar with the effects of nuclear weapons. Again, I learned more over time, including eventual access to some military documentation.
This is getting far too long, but I think my key point is that I have a very clear idea what annihilation looks like, as would be a major strike by the US or USSR When people talk about annihilation from small artillery rockets and invoke the Holocaust, I become annoyed. When people demand the Iranians be attacked on mere suspicion, and there is hard information that they aren't close to being able to produce weapons, I wonder if the kind of constant war that the Nazis really wanted, and George Orwell described so memorably, is alive and well in the minds of certain American and Israeli "hard-liners."
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
You continue to be unclear on the concept. Domestic security by the police pay the price for your security in your home by risking their lives to protect your freedom in the above example. The fact that you pay their salary, although apparently you do so against your wishes was never the issue.
There are thousands of dead Americans in NYC, DC, and Pennsylvania that would argue with your contention that Islamofascists do not threaten us domestically, if it were not for the fact that they died on 9/11/01.
Freedom is not a matter of trust in a government. It is an inalienable right that is inherent in each person and is defended by a government that serves by the consent of the governed by way of a threat of violence to those that would take it away from you and I. Consent is a choice in a democracy. If you believe that the people are too dumb to understand the threat of foreign enemies the way you do, you have the "freedom" to say so. But at the end of the day, if you oppose the fact that people have given their lives to protect your freedom, you are left with the option of paying their salary, expressing your opinion, and then stewing in anger that they have payed the price to keep you free.
I also have a close family member and friends that continue to fight the terrorists that would take that freedom away. The difference is I recognize that the sacrifice they make has value and is appreciated. You apparently do not.
"...People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.."
-George Orwell
February 3, 2007 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bslev,
I'm not completely sure I'm parsing your words below, so please help me out if I misunderstand.
I have no problem with recognizing the integrity of a state based on principles of Zionism. That is not, in any way, being sarcastic. I have a significant problem calling it "the" Jewish state. I could probably live with "a" Jewish state, or "the Zionist state" (again, that's not meant to be derogatory), but calling it "the" Jewish state implies that all Jews -- and that, I realize, is a complex definition -- owe it allegiance.
The major wars were clearly not initiated by Israel. I do believe that there has been significant Israeli mismanagement of trying to win a peace. Things like disproportionate response and collective punishment (attacks on the electrical grid) in Lebanon, and the settlements in the occupied territories, to me show an incredible lack of wisdom and lack of understanding of relevant military history.
The responsibility would be very different if the hardliners push successfully for US, Israeli, or joint attacks on Iran in the short term.
I've studied the root causes and operational techniques of terror in a wide range of insurgencies, not just Palestine. When I speak of antiterror actions as being counterproductive, I usually have a historical basis of comparison.
I've posted before on this point. Yes, I probably do challenge it, on a mild level. I have no trouble with a Zionist identity. I don't like states that actively use religion as guidance for government, whether that's Shar'ia, the Israeli political compromises with religious parties and the preference for Jews as immigrants, the secular religion of Marxism, or Torquemada's loving approach to Catholicism.
If Jewish national identity is not required for religious or cultural Jewishness, then I have much less of a problem. I do believe that someone can identify as Jewish without believing they have a Jewish national identity.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is like saying defend who was more of a threat to civilization, FDR or Josef Stalin? Where does someone start with a question like that.
No, the US is not a greater threat to civilization than Iran. I have heard this question before and eventually it bogs down into a discussion of what is civilization and how can we say our view of civilization is better than theirs. Our view of civilization is better than the imperialistic hegemony of the new caliphate that they advocate.
Our culture is better. Our values are better. Our history of responsibility in world affairs is better than theirs. We are better.
Our military inventories are to defend liberty and theirs is to promote a hegemony of Sharia and genocide. We are the good guys. We should always win.
February 3, 2007 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we are having a decent exchange. Thanks.
Is technology leakage helping potential opponents of the US? Sure. I do giggle about accusations that Bill Clinton apparently personally briefed Chinese about the engineering details of the W88 warhead. Jimmy Carter had the background, but these sort of accusations are like the spy movies where the bad guy hands over a briefcase containing the plans for a missile submarine, when those plans actually would fill several 18-wheelers.
I see preemptive military strikes as a last resort, and totally inappropriate until there is a clear indication that a military threat is evolving. As far as one side getting a jump on the other, my favorite is the Battle of Hampton Roads, in March 1862. On March 8, CSS Virginia (incorrectly called CSS Merrimac steamed out, a generation beyond the sail and sail-steam warships in the Union blockading squadron, and devastated it.
The very next day, USS Monitor showed up. While it had many deficiencies, so did Virginia, and, overall, Monitor was close to a generation beyond -- if it was really next generation, it would have sunk Virginia rather than forcing a retreat.
As I've mentioned, there are countermeasures to antisatellite weapons, and more than stealth. I do not believe the Chinese could take out a US satellite without the US being completely aware of it, and I believe the Chinese know that the US would regard destroying a military satellite as an act of war. That wouldn't, by itself, trigger a full nuclear response, but the consequences would be far worse than in the EP-3 incident.
Do remember that other potential enemies of China, including India and Russia, launch and operate military satellites. They aren't the only countries that have intelligence-collecting satellites.
If Iran is building a significant attack capability, we will know it while it is building, and can act appropriately. The present capability isn't even close. Further, in the long post I made about scenarios, I don't believe there will be a consensus, in the Iranian national leadership with many parties, to commit national suicide to destroy Israel.
Unconditional US-Iranian talks are a fine start in many areas. The Administration's demand that Iran stop its nuclear program as a precondition prevents discussion on a range of issues from Iraq to nonproliferation. It's idiotic.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
dup
February 3, 2007 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, "Western" is merely an arbitrary directional designation. Historically, in ancient China, "North" was the opposite of ours, and so their "West" is our East.
"Hellenistic" is ill-defined. But in fact Iran was Hellenized after the conquest by Alexander, and fyi it was the Muslims who secured, protected and translated the ancient Greek knowledge for the benefit of Europe after Europe emerged out of the dark ages. In fact, reading Plato and Aristotle etc is part of the standard eduction of Iranian seminaries, and Khomeini could probably run circles around you when it came to Greek philosophy.
February 3, 2007 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Our" civilization is theirs. moron.
February 3, 2007 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do believe Imelda Marcos did make one socially redeeming comment. At an official reception, someone asked her "How do you like living in the Far East?"
"Far from what"?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
You had me thinking for a while and then you said:
Sorry, you LOST your creditability right there...
February 3, 2007 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
...and what about Pakistan's sunnis? (them being the majority, shia being the minority). Elections are coming up this year in Pakistan... If you think that the region no longer trusts the US in staying, how far do you think the Saudis will go -- aligning themselves and interfering in other countries internal affairs? For example, who do you think are funding the rise of the Taleban?
Seriously, I don't know (e.g. I don't know much about Pakistani politics and how it maintains its internal divisions), but you've made me wonder.
Oh, but I do know that PAKISTAN HAS NUKES... just wanted to add that!
February 3, 2007 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, if you get your way, our civilization will be owned and operated by the beheading caliphate and you will be the one to thank for it. Right again.
February 3, 2007 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
No need to apologize for your beliefs. If you think America should lose to their holy war say so. I don't think saying that we should win that war calls my credibility into question. You can be credible and root for their side. As you said originally, US is a greater threat, so you are still consistent with your original post. Cheer for the beheaders. Be my guest.
February 3, 2007 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
So I'm guessing you're ok with a Holy War?
That you are ok with our little "Jesus camp" kiddies joining our growing "crusader" Christian indoctrinated military, AGAINST the Holy Jihad Warriers...?
You believing that if you live 'in a certain part of the world' you must be CRAZY eh?
You're a kinda Armageddon type of person -- Am I right?
February 3, 2007 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with your characterization of Clinton. I see it as being blinded by other goals, not waking up one morning and contemplating putting the nuclear football on ebay.
Is your reference to Carter the leak of stealth technology?
You are right about the Chinese abilities, but I imagine it as choosing a battleground knowing that a potential enemy is moving an outdated artillery battery on to a hill well out of range. It may not threaten you now, but it requires attention, recon, resources, limits your mobility to a certain extent and more importantly, tells you they may have more where that comes from. So with that in mind, yes, the weapon system at this point poses little "immediate" threat.
I disagree with your idea of immediate unconditional bilateral talks. Any bilateral action at this point sets into motion a series of chess moves that result in benefits to them. They have already stated that no shiny trinkets from the US will deter them. They must retract that position or we can not sit down.
As we have discussed, the Council of experts is not monolithic. Our pressure may have had some positive results.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/22/D8MQC3S80.html
Here is a link to recent criticism of Ahmedinijahd of his saber rattling, if anything of the style, maybe not the underlying goal.
On the other hand, as we have discussed, Ayatollah Yasdi, the Presidents mentor, continues to run for the leadership role. He lost last month, but if he won, their apocalyptic goals would commence.
February 3, 2007 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I think I have made it clear, I oppose holy war. I oppose holy war with force. If a holy warrior wants to kill us, I will kill him first. That's not to hard to understand.
If someone wanted to kill you because of the color of your skin, you might call it a race war. By defending yourself, are you in favor of race wars?
I don't know where you and some of the other christian haters on here, get this idea that Christians are waging some kind of Jihad. That is such a joke.
Almost without exception, the only terrorism in the name of god right now, is muslim Jihad.
Again, your anger at anyone that would be "...AGAINST the Holy Jihad Warriers...?" is still consistent with your original post regarding your prefrence for the global Caliphate. You are consistent.
February 3, 2007 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
My mention of Carter only was to establish that he was the only President that was, in fact, a qualified nuclear engineer, and could have understood the W88 enough to give away the family jewels. I'd say he was the only President that could, but I never underestimate the brainpower of Thomas Jefferson. :-)
I recognize that this comment may run afoul of those here who believe that we are being run by a militaristic system, but I happen to believe that R&D to stay ahead of potential opponents is appropriate. The opponents and threat have to be sensibly chosen; I do not consider North Korea a credible nuclear ICBM threat. While they have been mentioned as the justification for the Fort Richardson, Alaska, national ballistic missile defense (NBMD) system, the reality is that they can, in the moderate term, plausibly threaten targets about as far as Guam. The Fort Richardson ABM radars would not even be able to pick up a Guam-bound missile due to the curvature of the earth.
Theater BMD, however, with the Navy Standard missile, Army PAC-3, and possibly the Air Force experimental airborne laser, might well be able to handle that threat: the Navy and Air Force systems might be able to hit it in boost phase, and the Army and Navy systems can protect the target. Note that Japan has purchased the Navy and Army systems and can use it for self-defense or even boost phase intercept off North Korea.
China is unlikely to engage the United States directly. If it did choose to go to war in the region, as (unlikely) against Taiwan, it conceivably might try to blunt US reconnaisance. They know, however, we can keep putting up more difficult targets -- and we can hurt their space assets more than they can hurt ours.
Ahmadinejad already preempted some world public opinion with his letter to the US people. Believe it or not, Iranian public opinion is a factor in their politics, as demonstrated, for example, by your own statement that Yasdi lost. If it were all predetermined, how could that happen?
I simply do not see a plausible set of dangerous moves from unconditional talks, especially because I see no need to give them an ultimatum to stop a nuclear program that is in early research modes. Talks can always be cut off if they get to a point where there is reasonable evidence they are moving to a weapons program. Without talks, there is no way to get cooperation with respect to Iraq -- and how would you suggest that talking to Iran would make the Shi'a situation in Iraq worse?
Iranians have Internet access and a fairly free press. If talks were accompanied, not by saber rattling but with a carrot and stick approach, the start of talks being the carrot and "grave concerns" about other programs, stated up front and in public, that could draw support away from the extremists. It could hardly make things worse.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, against my better judgement, I'll bite. You've stated that gush shalom claims that GWB assasinated Arafat. Can you provide a link to this claim?
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. --Paul Valery
February 3, 2007 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Is Another Holocaust Inevitable?"
Rosenberg you're a putz.This is the title of a post on avoiding a war with Iran?
Has no one else called you on this yet?
How about "Is Another invasion/mistake/fuck-up/crime/ Inevitable?"
You load the question beyond the point of absurdity. Israel or the US will start this war and Iran will be seen by the world as the victim.
"As a lifelong Zionist"
What a whiny racist bitch you are.
If this goes down, paranoid weakings like you will deserve the blame more than anyone exccept the idiot in the White House.
Why not ask the opinion of the Jews in Iran?
February 3, 2007 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The sad thing about rating your post is that you quoted highly relevant material, but obscured your quite valid points with a personal attack that doesn't help your argument. Are you, perhaps, offering schmuck-nature in the competition with putz-nature (I use this in the context of the Zen question "Does one have Buddha-nature?")?
What a mishegoss.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think hass refers to the conjecture that the stark opposition of Satan and God is a borrowing from Zoroastrian dualism. In the first books of the Bible Satan is far from formidable, and at one occasion he dares God to make a bet, and God complies.
In the real of religion, Persians were very different from the more ancient Mesopotamian cults. At least in the ideal terms, they had a single god and a single, quite elaborate scripture, the first major civilization to adopt such a scheme.
February 3, 2007 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny - the only people who take the "caliphate" nonsense seriously are you wingnuts.
Oh, and if you actually knew anything about anything, you'd know that the Persians resisted and eventually fought off the Caliphate.
February 3, 2007 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's not be too harsh on all Iranian nuts. Their pistachios are the best in the world.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Nazis allied with the Stalinists and the Italian Fascists and also with imperial Japan to take over the world.
I have often heard people argue, although I am not saying that you are, that AQ would not ally themselves with the Islamic brotherhood or with Saddam or that the Hojjatieh with the Taliban or Ahmedinijahd with Communists, because their ultimate visions are not congruent.
If the current alarmist rhetoric that we have been in the midst of a civil war in Iraq that is spiraling in ever increasing magnitude is true, then the logical extension is that if we pull out, that Iran will move in from the east and the Sunnis from the west and Saudis, Egyptians, etc will be in open ground combat in and around baghdad.
The bottom line is Iran sees itself as the rightful heir to an expanding global islamic civilization. AQ also sees itself in that role. I would like to thwart those ambitions, regardless of their alliances and in fighting.
February 3, 2007 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that it would be useful to examine the record of Iranian leaders and their modus operandi. The highest leaders of the Shia are jurists, and in my opinion, they are quite legalistic. They may issue fatwas (or whatever it is atually called) but they truly think about them, rather than making shit up when convenient.
Some people mentioned the admiration of martyrdom in Shia religion. Yet, martyr is not a martyr without a just cause. For example, when Iraq attacks Iran, or Israel attacks Lebanon, te cause is deemed just. In the last war with Hezbollah, they had their justification, that we do not have to agree with, but which were not fanciful.
I doubt that mere existence of Israel would be a sufficient cause for mass martyrdom according to the highest Shia jurists. Consequently, would Israel conclude peace treaties with neighbors and Palestinians, I do not see how they would find justification to attack. (Or any political gain.) Perhaps it would be an extreme step on the side of Israel (I mean, ernestly negotiating peace agreements) but perhaps extreme measures are called for.
Similarly, I do not see what problems could be solved by attacking Iran. Iran does not need nuclear weapons, it needs a "just cause". We may pay no attention to what non-proliferation treaties say, but they do. Zone of influence would be nice (all countries like them), but the only way a country can be absorbed is if it feels otherwise isolated and threatened (Iran is not THAT dominating to find clients in a more forceful fashion). Syria and Palestinians are not natural allies of Iran, unless they are otherwise isolated and threatened.
A little explanation: if an attack on Iran will be limited, it will achieve little except strong motivation for swift revenge, which can be partly conventional, partly by proxy, and in whole, very painful. A devastating attack would be so far beyond the pale that entrire international system can go down the drain.
February 3, 2007 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can one delete a comment?
February 3, 2007 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look at a map, and the published order of battle of Iranian forces. For any significant penetration into Iraq, Iran has to solve the problem of logistics through or around the Zagros Mountains. Alternatively, they might try a southern approach, controlling the waterway to the Port of Basra. If it became appropriate, the US could contest either rather well -- the Iranian Air Force is fairly decrepit, with the caveat they might get their Russian aircraft updated, although they would need to get their pilots much better trained to go against a more experienced air force. Even in shallow waters, the sea route is questionable against US subs, or intelligent mines laid by air or subs.
The Saudis and Egyptians have questionable logistics to go to Baghdad, although the Saudis and the Kuwaitis are plausible in southern Iraq.
I don't see how you can thwart all Islamic ambitions. You can support moderates, you can work on the conditions that create extremists, you can contain in some cases just as the USSR was contained -- but without the allies and basing of the Cold War. This is a strategic reality that will take creative thinking, not just threats.
Let us say, for the sake of argument, that some apparently incongruent Islamic groups ally. The "street" -- which I won't limit to Arab -- listens to electronic media. The opportunities for black and gray propaganda in such a case, to inhibit recruiting and to sow dissent, are immense.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thought you might like this link to a recently declassified document about what was believed at the time to be the impending defeat of Iraq by Iran in 1982.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB167/03.pdf
We all hear about the April Glaspie incident starting the Persian Gulf war, but don't often hear the part Jimmy played in the beginning of the Iran Iraq war. He sent Brezinski to talk to Saddam to invade and team up with dissident generals during the hostage crises. Saddam liked the idea because he would be backed by the US, have support inside Iran and have the opportunity to win back oil fields that had been traded away to Iran 5 years before. The KGB tipped off the Ayatollah of Carters plannned coup and rounded up 600 coup plotters. Saddam decided he had received a green light and invaded anyway.
The above document gives you an idea of some of the perceived implications of an Iranian take over of Iraq.
February 3, 2007 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perceived by whom? I don't assume that actors are going to behave in the same way they did 25 years ago. I'm afraid this comes across as an opportunity to kick those you dislike rather than rational analysis. Unfortunately, in my opinion, you take the position that involves the most suspicion and the greatest pressure on the trigger.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Percieved by the CIA which I think was clear by the source of the link. And no I was not implying that anyone was going to behave the same. I was giving historical perspective on a time when there was an incursion from the east and occupied Iraqi territory for several years.
You stated that the terrain would make it difficult and I agree, I only thought you might enjoy seeing the link to see how difficult it was. For what its worth, the Iranians did not win.
Aside from the link I shared, as you assert, I do have the position of the greatest suspicion and the greatest pressure on the trigger.
I don't think I included any analysis to accompany the link, so if you were looking for some and found none, then you perceived my intentions correctly in that regard. Whether I was kicking anyone, I would have kicked the shit out of Iran 28 years ago and would do the same today if the timing is right.
Carter completely botched the Saddam negotiations and every other aspect of how he faced down Iran. We are still suffering the consequences of a President that wouldn't put any pressure on the trigger. He is the creator of the Middle East Paper tiger image of America. Again, technology versus the will to use it.
I take it you found the link uninteresting from a technical perspective.
February 3, 2007 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've seen the NIE before, and it was unsurprising. As now, it doesn't think much of the ability of Iran to conduct major ground operations at a distance.
I forget who coined the expression, but there is merit to "if you shoot at a king, you must kill him." If a nation applies pressure to another, it must utterly break its leadership, or face the kind of resentment produced in Germany by the punitive Versailles Treaty -- and not produced in post-1945 Germany and Japan by the Marshall Plan and McArthur's approach to an enlightened occupation.
Winston Churchill could be as bloodthirsty as any, but I have always been impressed by his motto in his history of WWII:
"In War: Resolution.
In Defeat: Defiance.
In Victory: Magnanimity.
In Peace: Goodwill.
Asskicking, for the sake of asskicking, tends to be counterproductive. We do have the evidence of WWII that population bombing, while it certainly produces misery, strengthened the will to resist in Britain, Germany and Japan. We have the evidence from guerilla theoreticians, across the ideological spectrum, that it is desirable for a revolutionary guerilla to trigger overreaction by the central government, which becomes a tool of recruiting.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
We're about to go to war again and you want me to be polite to the people who are playing the kind of game Rosenberg is playing?
He's like the nebbishy minister who is loyal to the despotic ruler through thick and thin, while decrying as a decent liberal must, not despotism but its necessity!
disgusting.
February 3, 2007 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Oh, and if you actually knew anything about anything, you'd know that the Persians resisted and eventually fought off the Caliphate.
The Second Caliphate (of the Ottoman Turks), yes. Persia was the Ottomans' greatest enemy and the wars between them exhausted them both.
But as far as the First Caliphate goes, Persia had the misfortune to be overrun repeatedly by Turkic invaders, and then by the Mongols. The country did not regain permanent independence under native rule until the Safavid dynasty came on the scene at the beginning of the 1500s.
February 3, 2007 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I want you to be polite, just as I want GWB to drop the sort of preconditions to talks that, if met, would render the talks moot. If you want to rant, rant. If you want to be insulting, certainly there are more crushing Yinglish means of expression than an epithet here and there.
In Western culture, the most formal courtesy often took place at formal duels. For more general and effective conflict, I personally take several of the rules of Musashi Miyamoto, "treat your enemy as an honored guest," and "fight as if you are already dead." I think highly of self-control, which has served me well in various circumstances -- and where emotional response had very, very bad consequences.
You can, of course, do as you please. While H*y*m*a*n K*a*p*l*a*n may not have gotten Julius Scissor quite right, I rather like the example of the noblest Roman of them all.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 3, 2007 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes but only if no one has attached a reply to it.
Click "edit" and erase the comment. Type in "deleted" or anything else you want. What will remain is the heading of your original comment and the word "deleted".
February 4, 2007 7:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is what I've thought for a long time, but I am beginning to think that many of the people trumpeting anti-Semitism charges really believe what they're saying. This is a much scarier thought. For instance, I don't see any good reason for Morris to have exaggerated his fears in the editorial Rosenberg cites, and I've talked to some Israelis who really seem to think this way.
And this paranoia leads Israeli leaders into really bad decisions. For instance, my belief is that if Israel had just concentrated on fighting Hezbollah south of the Litani and left the rest of the country alone, the Arab nations wouldn't have cared very much, and Israel could have fought a fairly long campaign and done significant damage to Hezbollah. The diplomatic signals that the Arab nations were giving off at the beginning of the war seemed consistent with this scenario.
However, the IDF decided they might as well destroy the rest of Lebanon as well, leading the international community to lean on Israel to stop the war, and spreading hate of Israel widely in the Arab world. The mindset "all the Arabs hate us anyway, so why not take the opportunity to destroy them ..." might have contributed to this blunder.
February 4, 2007 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Answer the question, quit the cowardly deflection - how do you propose we pay for another war?
February 4, 2007 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seth, you are a moron. Not to mention the first a guy who demonstrates that the term self-hating Jew, as dumbass as it is, does apply to some people.
February 4, 2007 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem here is that certain people on both the left and right are so driven by their personal demons that their posts are less political than psychological.
There was Sage the Jewish supremacist who saw all "goyim" as the enemy and threatened to sic the Mossad on anyone who disagreed with her.
There is Seth, so deeply shamed by his Jewish roots, that he basically decides who and what he is for based on what "the Jews" are against.
Two sides of the same coin.
My dad told me that in the 1930's socialists and Roosevelt Dems were always shouted down at meetings and such because "the Stalinists always shouted the loudest and stayed at the meetings after the rest of us went home. Their lives was Stalin and the Soviet motherland. But we were kids and had lives. So they outlasted us."
Of course, the far left had no impact on anything while the liberals changed America.
The crazed dogmatic right is loathsome but their leftwing counterparts are no different.
February 4, 2007 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will not defend the ad hominem in Seth's post, but is it possible that Netanyahu and you have very different things in mind when you talk about Israel having sufficient capabilities to shrug off Iranian threat?
The modus operandi of the militarist Israelis and their intelectual friends (the term likudnik is somewhat obsolete) is to rapidly swing from the nadir of despondency (holocaust is comming! we are surrounded!) to utter confidence, sometimes in the middle of the sentence. Conclusion is always the same: peace initiatives are pointless.
February 4, 2007 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The major wars were clearly not initiated by Israel" is astonishing to see coming from an intelligent and reasonably unbiased person. There is not the slightest question that the 1956 and 1982 wars were planned wars of Israeli aggression. For the first, for instance, Eisenhower very prominently on US national television, right before his re-election called this "armed attack" on Egypt by the three powers including Israel an "act of aggression". These two wars, at least, were definitely initiated by Israel against "enemies" that desired more peaceful relations with it, and who, unlike Israel, were not at all trying to provoke a war. Concerning that other thread a while ago, a point I was trying to make was that the Geneva Conventions do provide for prosecution of individuals (as much as they can) and that since 1996 in the US, they no longer need enabling legislation in the US. (The UN charter was ruled a long time ago to not create by itself any enforceable rights in the US.) I agree with your ambivalent attitude about the ICC,on the one hand, a good thing, on the other likely to be just used politically against the usual suspects.
February 4, 2007 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I regard the "major wars" as 1967 and 1973. 1956 and 1982 were indeed elective wars, perhaps with a bit more justification, certainly with multilateral agreement, for 1956.
It is hard enough to keep track of which protocol of which Geneva Convention the US has ratified with which signing statements. That noted, I don't consider all such reservations inappropriate. Some treaties, such as the Land Mine Convention, aren't going to be followed by the less organized groups, while US Army doctrine and weapons, with due regard to the problems of cluster munitions and the retirement of especially hazardous types, has been fairly responsible.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 4, 2007 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I deleted the comment because by accident I posted twice. Tomorrow morning we could initiate deleting sequence (first, this post). And apologies for calling you pani streppon.
February 4, 2007 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
"There is Seth, so deeply shamed by his Jewish roots"
Why and how and of what am I ashamed? Of not supporting a white homeland in the desert? Of not thinking I have a "right to return" to someone else's house? You're the one who should be ashamed. I've always been direct, and this is how you respond.
If you want to argue with me, you should be calling me a Jewish exceptionalist, and saying that I hold Jews to a higher standard than I hold others. That's not true but at least you'd have an argument.
But instead you call me a self-hating jew.
truly disgusting.
February 4, 2007 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought you were making a play on words so I was not offended when you called me pani streppon. The real Mrs Panstreppon, btw, is a character in a short story by Saki (H H Munro) about an election in an English village.
We can't initiate a delete sequence because, as far as I know, you cannot delete evidence of the post itself, just the words contained therein.
February 5, 2007 6:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
And so would the former Israeli economic, security, and hydrologic zone in South Lebanon.
February 5, 2007 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was wondering if it should have been Pani Panstreppon, which comes very close to exhausting my Polish vocabulary.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 5, 2007 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Darth Cheney's false question, about why Iran needs nuclear power when they have all that oil, makes sense only when you realize that it comes from an oil man who does not believe on global warming, and who has recently recited our "enormous successes" in Iraq.
A poisonous, lying, psycho killer, in other words.
February 5, 2007 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've now had the chance to read and re-read your replies to my posts to MJ. Thanks Howard. For the record I have never claimed that a Jew has to feel a Jewish national identity in order to be Jewish. My problem is with people who reject the right of Jews to have a Jewish national identity, or who cast doubt on the ability of Jews to feel a national identity. I know that Judaism is a religion, and I also believe that Jews are a people and I don't see anything wrong with that. In fact, it's a beautiful thing.
February 5, 2007 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
While I have Jewish ancestors, my mother was an atheist. While I had Jewish religious education, the beliefs did not make sense to me, but, to be correct about it, I went through the declaration of apostasy, and consider myself a neopagan. Does any of that mean I don't value Jewish-identified cultural contributions? Of course not! But I also value cultural contributions from a wide range of cultures.
If someone wants to talk about ancestry at the level of genetics, that's a legitimate medical question. As far as a member of a people, what I feel, at a deep level, is American.
This is what mystifies me when certain people, based on surname alone, start calling me a self-hating Jew. Aside from Berkowitz being an adoptive surname, I simply don't identify as a Jew in any way. Those that insist I must be, and go off into the self-hating aspect, seem to me as racist as the Nazis with the Nuremberg Laws.
In other words, I have a major personal problem with those who decide for me that I should have a Jewish identity of any type, much less national identity. Even more, I object to people taking several steps beyond what I don't feel or believe, and inform me, that unless I support Zionism, I must be a self-hating Jew. As an example of my valuing multiple cultures, I say to people assuming I have to be a Zionist,Merde. Scheisse. Mierda.
Do I feel other people have a right to Zionism? Sure. Do I feel that the US has an obligation to defend any peoples' state, independent of treaty obligations? No. Do I have strong, specific objections to Israeli government policy, not implying Israel is not as legitimate a state as most in the world? Absolutely.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 5, 2007 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although it took me a while to work up the courage to do so, I've downrated this post, M.J. Let me explain why: Seth's comment crossed the line into a personal attack, but that doesn't justify using either "moron" or far, far worse, the "self-hating" label. It pains me to see this here at TPM Cafe, especially from a featured commentator whose views I so often appreciate.
Note: this comment was originally written at about 3:25PM or so, at any rate before Howard's post, which I notice also deals with the same issue, albeit from the perspective of his own experience. Editing caused it to be shown as written at a later time.
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. --Paul Valery
February 5, 2007 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
It looks like we are in agreement my friend. Don't tell anyone, because it might not be good for your reputation around here. :)
February 5, 2007 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well I think that this is a therapeutic session, and it reminds us that, yes, words do matter. All kinds of words matter. I hate it, for example, when Israel is compared to Nazi Germany, or an Israel defender is compared to a Nazi.
Wordie, you are incredibly taken aback by the "self hating" designation and I'm hardly going to take issue with that. I guess I think MJ deserves a bye this time, not because of how I feel about Seth (I frankly don't know or care if he's a self-hater or not), but only because MJ puts up with so much crap from all sides of the issues about which he writes (including some relatively sharp, albeit more subtle barbs from yours truly). I don't think MJ has to tolerate being called a putz or whatever from Seth, particularly when MJ's background and credentials and really his life are as plain as day for all to see, and most of the rest of us, and certainly Seth, are snug and secure behind the anonymity of the worldwide web. I've only been around here for a few weeks, so I can imagine but don't have that much of a history reading Seth's posts. I'm assuming MJ has more experience with Seth than I have.
I guess I would like to see more people take on people like Seth, not because of what he believes, but for, in your words, crossing the line into personal attack. I think Howard deserves credit for doing just that. Now I'm far from squeaky clean in this area, but I've allowed myself to be escorted behind the woodshed (from Howard as well lol)when occasional circumstances warrant.
These are tough and emotional issues we are grappling with.
February 5, 2007 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apropos of terms for people, I am reminded of a tale told by Harry Golden, which is funny only if you know some Yiddish, like Colin Powell, or the Indians in Blazing Saddles.
One day, a rather nice elderly gentleman, retired to Miami Beach (in the old days) but lonely, went up to another man of the same years, constantly surrounded by adoring women. Our Hero asked how he could be so popular.
Mr. Popular was cruel. "Oh, do something distinctive. Get a camel, and start riding it up and down Collins Avenue. Everyone will notice you."
As fate had it, a circus had gone bankrupt, and had a camel for sale. Quickly, the transaction was complete, and, indeed, many people stared, pointed and smiled when the camel came by every morning.
One day, Our Hero came out and found the camel gone. He went to the Miami Beach police, and, after some debate if they had a Missing Camels department, or if the auto people dealt with Grand Theft Camel, the appropriate detective asked him for a description.
"What color was it?"
"What do you mean? Why do they call camel-hair blazers camel colored? Camel colored?"
"OK, I guess I asked for that. What sex is it?"
Frowning, Our Hero confessed, at first, that he had never looked. Suddenly, he brightened. "Male! Male! Every time I ride by, people point and say, look at the schmuck on that camel!"
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 5, 2007 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The title of this post is: "Is Another Holocaust Inevitable?"
That is to say that "little" Israel which has been and is the aggressor is in fact just trying to defend itself. This is in fact special pleading and whining. Rosenberg is comparing Iran to the Nazis on the basis of what? On the basis of his own irrational fears and his own need to moralize. As I said he is "like the minister who is loyal to the despotic ruler through thick and thin, while decrying as a decent liberal must, not despotism but its necessity! This is the moral superiority of the man who shoots first and claims self defense. But Israel is not a "battered wife" and to claim otherwise in the context of the expulsion of an entire population and 40 years of occupation is little more than fascist. I will not be polite to people who defend ethnic cleansing and murder. I made an argument. As always I cited evidence. As always his response was self-important, illogical and finally pathetic.
"These are tough and emotional issues we are grappling with."
Emotions are foolishness to be accomidated as matters of politics; to be understood and not indulged in.
I try to care only about logic. Rosenberg can't tell the difference, and I'm afraid neither can most of you.
February 5, 2007 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seth:
You are either very young and idealistic, and if that is the case, I think there is hope for you in terms of learning to channel your vigorous beliefs and yes, your unbecoming ire, into productive prose and actions. If you, like many of us, recall youth through memories or through children, then you are just a ranter and raver, and nothing more. I hope it's the former.
I remember being angry when I was a young college student as all of the givens I had assumed about the way the world works seemed to crumble one at a time. I would even challenge my poor Dad about the evils of capitalism as he tried to eke out a living in a private drugstore that eventually went out of business in light of the advent of the mega-chain pharmacies. I hope he's forgiven me for that.
February 6, 2007 4:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
No I'm not young. And I'm heavily invested in capitalism, literally. I'm an adult with opinions you don't agree with, and like most people on this planet I have no patience with moralizing Zionists.
I have no idea where you think your attempt at condescension comes from, but again, as with Rosenberg, its an attack not an argument. Here just for the hell of it, is this weeks report from the PCHR: Jan 25-31-2007
I know Rosenberg says he opposes the occupation, but he spends most of his time criticizing th Palestinians for not being saints. He has all the courage of his fears. Me I don't agree with Hamas, but I respect them. They held a ceasefire. They tried to deal. Israel does not. And I respect Hezbollah, even though again I do not agree. What was it that young punk who got assassinated a few month ago famously said?: "They [hezbollah/the shia] have the quantity by we [Hariri and co] have the quality." So much for democracy.So no I am not young, and I'm am not naive. I'm a left wing realist with a stock portfolio and business interests in India and China. And I'd rather be in Tehran than Tel Aviv. I like the people more. The Iranian government may be authoritarian, but there aren't many fascists in the general population. Israel on the other hand is full of them.
Boychik, do you follow that last line? It's a good one.
So make an argument or shut the fuck up.
February 6, 2007 5:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Could you tell me how you really feel Seth? :-)
February 6, 2007 6:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not about feelings son. And you lecture me about maturity?
February 6, 2007 7:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nope. No lecture on maturity from me Seth. My lecturing about the hope one maintains for the young cannot be applied to you, based on your representation that you are an old geezer like me. Regrettably, my alternative assessment, i.e., as applied to someone as angry as you who is not so young, now applies.
Being angry is not an argument Seth, even when for example, you cite facts about the horrible realities of the occupation to support your anger and downright disrectful and rude treatment of people like MJ.
You can call me as many names as you like on the other hand lol.
February 6, 2007 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Being angry is not an argument Seth"
That's true. That's why I make arguments based on facts then and top them off with vitriol and bitter contempt, when I think its deserved.
You and Rosenberg have done nothing but insult me. No argument. No data. Nothing but insult and innuendo and "self-hating jew."
And your responses to me now is: "You can call me as many names as you like on the other hand lol."
I'll leave it to others to parse that one.
---
"I hate it, for example, when Israel is compared to Nazi Germany, or an Israel defender is compared to a Nazi."
Israeli soldiers with their charmingly ironic sense of humor have the habit of referring to refugee camps by nicknames derived from Nazi camps. More data for you boychik.
February 6, 2007 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink