Benny Morris's position is an obvious one. Kill them before they kill you. Its the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes against possible enemies. Preventing the attainment of nuclear weapons by using nuclear weapons, is an abdication of the moral high ground. Let's say you are willing to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians to achieve your goal, are not you trying to frighten the population into submission of your will? What sort of reaction from the victims of such an attack is justified? If Iran got a nuclear weapon and used it on Israel, what would Israel do in return? Israel wants the right to exist, but Muslim countries want Palestine to exist. Lets just say for a moment that Israel attacks Iran using a nuclear weapon. What next? Are they prepared to occupy Iran. Do they believe that total annihilation of Iran will end the oppositional threat to Israel's existence? Will it? Even supposing, the nations of the world do not join in such act of war, if you were Israel's neighbor, would you be concerned that you may be next?
On second thought, maybe this is just a ploy to maintain the price of oil. Simple answers work best.

The NY Times likely new exactly what they were doing and, in my opinion, they should be commended for doing so. Benny Morris is not on the fringe of Israeli society but is close to the establishment and has views of the Arab and Muslim world that is shared by a plurality of the Israeli people. We should also realize that 30-40% of them support the transfer option as a solution to the West Bank problems.

I think the American people need to be thoroughly exposed to the these views so that we can make informed choices in how far we are willing to go in defending Israel in her incessant wars.

I agree with Hartung's general point. But the ritual denunciations of Iran make no sense:

"Morris's central point is also the weak link in his argument. No matter how despicable their ideology or how steeped in hatred they may be, the leaders of Iran want to live, to exert power, and to propagate their ideology."

This is said of the only country in the Middle East to have Jewish legislators, and the only one to run tv shows actually accepting that there was a holocaust. A quick survey of the Middle East shows us:
1. The Islamic Republic of Iraq, headed by the Da'awa party, which, famously, formed in the 80s as an front garde terrorist group for Khomeini's ideology, allied itself with Hezbollah, and has, let's say, no intention of playing nice with Israel.
2. The Gulf states, headed by Saudi Arabia. The Saudi educational system indoctrinates anti-Jewish hatred from the first grade on. The Saudi state sponsored tv network loves to put on things like the dramatization of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The American foreign policy elite love to be seen exchanging smiles and handshakes with the political rulers of this society, one in which there hasn't ever been a free and fair election, and where women are so hemmed about with laws that they make Iranian women look like models of postmodernist freedom. On the other hand, it is always good for a Ripleys believe it or not moment - for instance, do you know what country just condemned an old woman to death by stoning as a witch, after a trial in which it was admitted she was tortured? If you guessed that friendly land where President Bush was recently palling around with his buddies, and the press corps, continuing a fifty year tradition, asked zip questions about the anti-semitism, the tyranny, or the judicial system, you guessed correctly!
3. Pakistan. Ah, Pakistan, friend of freedom, endpoint for 3 to 6 billion American bucks per year, and generous to a fault with its technology. For instance, sharing its nuclear weapon technology with North Korea was quite the generous act. When the government is not arming the world's pathological regimes with nuclear weapons, what is it doing for humanity? Why supporting a madrassa system modeled on the Saudi type (indoctrinating anti-Jewish thought) and then, for entertainment, implementing pogroms in Shi'ite neighborhoods.

Until the U.S. admits that it is friends with thugs and worse than thugs in the Middle East, the hot bubbles tossed about concerning the evil mullahs just have to be laughed at. As for Morris' odd idea that the "mullahs" are proclaiming that they want to use military force to "wipe Israel from the map," that is, of course, a complete and utter lie. In fact, the only nation talking about attacking another nation is Israel talking about bombing Iran. Iran's leadership has said, often, that it wants Israel to be wiped from the map the way the soviet union was - downfall from within. It wants, in other words, a one state solution. The logical move is to make the two state solution such a permanent part of the Middle Eastern map that the Iranians have no Palestinians to support for their position. Ah, but that would require, uh, negotiation and like peace and stuff. Only wimps engage in such activities.

The Times ran the piece because they didn't think the views you express, views commonly held by much of the Left, are the word of God.

Many, many people take quite seriously Iran's threats to extirminate Israel and its people, and its expressed willingness to sacrifice millions in order to achieve its goals. It's more than odd that you find suicidal actions to be foreign to their thinking when suicidal actions as a military tactic are so common in today's Muslim world.

It's also more than odd that you go to such lengths to characterize Iran's leaders as rational and sober when you have no problem labeling our leaders and those of Israel as raving madmen.

"..they didn't think the views you express...are not the word of God." A double negative? Do you mean that the NYT does think the views of the Left are the word of God? Maybe one less martini before you write, or a short nap.

I don't think there is a left and right anymore. The lines are blurred. Maybe especially on the left side. There just are no classic liberals anymore. Liberal was once a good word, and it was not a political position. As the old Willie song says "Lefty split for Ohio, where he got the bread to go, there ain't nobody knows."

I think that the situation is clear: the hostility, its implacable nature, lack of rationality is all to well attested, and we really cannot wait until actual threats will materialize.

The only question is if we should try conventional bombing of offensivetoyou, or cut to the chase and start with nukes?

My feelings about publishing Morris's screed are mixed. It is good to know about such views, although Morris is a dangerous fabulist with genocidal fantasies. And too many outrageous ideas are being pushed without the authors being instantly deemed "off reservation". Nuking a country as a precautionary measure? What next?

A small example: a teleevangelist muses on the silver screen that it would be good to assassinate Hugo Chavez . Besides it being rather non-evangelic, somehow nobody asked how such an extreme idea could even emerge? Chavez engaged in unfriendly but utterly non-threatening rhetoric, and WHAM! some folks conclude that it is enough to assassinate him. Ah, he also controls some oil. Jesus himself would cast the first stone.

From quarter-full glass department, this looks suspiciously as if offensivetoyou were conceding a point: "My conclusion was that the threats are as bad as could be and consistent over a long period of time. Whether they are daily or weekly or monthly doesn't matter, nor do the supposed "errors of translation" espoused by Juan Cole and others."

It reminds me Gorge Constanza shouting: "I must tell about something that it sometimes may look small, but in fact it can be as big as it should be, and more!"

offensivetoyou:

"Many, many people take quite seriously Iran's threats to extirminate Israel and its people, and its expressed willingness to sacrifice millions in order to achieve its goals."

One thing that Iran and Israel both have in common is that Israel uses the nuclear threat to take away international focus from its genocidal actions against the Palestinians while Iranians use Israel to put pressure on the U.S.' occupations along its borders. Furthermore, bellicose and inexcusable statements on wiping Israel from the map domestically bolster Iran's leadership as its economy crumbles. As for Israel, more than anything, it does not want the balance of power to erode with a nuclear armed Iran, that is Israel's greatest threat.

"It's more than odd that you find suicidal actions to be foreign to their thinking when suicidal actions as a military tactic are so common in today's Muslim world."

Like most of the ignorant masses, forming assumptions on how the Iran regime will behave based on mischaracterizes and generalizations of the "Muslim world" fails to distinguish between Persian and Arab cultural differences and historical truths. This type of thing is counterproductive in solving problems with a much more sophisticated and global actor. Name the last Persian suicide bomber that comes to mind? Terrorists aren't just people with a darker shade of skin. Uneducated, xenophobic, and ethnocentric perceptions like those fuel hate mongering and perpetuate extremism in all forms.

Thank you so much for the links. They confirm what I said above.

I can get on to the internets myself now. Fairly soon, I will be able to use the Google just like the experts: you and John.

October 26, 2005

@ JohnW1141

Iran's Suicide Bombers

I don't have much time and picked the first link on a very long list. Here's another. A third is from the Times of London online.

offensivetoyou:

I do not see a logical connection between your initial response, my response, and the link you sent me on Iranian extremist groups.

You originally stated, "Many, many people take quite seriously Iran's threats to extirminate Israel and its people, and its expressed willingness to sacrifice millions in order to achieve its goals."

From the link you sent me, while Iran may train extremist organizations that are mostly used to clamp down on internal dissent, I see no connection how some groups could evidence that Iran would sacrifice millions to die for nuclear martyrdom that would effectively end its rule and expansionist ideology.

According to the link you sent me:

"Despite its rhetoric and the occasional rally, there is little evidence that the Iranian government has established camps to train suicide terrorists. While the Revolutionary Guards operate a network of bases inside Iran, there is little coverage—at least in open source newspapers and Iranian media—of actual training of those recruited by the Headquarters. There have been two mentions of a military exercise for the suicide brigades around the Karaj Dam. Muhammad-Reza Ja'afari, commander of the Gharar-gah-e Asheghan-e Shahadat (Congregation of the Lovers of Martyrdom) training camp, referred to one exercise as the "Labeik Ya Khamene'i" (We are responding to your call, Khamene'i).[34] With the exception of the representation of Hamas in the early development of the Iranian "martyrdom-seekers," there is little proof of organizational links to external terrorist organizations.

Right now, Israel is the only regional state in the Mideast with nuclear weapons. As long as that’s extant, Israel needn’t give an inch in “negotiations” with its neighbors, periodically ravage everything in fighter-bomber range and treat the Palestineans as contemptuously as it wishes.

Another nuclear power would change the equation considerably - and forever.

That’s the only issue here.

The idea that an Iran packing nuclear hardware would endanger the United States in any way is sheer, idiotic fantasy. Aside from the difficulty of delivering such weapons to targets, one simple fact endures from the U.S./Soviet Cold War experience: No nation can employ nuclear weapons without risking suicide.

We are bumbling toward yet another Mideast quagmire, one in which, evidently, we intend to help Israel bomb Iran out of nuclear capacity and appetite. And if Iran should try it again, a few years down the road, we’ll bomb them again. And again. And again. ...On into eternity. We’ll have to; after the first bomb falls, we’ll be locked into the insane, dead-end process. We will no longer have a choice. Our powers-that-be seemingly have sworn a blood oath to never negotiate with anyone Israel deems a foe. And as we’ve been told, real men go to Tehran.

No one sane can advocate yet another nation's acquisition of nuclear weapons. But keeping them out of the hands of sovereign nations is a formidable task. Unless we’re willing to bomb and terrify any nation, anywhere, that seeks them, we can’t force nonproliferation on the world. No one country or group of countries is that powerful, even in the unlikely chance they could coalesce into a truly united front. And we could maintain this consensus-by-terror only for awhile. Then we would have to bomb again. And again. Despite Robert Oppenheimer’s punchy observation, controlling nuclear weapons was futile even the day after Trinity: The genie was out of the bottle the moment the first device turned the desert floor to glass.

We can’t do it with death and destruction. We can't. Israel can't. We have to face our foes over bargaining tables, not battlefields. But it has been decided that our “democracy” will not talk, will not negotiate. We will bomb instead.

If so, we deserve the fruits of our savagery.

offensivetoyou:

Yes, I am making a distinction between Arab and Persian use of suicide bombers. Your evidence does not support your claim as I noted above. There simply isn't historical ground to assert Iran has exhibited suicidal behavior nor is there any indication from the consensus of U.S. and Israeli experts that Iran would sacrifice itself once it obtained a nuclear weapon.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad is a flapping head who hold little power in the overall. According to renowned academic Iran expert Nikkie Keddie, Barbara Slavin (another renowned Iran expert, "underlines the point that the elected president, Ahmadinejad, is not commander in chief, and does not control military, foreign or nuclear affairs. He does appoint provincial governors and a number of other officials, and these appointments have been heavily of men belonging to the restrictive right and with ties to the Revolutionary Guards. His Cabinet appointments are subject to parliamentary approval, and several have been rejected."

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080725_nikki_keddie_on_iran/

As I stated previously, Ahmadinejad does a lot of talking that amounts to a whole lot of nothing other than him trying to bolster domestic support for a widely unpopular regime in Iran.