These remarks are mostly directly to OTY.

I think you make a good point about who is threatening whom. It should be pretty obvious that Israel has had the bomb at least since the 1960s and has, to my knowledge, never threatened to bomb anyone. In fact, it wasn't until recently that they even "admitted" to having the bomb, and they still haven't completely.

Similarly with Iran. Iran was fulminated against Israel since the ascension of Khomeini, and Israel never threatened to bomb her. It was only when the saber rattling was combined with an apparent desire and plan to get the bomb that Israel got worried. So all this talk about Israel is threatening Iran THEREFORE Iran "naturally" wants a bomb, or may want a bomb, seems off base to me. Doesn't really fit the timeline, at least as I understand it.

Similarly on preventive wars. OTOH, preventive wars would seem to be the smart and humane way to go IF you could have any certainty about the future. Certainly Hitler could have been nipped in the bud and the Japanese as well. But there are also counter examples. Had the US nipped the Soviets in the bud, there would have been much death and destruction, which, at least so far, and as far as we can see, would have amounted to senseless killing over a future we couldn't see.

Preventive wars, when waged, involve CERTAIN death. Future catastrophes may or may not occur. From a moral standpoint, it is hard to justify certain death by pointing to possible death. Even possible obliteration. While it's true that Israel is a postage stamp that really could be obliterated and Iran a vast area that could not be obliterated (except perhaps by unloading a substantial portion of the US arsenal), nonetheless Israel could deliver a mortal blow to Iran if she went nuclear. Moreover, with the submarines I understand she has, Israel isn't entirely vulnerable to a first strike.

I'm assuming also that Pakistan and India and Russia would simply sit by and let Iran lob nukes at another nearby country, regardless of its religious stripe. I don't think they would.

So with all these considerations in mind, I would argue for MAD between Israel and Iran, assuming Iran really is going for a bomb. I think it would work. Bombing would only delay the "inevitable." And I don't think the world would simply sit by and let Israel bomb Iran every few years. I'm leaving out, for the moment, all the death and destruction to innocent people that Israel's bombing raids would cause. I'm also leaving out all the death and destruction Iran could and would (probably) wreak on Israel and Jews around the world and her allies. It would probably be the last straw in the American public's support for Israel. Everyone would be running for cover, every man for himself. So we're left with CERTAIN death and destruction vs. a possible future if Iran gets the bomb that could be deterred through MAD, IMO.

The argument that the ayatollahs were mad in the way of Hitler while the US and Soviet leaders were not doesn't hold water in my mind. For one thing, I haven't seen the Iranian leaders act in a way that I would regard as mad or overly irrational. They seem to calculate. Also, it must be remembered that, at least at the start, the Soviet leaders were also characterized as willing to do "anything" to spread communism across the globe. They couldn't be trusted, IOW. Eventually, they were trusted to act in predictable ways and, eventually, they were defeated by the rottenness of their own system of government. I think there's some strong evidence that the Iranian regime is not particularly popular with its own people. I've known quite a few Iranians, albeit those who've emigrated here, and I can say they are quite "western" and "civilized" in their outlook, even though they have a non-Western identity and don't want to be "westernized."

So I think Benny is letting admittedly justifiable fears get the better of him, feeling weak when Israel is strong. I would go the route of MAD.

Posted at July 22, 2008 10:25 AM in response to Top Israeli Predicts Conventional -- and then Nuclear Attack on Iran

If only we Americans were equally awesome. We could then pound the crap out of everyone with an unshakable national unity, and no one could stop us!

We certainly were--it's just that we ran out of land to grab. Actually, when you think of the amount of land Israel has grabbed compared to say, oh, any country in the Western Hemisphere, they are but pishers.

Now that we have all the land we need (more or less) we have the luxury of sitting back and judging others.

Posted at July 18, 2008 10:10 AM in response to Watching A Country Mourn its War Dead

But where Jews only TRY, gentiles SUCCEED.

What are we to make of THAT?

That THAT is okay because, at bottom, this is Gentile Country, and it's only right and proper that Gentiles control our foreign policy--but somehow improper if Jews even TRY to have a say?

Posted at July 6, 2008 12:27 PM in response to Time's Joe Klein versus Foxman's Anti-Defamation League on THE NEOCONS! (Plus Clifford May Weighs In)

"Yet the real problem of so many Neocons isn't their religion. It is their Israeli nationalism."

Then why use the phrase "Jewish neocons"? Isn't that making religion at least part of the problem? Is this just another form of the argument against using the phrase "Islamic extremists," when we're really just mean "extremist"? Or this parallelism unfair, because "Islamic extremists" take Islam to be their guiding light and justification while "Jewish neocons" don't?

Of course, the problem here is the problem any minority faces. When a black actor plays a role--except as a cop or criminal or rapper or some other stereotypically "black role"--it at least used to be the question: What are they saying by casting a black person in the role? IOW, it was hard to impossible for a black person just to be a person playing a role that had nothing to do with his race.

Similarly here. Yes, a lot of neocons are Jews. Is that sort of an accident of nature, as it were, or is there something about being Jewish--or being a certain kind of Jew, just to add nuance here--that draws these people to being neocons?

If so, what do we make of the many others, the prominent Protestants, who are drawn to the same philosophy? What do we make of the fact that it was these people--Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell (though he does speak Yiddish)--who were the actual decision-makers? Were they dupes of the conniving Jews, such as Perle, who had little real decision-making power? Or do we simply overlook their religion as, for some reason, being unimportant because, like white skin, it doesn't "stick out" as noticeable (and therefore "important") in the way that being Jewish, like black skin, does stick out in a society that is predominantly Christian/Protestant and white?

In thinking about the term "Jewish neocon," it's also worth noting that the VAST majority of Jews don't support this philosophy nor the military actions that issue from it. The VAST majority of Jews, unlike their Christian brethren, did NOT vote for Bush either time and DID vote for their opponents, and thus voted AGAINST empowering these "Jewish necons." So making a point of saying "JEWISH neocon," at best, seems a way of pointing out a surprising anomaly--i.e., that some Jews have these crazy beliefs while NORMALLY, it's the gentiles with the crazy beliefs.

I guess it should also be remembered that neocons believed/believe in using American military might to transform whole swaths of the world--and not just to defend Israel. They were early supporters of the intervention in the Balkans, for example. Though I deplore their philosophy and their influence, I think their philosophy has more to do with a misguided way of spreading democracy and its attendant values than with making the world safe for Israel, though the former entails the latter.

Posted at July 6, 2008 12:14 PM in response to Time's Joe Klein versus Foxman's Anti-Defamation League on THE NEOCONS! (Plus Clifford May Weighs In)

"Similarly, the holocaust did not occur because the Jews were considered foreign nationals patriots of a different nation, or a group who wanted to overthrow the government. Instead they were more like the Gypsies, often despised just because they were different. The holocaust occurred because they lived culturally different within Europe, especially but not exclusively German-speaking Europe."

It's complicated, to be sure, but I'd have to disagree with you. The Jews weren't just considered "different"; they were different in pernicious ways. They were always considered to have "dual loyalties"--or rather, they were thought to have loyalties only to their own tribe, race, nation--take your pick. So the argument about loyalty to another country (Israel) is simply a pick-up of the previous argument that Jews were "rootless cosmopolitans" with no loyalty to any landed people or nation, but only to their own unlanded, transnational "race."

Unlike the gypsies, who were always marginal to the societies they lived in, the Jews sought to be full participants. At the height of their assimilation, they considered themselves to be "good Germans," Italians, French--and then found out that "good Germans" thought of them as something wholly alien to the host people and culture. So, in terms of living "culturally different...especially in German-speaking Europe," the Jews there were remarkable for doing largely the opposite of what you say here: They were proud Germans who loved the German language and customs. Any number of men who perished in the holocaust had earned the Iron Cross in WWI.

Posted at July 6, 2008 11:38 AM in response to Time's Joe Klein versus Foxman's Anti-Defamation League on THE NEOCONS! (Plus Clifford May Weighs In)

Dear Jim,

I think Brooks' oscillations can probably be explained by two points: 1) Once he was on the left, and some impulses remain. Liberalism made sense to him at one point, and it probably still does at some level.

2) Events have proved his convictions wrong. You know, had supply side economics worked... Had the Iraq invasion gone as planned... Then I think he--and many others, BTW--would be singing a different tune.

Chiat, I believe, had a very perceptive article a while back about how liberals are pragmatists while conservatives tend to stick to their principles regardless of how events turn out. So that, if it were shown that liberalism's ideas didn't produce the results they were intended to produce, e.g., equality, justice, liberals would abandon them.

Whereas, conservatives don't have that sort of pragmatic test for their ideas. Their ideas, or ideals, are not to be confirmed or disproven by experience, they are intended to inform, to guide, experience. So, I guess, by this measure, Brooks is not a conservative, but some sort of hybrid.

Posted at June 19, 2008 9:29 AM in response to The Conservatives' Conundrum -- and Ours

"The United States has thousands of nuclear weapons, and it also has threatened Iran with attack because Iran supports enemies of Israel, people who resist Israeli expansionism."

A tad bit oversimplified, but still good points.

Hezbollah and Hamas have committed themselves to Israel's destruction, NOT because it's expansionist, but because it is.

I have heard neither group say, "Israel needs to stay within its borders." Both groups say that Israel needs to stop existing.

Iran too has said the same things, however misinterpreted they may or may not have been.

If Iran wants Israel to stop threatening it, they should stop using threatening language toward Israel. That should be easy. No need to dismantle settlements. No need to deal with political blowback. All they need to do is stop saying those things and say that Israel has a right to exist however she self determines (just like the Iranian regime wants for itself). That should be easy. Israel is not seeking regime change in Iran for "democracy's sake," though Iran does call for regime change in Israel--either that, or the wholesale dismantling of the state.

Maybe you support that point of view, but you can probably understand why it makes the Israelis nervous. It was exactly this sort of eventuality that caused them to develop nukes in the first place.

While it's frequently pointed out that Iran has never invaded another country and Israel has, it should also be pointed out that Israel has been attacked at least twice and with the strong possibility they would have been on a third occasion. It's also true that Israel was founded by a people whose numbers were reduced by at least one third in the space of a few years and who have been joined by many others who suffered oppression and second-class citizenship in countries where, by rights, they should have been considered "indigenous" to those countries. And this people, the Jewish people, were not all that numerous to begin with--in part because they didn't go around zealously trying to convert others at the point of a gun or with the threat of eternal damnation. They were actually pretty content to mind their own business and participate in the general society.

I point all this out not to play the "holocaust card," but to make this rather simple point: People often say, "Why wouldn't Iran want to arm themselves with nukes. The US and Israel are threatening them." Well, with the recent history of the Jews and Israel behind them, why wouldn't Israel be worried about a country whose leaders (and proxies) may or may not be threatening to wipe them off the map and whose description of said country might provide the justification? There is a sense of vulnerability on both sides and with plausible causes.

Posted at June 16, 2008 10:04 AM in response to Iran: Negotiations Should Not Be The Last Resort

Get Barack to speak to the issue pointedly.

Posted at June 10, 2008 8:22 AM in response to Cheney Winning the Inside Battles Again

Dear Mr. Coates,

Your comparison with Garvey's movement is interesting and provocative, and something I've thought about before, though not as deeply.

To some degree, the differences between Garvey's back to Africa movement and Zionism are the inevitable differences between peoples, times, and places. You can't compare them on principle. Different people, in different circumstances, make different decisions: One isn't "right" while the other "wrong."

But one key difference, I think, is the difference that American principles of justice and equality make. The Constitution, if you will. Though these principles were honored in the breach with respect to African Americans, they were still there as something of a beacon of hope. I believe Dubois regarded them as such.

By contrast, European countries were guided, not so much by principles of freedom, justice, and equality regardless of one's background, but by long, ethnically identified cultures and histories. The heavy weight of history divided people up into seemingly immutable social categories with little hope of upward mobility or escaping one's group.

The Enlightenment and the French Revolution appeared to change all this for the Jews. But when this failed, or appeared to fail, the only two alternatives were communism/socialism or nationalism.

In other words, there wasn't a set of principles transcending ethnic, religious or national lines--and a corresponding social structure aspiring to live out those principles-- to integrate into as there was in America, at least in principle. "Hope" had no place in Europe as it did in America. No one moved to Roumania to start a new life, except in a limited way, e.g., Yiddish theatre got its start there because of the difficulties it had encountered in Russia.

Posted at May 13, 2008 7:24 PM in response to The Negro Sings Of Zionism

Really? I don't believe it.

You don't sound like "Zionista."

But if you are, I'm glad you're back.

Or never left.

Posted at April 30, 2008 4:42 PM in response to Rev. Souljah and the Laius Complex