Hillary Mann Leverett was a featured panel speaker at a Capitol Hill conference today, organized by the Middle East Policy Council, on “U.S. Policy Towards Israel and Iran: What are the Linkages?” Other panelists included Martin Indyk, Paul Pillar, and Ian Lustick. Apart from the presentations, there were some good exchanges during the question-and-answer session that followed, particularly between Hillary and Martin Indyk. The Middle East Policy Council will not have a video of the event ready for a few days. In the meantime, we append below the text of Hillary’s remarks.
From Hillary Mann Leverett:
The “conventional wisdom” in Washington has long held that Iran, its Syrian ally, and their so-called proxies, HAMAS and Hezbollah, are the ultimate “spoilers” for Middle East peacemaking efforts. According to the conventional wisdom, Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric and terrorist attacks by HAMAS and Hizballah have regularly scuttled what would otherwise surely have been successful diplomatic initiatives. Given this conventional wisdom, two opposing strategies of “linkage” are typically put forward. Both start from the same premise, that Iran and its so-called proxies can and must be marginalized—they really only differ in how to achieve that goal.
The first strategy, favored by the Obama Administration, see here, and articulated recently by National Security Adviser James Jones, see here, holds that trying to achieve Arab-Israeli peace is the key to Iran and its proxies’ regional marginalization.
–From this perspective, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement—or, more accurately, an Israeli-Fatah peace agreement—and the creation of a more prosperous Fatah enclave in the West Bank would undermine popular support for HAMAS, even in Gaza, marginalize HAMAS as an actor in Palestinian politics, and effectively terminate Iranian influence in Palestinian affairs, with significant negative consequences for Iran’s regional standing.
–Likewise, the prospect of an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement could be used to wean Syria away from its alliance with Iran, thereby circumscribing Hizballah’s role in Lebanese politics and further reducing Tehran’s regional standing and influence.
–And, of course, progress in the peace process will supposedly make it easier to form that mythical, and I stress mythical, diplomatic constellation, to which several U.S. administrations have aspired—a coalition between Israel and “moderate” Arab states, for the purpose of “containing” Iran.
The second linkage strategy, favored by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, posits that weakening Iran’s strategic position and stripping it of its nuclear capabilities—if necessary, by force—is needed before there can be real progress on Arab-Israeli peace.
Frankly, both sets of linkages are wrong. Let’s start with why the first set of linkages—that is, trying to achieve Arab-Israeli peace as a way of marginalizing Iran and its so-called proxies—is wrong.
The key point is this: It is simply not possible today—if it ever were possible at some point in the past—to achieve Israeli-Palestinian or Arab-Israeli peace in a manner that excludes and marginalizes Iran and its regional allies.
–Usama Hamdan, the chief of international relations for HAMAS has said that Israel and the United States have a “Cinderella shoe” approach to Middle Eastern elections—that is, unless the winner fits a certain set of specific parameters, he will not be accepted as a legitimate interlocutor.
–I agree, but I would add that Israel and the United States also have a “Cinderella shoe” approach to the Middle East peace process—only parties that can frontload their concessions need apply.
This is a profoundly dysfunctional approach to diplomacy. That is something Israel’s late Prime Minister Rabin came to understand when he explained why Israel needed to negotiate with the PLO—because you make peace with your enemies, not your friends. Policies that deny this reality are bound to and have failed—both in terms of Arab-Israeli peacemaking and in terms of dealing effectively with Iran. I will elaborate this argument with three specific points:
First, though they are non-state actors, HAMAS and Hizballah have become indispensable political players in their respective national and regional contexts. Simply put, these groups win elections—and they win them for the best possible reasons: because they represent unavoidable constituencies with legitimate grievances. Under these circumstances, I challenge anyone to describe, in a plausible way, how Israel and the United States can reach sustained peace agreements on either the Palestinian or the Syrian and Lebanese tracks of the peace process without these groups’ buy in.
These groups should have a place in the peace process—because otherwise the process has no meaning, except perhaps as a crass “motion without movement” exercise. Those who continue to depict these groups as nihilistic enterprises with no real political agenda are either not paying attention or are deliberately distorting reality for their own political purposes.
Second, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad continues to want better relations with the United States and a peace settlement with Israel that meets well-established Syrian “red lines” (for example, full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights). But, as President Assad has made clear to my husband, Flynt Leverett, and me in our meetings with him, see here, and has said publicly, see here—Syria’s relations with Iran, Hizballah, and HAMAS are, at this point, “not on the table”.
Syria’s relationships with these actors have moved from perhaps being, in the past, primarily “tactical” levers for the Syrian leadership to being increasingly strategic assets. As my husband described in his 2005 book, Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial By Fire, following the end of the Cold War, Hafiz al-Assad’s preferred strategic option was a peace settlement with Israel that, under appropriate circumstances and with firm parameters for an acceptable deal, could be negotiated bilaterally with U.S. mediation. To that end, the elder Assad seemed prepared to modify significant aspects of Syria’s relationships with Iran, Hizballah, and Palestinian militant groups, as part of the “price” for an acceptable peace deal with Israel and strategic rapprochement with the United States. (Of course, this proposition was never put to the test, as the Syria track effectively collapsed under the Clinton Administration’s mismanagement just two months before Hafiz al-Assad’s death in 2000.)
But Bashar al-Assad’s accession to the Syrian presidency in 2000 took place at the beginning of what has proven to be a period of dramatic shifts in the Middle East’s strategic environment. As we have described on our blog, www.TheRaceForIran.com and elsewhere, see here, these shifts include the effective collapse of the traditional Arab-Israeli peace process, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, inconclusive U.S. military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rise of Hizballah and HAMAS as important political actors (as I just discussed), the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri in Lebanon, and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as well as subsequent Israeli military campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza. It is in this context that Syria’s ties to Hizballah, HAMAS, and Iran have taken on an increasingly strategic character during Bashar al-Assad’s presidential tenure.
–With the removal of Syrian military forces from Lebanon following the Hariri assassination in 2005, Hizballah has become an even more valuable asset for Syria, see here. Hizballah is, among other things, a key ally for Damascus in protecting Syrian interests in Lebanon; it also provides an important—and, at this point, strategic—deterrent against Israel.
–HAMAS’s control of Gaza and credibility among Palestinians more broadly, see here, makes it hard to imagine that Assad would agree to expel Khalid Mishal from Syria as part of a purely bilateral settlement with Israel.
–Iran has also proven its strategic value to Syria in recent years. Iran’s religious legitimization of the Assads’ Alawi sect is important as Syria’s secular regime navigates its way through a religiously charged regional environment. Iranian support was also critical for Syria in fending off heavy pressure from the United States, most of Europe, and moderate Arab states in the wake of the Hariri assassination. In an uncertain strategic environment, Assad will continue to value the “hedge” provided by its close relationship with Iran. Assad is not about to be “weaned” away from Syria’s alliance with Iran.
Third, all that I have discussed under my first two points means that, at this juncture, Iran is bound to be at least an indirect party to any serious Middle East peace process. This is not an obstacle to peace; it is a requirement for progress toward peace. In fact, HAMAS leaders and President Assad told us, and have said publicly, that Iran has backed their efforts to reach a settlement.
–Iran publicly endorsed Syrian participation in talks with Israel that were mediated by Turkey in 2008, see here.
–And, Iran does not try to block HAMAS’s publicly stated openness to a popularly legitimated two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see here.
Now let’s turn to the more hawkish version of linkage favored by Netanyahu—namely, that “rolling” back Iran is a prerequisite for Middle East peace, see here. This vision is at least as delusional as the suggestion by many neoconservatives in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq that the “road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad”. It is delusional to think that, if the Islamic Republic of Iran disappeared or were effectively “contained”, there would be no more problems with the Middle East peace process and HAMAS, Hizballah, and Syria would “fall into line” with Israeli and American preferences for organizing the regional order.
–These actors have their own agendas and preferences for regional diplomacy, which they will not give up simply because Israeli or U.S. military aircraft strike nuclear targets inside Iran.
–Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that the increase in Iran’s regional standing and influence in recent years is not a function of its military capabilities.
–To this day, the Islamic Republic of Iran has no meaningful capacity to project conventional military power beyond its borders. To the extent that Iran’s regional standing and influence has increased in recent years, it has been because Tehran has picked “winners” for its allies in key regional arenas like Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. U.S. and Israeli pressure on the Islamic Republic is not going to undercut its regional influence; in fact, confrontation with Israel and/or the United States might well enhance Iran’s regional standing.
It is also delusional to think that concern about a rising Iranian threat could unite Israel and moderate Arab states in a grand alliance under Washington’s leadership. In reality, the prospect of strategic cooperation with Israel is profoundly unpopular with Arab publics. Even moderate Arab regimes cannot sustain such cooperation. Pursuit of an Israeli-moderate Arab coalition united to contain Iran is not only delusional, it also will continue to leave the Palestinian and Syrian-Lebanese tracks of the Arab-Israeli conflict unresolved and prospects for their resolution in free fall—as these tracks cannot be resolved without meaningful American interaction with Iran and its regional allies, HAMAS and Hizballah.
Additionally, Iran is not going to take Israeli and U.S. political or even military pressure without “pushing back”. And at least some of the ways in which Tehran will seek to “push back” are likely to make it even harder than it is now (that is to say, virtually impossible) to move forward with serious Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
Finally, Netanyahu’s declaration this weekend that only the threat of U.S. military action can have a positive impact on Iran’s nuclear decision-making comments during his visit here last week should be taken very seriously, especially among those of us in the American Jewish community, because he is on an extremely dangerous course. Netanyahu’s push for eventual U.S. military action against Iran could do real damage to Israel and the American Jewish community.
A U.S. attack on Iran would almost certainly result in a much broader confrontation between the United States and Iran—a confrontation that will threaten U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the strategic outcomes of our military adventures in both of those countries, spike the price of oil and hurt an already shaky global economy, and shatter international perceptions that reckless and dangerous U.S. behavior in the strategically vital Middle East was peculiar to George W. Bush’s presidency, see here. These eminently foreseeable consequences would have a devastating impact on America’s standing in one of the world’s most important regions. Israel and the pro-Likud community, if not the broader Jewish community, in the United States may well be blamed when the resulting U.S.-Iranian confrontation does severe damage to American interests, because they have led the charge to war, see here.
So, what is a more constructive way forward? The answer is clear: Real U.S.-Iranian rapprochement to normalize U.S.-Iranian relations, what my husband and I call the “grand bargain”, along with a serious negotiation for Arab-Israeli peace that includes Hamas and Hezbollah. The precedent for this is what Nixon and Kissinger did to realign U.S. relations with China and Egypt in the early 1970s—striking grand bargains with what, at the time, were two rising regional powers. These strategic bargains profoundly changed, for the better, the regional environments in Asia and the Middle East. In particular, the U.S. rapprochement with Egypt and its corollary, the Camp David Accords, have made another generalized Arab-Israeli war nearly impossible.
Today, from a strategic perspective, bringing Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah into a non-conflictual diplomatic process and, eventually, a political settlement would be at least as consequential. For those who buy into the demonization of the Islamic Republic and these groups, it would be useful to remember that only in retrospect is the late Anwar Sadat viewed as a “man of peace”—throughout much of the 1970s, he was widely seen as an anti-Israel activist who had launched the 1973 Yom Kippur war, had admired Adolf Hitler, and had collaborated with Nazi Germany against British forces in Egypt during World War II.
But the critical point is that without U.S.-Iranian rapprochement the United States will not be able to achieve any of its high-priority goals in the Middle East. This would be bad for America’s Arab allies and Israel, which need credible and effective American leadership in the region to maintain a stable balance of power, address serious threats, and ensure their safety and survival.
Ref the below post by someone called Kooshy – to set the record straight.
I never supplied chemical weapons to the Iraqis (they had their own), and the “final solution” comment is nonsense.
kooshy says:
July 15, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Here is an adviser for an invasion to southern Iran if needs be, his specialty was supplying chemical weapons and aerial reconnaissance to Sadaam, and fought with Iraqi’s in Fav against Iran, his final solution to stop the Iranian was mustard gas
“In 1987, Lt Col Rick Francona was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency as the assistant Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East. During this assignment, he spent much of 1987 and 1988 at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, as a liaison officer to the Iraqi armed forces directorate of military intelligence. Lt Col Francona traveled extensively as an observer of Iraqi combat operations against Iranian forces, and flew sorties with the Iraqi air force. His observations were key to the discovery of Iraqi chemical weapons capabilities and ballistic missile modifications.”
Tzvi Gross,
The real issues are Israel’s ending the occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and pulling out all troops and police (except for tiny force to man radar stations in the Golan, aimed toward Iran).
No one serious about settling the Israel/Palestine problem expects Israel to accept the return of millions of Palestinians. This will not be part of the deal, should one be achieved.
Tzvi Gross,
I too will try to find the figures on how many Israelis have been killed over the past 30 years. My guess is that Israel has killed at least 50 Palestinians or Lebanese for every Israeli killed by Palestinians or Lebanese.
The suicide bombings early this century were a perfect fright, it is true. In fact, it is my understanding that Saddam Hussein was taken out because he gave financial suppport to the families of suicide bombers attacking Tel Aviv. All the rubbish about WMD was just window dressing intended to deceive the American public (and give cover to the politicians suppporting an unncecessary war).
James Cunnning,
Many Israelis-I probably could get the numbers by Googling it- were murdered by Pal terrorism in Israel-Homicide bombing, drive by shooting, knifing,horribly mutilated bodies of children by hand.
I just googled the Arab peace proposal, and it includes the request of the right of return of Pals refugees, which would amount to the destruction of the Jewish state. Well the Jews do want a state of their own, just like the Croats, and Bosnians wanted, and got one. They are a coherent national group-vastly different then the Pals.
Based on past experience, and their minuscule number in the ME, and the example of Arab and Muslim treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, I would insist on signed agreements be coupled with DEFENCIBLE borders.
Saad Hariri, the Lebanese PM, is pursuing closer relations between Syria and Lebanon. This makes good sense, in my view. Business development in Syria would advance much faster if the governmental apparatus made some adjustments.
What utter foolishness, that the US still does not have an ambassador in Damascus. Why? Israel lobby.
fyi,
Qatar is friendly toward Iran, and Dubai strongly dislikes US foreign policy in the Middle East.
The catastrophe of the Gulf War arose from the foolish effort of the G H W Bush administration to demonstrate the abilities of women in the Middle East. Bush should not have had a woman as ambassador in Baghdad, and the US ambassador should have told Saddam bluntly that if he attacked Kuwait he would regret it.
That said, there is no question that a number of countries feared the Islamic government in Iran, and the insane invasion of Iran by Iraq had a good deal of tacit support.
Come on Nasser, now you’re just being childish
Bussed-in Basiji,
“You twist facts to imply that they are “Iraqis” because you have no real points to offer in these debates. If you would like to continue debating, I would be happy to keep handing your ass to you.”
I suppose your Iraqi master Mohammad Reza Naghdi told you to say that.
James Canning:
I think that all these people Sunni-led Arab states and the Americans and EU, miscalulcated gravely in the Iran-Iraq War; in its initiation, its continuation, and its conclusion.
The significance of the war lies in the schism that it has introduced in the Middle East between Sunni-led Arab states and Iran. To comprehend the scale of the disaster, think of WWI.
That schism cannot end until every single Sunni-led state that supported Iraq has experienced a regime change and has changed it sorientation away from being an enemy of Iran.
US & EU & Russia did all they could to prop up Mr. Hussein’s government and war effort. That it blew up in their faces with the Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, is, in my opinion, an indication of the poor analytical capabilities of these advanced states when it comes to making policy in the Middle East.
Tzvi Gross,
An independent Palestine would be allowed to possess a police force but not an army, airforce or navy, apart from some patrol boats and minor aerial surveillance planes.
And there would need to be a substantial UN peacekeeping force, probably for at least a decade or longer. No foreign troops would be allowed in the country, apart from UN peacekeepers.
Nasser,
Fyi is quite right that Iran faces no threat whatever from Iraq, and will not face any threat for Iraq in future. On the other hand, Iran needs a strong central government in Iraq able to keep the country intact and, ideally, able to defend Iraqi airspace against any incursion from Israel.
fyi,
Saddam Hussein was an arrogant ignoramus and a megalomaniac, and you are quite right his foolish attack on Iran, and the eight years of war, were a disaster for Iraq. To get out of the hole he had dug for himself and his country, Saddam tried to steal Kuwait, and this produced another catastrophe for his own country. Saddam’s generals told him that occupying Kuwait was result in the smashing of Iraq’s armed forces by the US. He ignored their advice and “went with his gut” (in the manner G W Bush did years later).
Tzvi Gross,
Where on earth do you get the notion 6 million Israelis are in danger of being killed?
Not a single Israeli was killed during the cease-fire with Hamas in the months leading up to the murderous rampage in Gaza. Over the past 30 years, the slaughtering has been carried out by Israeli against Lebanese and Palestinians. How many Israelis have been killed during that period?
Nasser:
Employing rhetorical devices are not conducive to discussions the aim of which is the discernment of Truth in so much as finite limited creatures such as us poor human beings are capable of discovering.
Iraq’s war against Iran was a strategic failure of monumental proportion for Saddam Hussein and his regime expected Iranian collapse or at least a no war-no peace arrangement. That is a situation prevailing in the Israel-Arab Wars with the Khuzestan Province being the equivalent of the West Bank.
The Iraqi Leaders, inspired by the misguided ideas of Arab Nationalism and Arab Socialism (really an species of National Socialism) had been preparing for that war for 20 years. At the time, the best jobs in Iraq in terms of payment and prestige were military jobs. Iraq had 40 mechanized/armored divisions; way over anything needed to defend herself.
But Iraq lacks that now. Arab Nationalism died with Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime and the labor of 40 years in forging a trans-ethnic Iraqi identity was unraveled as well. Iraq no longer has the cohesion to launch a war against anyone; she actually is quite defenseless against any of her neighbours.
Nasser
Go to Iraq and then decide to what extent Iran has influence on Iraq. Of course decades of rule by a maniac (Saddam) and the US occupation and invasion have absolutely nothing to do with Iraq’s misery. It’s difficult for many Iraqis to admit that they supported a maniac like Saddam and the results of such a moral failure. Let them blame whoever they want, they are “badbakht”.
Concerning the Larijanis, Larijan is a town next to the city of Amol in the beautiful province of Mazandaran. The father of the Larijanis was Ayat. Hashem Amoli born in Larijan, moved to Najaf in his late teens and spent thirty years studying and teaching in Najaf. Then moved back to Qom where he taught until passing away in the mid 1980s. The only Larijani who spent significant time in Najaf was the oldest brother Mohammad Javad who then went to Sharif University and then UC Berkeley.
You twist facts to imply that they are “Iraqis” because you have no real points to offer in these debates. If you would like to continue debating, I would be happy to keep handing your ass to you.
“There is no chance of Iraq ever again becoming a threat to Iran or any other state around it.”
Yeahh right! They were never supposed to be a threat to a country three times its size in the first place but they sure managed to be. They are rich they will rebuild. Iran should make sure Iraq stays in its present state!
Jame Canning
Can you -for once-make a comment without always “Israel” ? Why would Israel intimidate any one, unless they place themselves in a position of enmity against Israel? Don’t you think that just like any other country, Israel has the right to live without a constant existential threat for her existence?
We are talking here about a potential genocide of 6,000,000 people!
James Canning
Your statement is too simplistic. The Kurds also want their country, as well as many Quebecois, and many more “ethnics” in the world.
My question is-what are the Palestinians willing to give in return, to satisfy the Israelis insecurity, within the geographical parameters of pre 67 indefensible borders? will they be allowed to arm to the teeth, and allow in troops from states in war with Israel, just a few questions? If not, who will supervise, and if yes, it’s not a full independence?
Should it be gradual, to see how previous agreements hold, and how peaceful the nation is?
fyi,
I agree with you there is no chance Iraq will become a threat to any other country in the Middle East. For Iran, the agenda includes a total withdrawal of all US military forces, including mercenaries, from Iraq. And an Iraqi government able to withstand intimidation from Israel.
Nasser:
There is no chance of Iraq ever again becoming a threat to Iran or any other state around it.
The two states, Iran & Iraq, will be Shia states with huge influence from the Shia Religious Establishment in their external and internal policies. This situation inside Iraq is irreversible.
Furthermore, ultimately, in a sea of Sunni Arabs and non-Arabs, Iraq will have only Iran as a political support.
Regardless of all of that, Iraqis are Arabs with independent oil income so there is very little chance of them being controlled by Iran.
The Kurds of Iraq will not disrupt the Shia dominated dispensation; they have never had this good and will maintain good relations with Iran – in spite of PKK, PJAL and other assorted adventurers.
Bussed-in-Basiji,
“The Iraqis running Iraq today (Shia, Kurd, Sunni, Turkomen, secular) are for the most part groups and individuals whom Iran supported during the war. Nobody in Iraq goes to the bathroom without permission from Ayat. Sistani (Iranian). So again I leave it to you and other readers to decide if Iran reached its strategic goals in Iraq or not. Most US experts seem to think so.”
I have heard Iraqis blame Iran for everything from water shortages to power outages and some openly calling for an attack on Iran! Arab ajam is very real and nothing is preventing Iraq from turning into a threat for Iran in the future. I think you exaggerate Iran’s influence in Iraq and I also see you left out the part about how one Iraqi family, the Larijanis, control so much of Iran now.
Bussed-in Basiji,
Iran wants a stable Iraq, able to maintain its territorial integrity and, ideally, able to prevent any Israeli incursion into its airspace. Iran has reached out to various Sunni leaders, working toward this objective.
Tzvi Gross,
The Palestinians want their own country. Or, perhaps I should say they want Israeli soldiers and secret police out of their country. Israel can prosper within its June 1, 1967 borders.
Interesting comments by Cyrus Safdari
Watch the video;
http://jasondylan.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/cyrus-safdari-on-iran-air-flight-655-and-us-hypocrisy-in-iran/
Nasser-jan
The Iraqis running Iraq today (Shia, Kurd, Sunni, Turkomen, secular) are for the most part groups and individuals whom Iran supported during the war. Nobody in Iraq goes to the bathroom without permission from Ayat. Sistani (Iranian). So again I leave it to you and other readers to decide if Iran reached its strategic goals in Iraq or not. Most US experts seem to think so.
Mohammad,
“So sad Cyrus Safdari said (once again) that he might stop writing.”
As you noted, the key point is that Cyrus said this “once again.” All we have to do is make clear to him just what a big mistake that would be, and he’ll promptly drop that silly idea.
Tzvi,
There must be something about this website that brings out your warm and fuzzy side. I point out to you that West Bank settlements are much closer to an Arab country than used to be the case for Israeli population centers before 1967, practically inviting you to insist that Israel deserved a brand new “security circle” centered on those much-farther-east population centers, and you graciously decline to take the bait.
I probably should just stop here with a commendation of your gracious behavior, but what the heck? I’ll ask the obvious question: If you feel that the skinny little sliver of land that was pre-1967 Israel – just 12 miles wide at its exposed throat – was too narrow to provide Israel’s citizens with the security buffer that any country has a legitimate right to ask for, why aren’t you insisting now that Israel should have a similar buffer to protect its West Bank settlements within a stone’s throw of the Jordanian border? After all, some of the people living just on the other side of that border used to live where those settlements are today, and I’ve often heard that a number of them are still angry about having had to move.
Do you think those West Bank settlers deserve the same protection as other Israelis? Or should they be treated as second-class citizens — expected to bear the risk of some unprovoked attack from those displaced Palestinians?
Tzvi: Claim: “but the fact that in Israel you can freely oppose government policy, and will not be raped, jailed,tortured and killed for political non-violent disobedience-like in your favorite poster boy country Iran- is the best proof that both you and your sources’ bombastic, rabid and violent anti-Israeli rhetoric is just that.”
refutation: Tristan Anderson, Rachel Corrie, Emily Henechowicz, Ameer Makhoul, http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/06/29/huge-rise-in-israeli-police-wiretaps-judges-acquiesce-in-99-of-cases-30000-secret-recordings-of-makhoul/
“Jewish Women Arrested for Carrying Torah at Wall;”
“Israeli Journalist Annat Kamm, whereabouts unknown, thought to be under house arrest in Tel Aviv;”
I just wanted thank very much Levretts and all who comment here. It is unbelievable to me to see such rational, knowledgeable and fair persons talking about Iran and middle east issues at the same place. It is something that I could not even imagine a few years ago.
So sad Cirus Safdari said (once again) that he might stop writing. Again, I hope he will change his mind and won’t stop writing, but at least I hope to enjoy his points/opinions here more.
Once again, thank you guys, you are doing a terrific job. I hope more people hear your voice.
IMHO, you like it or not, God bless You :-)
{just like Israel did to refugees it received from Arab and Muslim lands-in their place of refuge, and the refugee problem solved, and peace in the ME.}
What is the problem with the Jews in Iran? Israel has repeatedly tried to bribe them to get out of Iran and go to Israel which they refused.
Israel has stolen land of Palestinian through war and destruction. Palestinians have no rights to buy property in their own land. Stop lying. In Iran Jews and other
minority own property.
{Don’t you think that the ME with Israel as a Jewish state could be a Paradise, if money would be spent on cooperation rather then armaments, murder and mayhem?}
Everyone in the region believes that the European colonists should have not come to Palestine. They should have been given the best part of Germany, if they think their ‘holocaust’ was unique, not to force Palestinians out of their land based on a stupid claim ‘a land without people for the people without land’ where everyone still laughs at this lie.
Now, it is better to have one country for all, not a ‘jewish state’ which is continuation of the status quo. One country for all with equal rights to land and resources. THERE IS NO OTHER SOLUTION.
We prefer our region to be cleared from the occupiers immediately. David Ben Gurion knew the only way to steal all of Palestine is to kill its population, therefore, since your arrival you have done nothing but killing, terror, invasion, genocide, illegal settlement, expansion and more…. enough is enough. Stop the zionist project at once.
Dwz,
If the Arab leaders indeed would be the US stooges, wouldn’t had it been in the US interest to solve the Pals refugee problem by giving equal human rights to the
Pals, -just like Israel did to refugees it received from Arab and Muslim lands-in their place of refuge, and the refugee problem solved, and peace in the ME.
How come this hasn’t happened?
Either those leaders are not stooges, or they were never asked to do so, as maybe that would solve the ME most pressing problems, and maybe peace will ensue.
But then who will be set up to kill the Jews?
Don’t you think that the Arabs are being taken advantage off and abused by those who want you to fight the Jews to the last Arab?
I am just asking, don’t explode!!
Don’t you think that the ME with Israel as a Jewish state could be a Paradise, if money would be spent on cooperation rather then armaments, murder and mayhem?
Dan Cooper,
“61 years ago the Pals were happy, because there was no Israel”
Is this a quote from one of your sources, or your own?
So how about the constant pogroms by Pals against the local Jewish inhabitants ie; in 1929,in Hebron, Gaza, etc, which became Judenrine, way before the mass Jewish immigration following the the abandonment of the Jews by the enlightened West, during the 2ND WW?
Your other quotes are from controversial Israeli historians,but the fact that in Israel you can freely oppose government policy, and will not be raped, jailed,tortured and killed for political non-violent disobedience-like in your favorite poster boy country Iran- is the best proof that both you and your sources’ bombastic, rabid and violent anti-Israeli rhetoric is just that.
Some people though-especially assimilated Israeli Jewish Professors -make a very profitable living from it.
Some facts about Gaza-How many Pals did Hamas murder in it’s violent take over of the strip? Why were all the green houses Israel left for the Pals-enough foe providing livelihood to an estimated 100,000 pals was destroyed? How come the factories Israel placed at Erez for the exclusive employment of Gazas’ residents were destroyed by Pals? An d what about the rockets-home made-thousands of them terrorising primarily Jews who were themselves expelled from Muslim lands, while your professor-whose parents were also the victims of that expulsion-sits pretty in the UK, spits unsubstantiated venom, justifying Hamas??
And in spite of the fact that in essence Israel is in war footing with the Hamas of Gaza, they still accept hundreds of patients from the enemy territory into Israeli hospitals?Can you imagine the reverse, when you have Gilad Shalit at Hamas now for 3 years, still without even a Red Cross visit?
An i can go on and on, as I did work with Palestinians in Gaza-gush katif-prior to the settlements removal, and have seen that mutual coexistence is possible, if not the professional hate mongers, who will sacrifice the jlastlast Arab to satiate their racist hatred of Jews.
The Shahram Affair
Kidnapped Iranian scientist exposes US government as a criminal enterprise
By Justin Raimondo
July 15, 2010 “Anti War” – - Confronted with the accusation that Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri had been kidnapped by US and Saudi intelligence agencies while on a trip to Mecca, and brought to the US for interrogation, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley averred: “We are not in the habit of going around kidnapping people.”
To which the only proper response is: Oh, really?
Given the numerous instances of “extraordinary rendition” in which our government has been engaged, and no doubt continues to be engaged, one wonders how Senor Crowley can say that with a straight face. But then again, being an official spokesman for the US Department of State no doubt requires some sort of facial surgery – or, perhaps, an industrial-strength shot of Botox – to achieve the desired results.
Now that Shahram has shown up at the Iranian interests section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., claiming to have been abducted by the US and Saudi intelligence services, and tortured, Crowley may want to review his knowledge of US habits.
In March, ABC News released an “exclusive” report hailing Shahram’s “defection” as a great US “intelligence coup,” the missing link in the puzzle piecing together a picture of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. Shahram is said to have worked for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and news of his “defection” appeared alongside reports of an Iranian “secret” nuclear facility on the outskirts of the city of Qom.
As it was, the Iranians themselves revealed the existence of the Qom facility and opened it up to inspection by the IAEA, but the matter of Shahram’s disappearance appeared to throw a shadow over their efforts at openness — which was, of course, the whole point.
Our spooks had a narrative ready made. We were to be told that the defector had brought with him a laptop which contained all the secrets of Iran’s nukes, and this was to be touted as yet more evidence – as if this administration needed any – Iran was harboring nuclear ambitions in defiance of the “international community.” “According to the people briefed on the intelligence operation,” ABC “reported,” “Amiri’s disappearance was part of a long-planned CIA operation to get him to defect. The CIA reportedly approached the scientist in Iran through an intermediary who made an offer of resettlement on behalf of the United States.”
That, at least, was the official story, dutifully relayed to the world by ABC “News”: Shahram, however, upended their neat little narrative, months later, with a YouTube video – that indispensable weapon of counter-propaganda – in which he told us:
“I was kidnapped last year (2009) in the holy city of Medina on 3 June in a joint operation by the terror and abduction units of the American CIA and Saudi Arabia’s Istikhbarat [intelligence agency].They took me to a house located somewhere that I didn’t know. They gave me an anesthetic injection. When I became conscious I was in a big [voice interrupted] towards America.
“During the eight months that I was kept in America, I was subject to the most severe tortures and psychological pressures by the American intelligence investigation groups.
“And the main aim behind these investigation teams and the pressure imposed on me was to make me take part in an interview conducted by an American media source and claim that I was an important figure in Iran’s nuclear program and I had sought asylum in America at my own will. And (to say) while seeking asylum I took some very important documents and a laptop with classified information on Iran’s military nuclear program in it to America from my country.”
This was followed, hours later, by yet another video, in which someone claiming to be Shahram – and looking, admittedly, just like him – said he wanted to clear up “rumors,” denied having any political views or that he had betrayed his country, and stated: “I am in America and intend to continue my education here. I am free here and I assure everyone that I am safe.”
Gee, it’s a good thing the CIA has their own YouTube channel: now there’s a solid investment of the US taxpayers’ money. But Shahram wasn’t done with them quite yet.
On June 29, a third video cropped up, which was played by Iranian television, in which the real Shahram cleared up the mystery:
“I, Shahram Amiri, am a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a few minutes ago I succeeded in escaping US security agents in Virginia. Presently, I am producing this video in a safe place. I could be re-arrested at any time.”
After appealing to Western human rights organizations to intervene on his behalf – fat chance! – he continued:
“The second video which was published on YouTube by the US government, where I have said that I am free and want to continue my education here, is not true and is a complete fabrication. If something happens and I do not return home alive, the US government will be responsible.”
All this time Washington had refused to acknowledge Shahram’s presence in the US, but when he showed up at the Pakistani embassy an official who refused to be named told the media: “He came to this country freely, he lived here freely, and he has chosen freely to return to Iran.”
Such evidence as we have indicates only the last of those three assertions bears any resemblance to the facts. Aside from Shahram’s testimony, and his presence at the embassy, the high quality of the second video, and the relatively poor quality of the first and third, is suggestive of an effort by US intelligence to cover up a badly botched job.
What’s interesting about this story isn’t only the scandal of a kidnapping carried out by our spooks – after all, we should be inured to that by now – but the role the US media was slated to play if Shahram had gone along for the ride. I wonder which “American media source” was tasked with interviewing him. Could it be ABC “News,” the outlet given the “exclusive” story of his alleged “defection” just before the Qom story broke? Just guessing there, but amid all the controversy over media folk partying with administration movers-and-shakers, this kind of beach party ought to make us stop and think about the degree to which the media is functioning as an arm of government.
Not that this is anything all that new. Back in the day, you’ll recall, it was a Washington Post reporter, Dillard Stokes, who, in league with the FBI and the Roosevelt administration, wrote a letter under an assumed name to the defendants in the Great Sedition Trial of 1940, seeking antiwar literature which he proposed to distribute to US soldiers: this was later used as evidence by the prosecution. During the cold war era, the media was utilized by the FBI” s “red squad” to plant stories and spread disinformation, and there’s no reason to believe this symbiosis has ended with the coming of the Obama-ites to Washington: quite the opposite, I’m sure. We are also all too familiar with “cooked” intelligence, the smell of it having permeated Washington (and the front page of the New York Times – thanks, Judy!) in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
The signal achievement of the Obama administration may have been to combine these elements of deception, and add to them the crime of kidnapping.
Let no one berate us libertarians for describing the US government as a criminal enterprise: it isn’t disloyalty to the country, or even a penchant for overstatement, that drives us to such rhetorical excesses. It’s the story of what happened to Shahram Amiri: it’s the lies, the thuggery and hubris of a ruling elite that believes it can get away with anything. Such is their contempt for the American people – and the peoples of the world – that they think we’ll swallow any tall tale, no matter how crudely fabricated, because we’re just not as smart as their cunning selves.
However, it looks like they’re not cunning enough by half, having blown the Shahram operation and exposed their embarrassingly inept tradecraft. They can try to patch up this gaping hole in US credibility by claiming Shahram left only to protect his family from retaliation, but there are certain problems with this.
Since the family wasn’t harmed in the year Shahram spent in captivity in the US, one can reasonably infer they were never in any danger. Indeed, if they were in danger, and the US let him return home because of it, then wouldn’t revealing this alleged “threat” plant suspicion in the minds of Iranian officials that perhaps he had turned over valuable intelligence to the Americans – and place Shahram and his family in mortal danger?
In any case, I did warn you far in advance that we’d soon be treated to a veritable cornucopia of “news” stories detailing the nefarious plans of Iranian ayatollahs to nuke Israel, and Brooklyn, too. The Obama-ites are under increasing pressure from the Israel lobby to abandon the CIA’s assessment that Iran ended a nascent nuclear weapons program in 2003: Shahram’s “defection” was supposed to have facilitated this development. Instead, the whole scheme backfired, and, rather than making the case for war with Iran, the Shahram affair has confirmed what some of us knew already: that the US government is a criminal enterprise with no morals, no credibility.
{Lies huh, that would be news to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon or the Palestinians expelled from Kuwait and more recently from Iraq.}
PALESTINIANS HAVE A LAND WHICH IS taken BY THE ZIONIST JEWS, you address them ‘Dear’ WHO USED TO LIVE around the BLACK SEA.
Your government, the occupiers that you give your admiration and finacial support has installed stooges as Arab ‘leaders’ to continue the status quo that you support with your TAX $$$$ and your SILENCE because you benefit from Muslims oppresion and keep ‘growing’.
Castellio,
I take comfort in the fact that even an extremist warmonger like Jane Harman seemed apprehensive about using the military option.
“{and the Arabs give nothing-not even basic human rights}
STOP YOUR LIES AT ONCE”
Lies huh, that would be news to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon or the Palestinians expelled from Kuwait and more recently from Iraq.
{I think the plan is to provide major military support to a Green Coup takeover, destroying and suppressing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.}
Only a person who knows nothing about Iranian politics claim such a nonsense. Why don’t do read the following article to see if you can repeat your sentence again:
http://news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2010/07/107552.php
I doubt very much if the Obama Regime High Command has any intention of occupying Iran, apart from maybe parts of it contiguous with other countries the Regime is currently occupying. I think the plan is to provide major military support to a Green Coup takeover, destroying and suppressing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
I find it fascinating to watch alternapundits continue to claim that The Regime will not attack Iran. THEY ALREADY HAVE! These powerful sanctions are war, economic war. According to reports, Iranian society is already hurting very badly from these sanctions, and in the resulting turmoil, it’s possible that a coup will ocurr, backed by the US covertly, and possibly backed by the US military openly if the government in Iran tries to crack down using military force (which it would have to do in the face of a coup). Also, the US-backed terror attacks in Iran are war.
Many will hail Obama if it works out that way, and he will undoubtedly get another Nobel Prize for avoiding the war that appeared certain. No one will worry about the notion that any nation can be stripped of its right to choose its own government based on rumors, shady allegations, lies and distortions, all about really nothing; everyone will just be glad it wasn’t them being picked on this time. Chavez is the only one who will be upset, knowing he is next in line.
Apparently everyone has already accepted the notion that every nation has as much sovereignty as the US and allied elites allow it to have. That means, none. The whole globe will be in pretty much the same situations as the Palestinians are looking at being in: sovereignty in name only. International law will be reduced to Might Makes Right. Some would argue that it has never been anything else, and will (and already do) ‘blame the victim’, saying that Iran brought it all on itself because it refused to bow to the Hegemon.
Or maybe there will be a shooting war; in that case, Obama might have to wait a year for his second Nobel Prize.
But one really has to laugh when folks suggest that Obama won’t attack Iran. His ‘diplomacy’ has plainly been the same as Bush’s ‘diplomacy’ – nothing more than dressed up ultimatums, with the one difference that Obama offered a poisoned deal, and as soon as Iran made very reasonable counter proposals, Obama not only rejected any further negotiation, but did so with extreme anger and prejudice, REPEATING that behavior even more harshly when Turkey and Brazil did what he refused to do, actually negotiating with Iran and making the deal Obama refused to make. The only thing that will stop war is a complete internal breakdown in Iran. And that in itself is a form of war – the pressure on Iran that has destroyed its society and government has been a form of war. But I guess it’s all somehow ok when Obama does it. Isn’t that weird? Where did all the lefty antiwar types go?
The sheer ridiculousness of the ‘case’ against Iran has been on display in recent days, highlighted by the Amiri case. EVEN IF Amiri defected, and wasn’t abducted as he and Iran claim he was, the whole affair shows how desperate the US is for anything they can point to as ‘evidence’. Remember, this ‘defector’ was often referred to as one of the background sources of information that was supposed to be just terribly, terribly important. Shades of the Iraq war propaganda: these people are throwing any crap against the wall they can think of, just to see if they can splatter the wall enough. That’s pretty much all they are doing.
And speaking of throwing crap against a wall, the bit of theater at WINEP the other day was truly classic.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/07/reza_kahlili_self-proclaimed_ex-cia_spy_makes_new_iran_claims.html
“Reza Kahlili, a self-proclaimed former CIA “double agent” inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, appeared in disguise at a Washington think tank Friday claiming that Iran has developed weapons-grade uranium and missiles ready to carry nuclear warheads.
The pseudonymous Kahlili, whose previous accounts have been greeted with widespread skepticism, also said Iran was planning nuclear suicide bombings with “a thousand suitcase bombs spread around Europe and the U.S.”
“This is a messianic regime. There should be no doubt they’re going to commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history,” Kahlili said. “They will attack Israel, European capitals and the Persian Gulf region at the same time, then they will hide in a bunker [until a religious prophecy is fulfilled]… and kill the rest of the nonbelievers.”
Kahlili was showcased Friday by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank founded by a former senior official of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.
He appeared wearing dark glasses, a surgical mask and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap, and spoke through a voice altering apparatus. Bodyguards stood nearby.”
What strikes me is the utter disdain the warmongers have for We the People. They barely even try to make their case for yet another War of Aggression (which is a crime against humanity, but I know no one cares about that quaint old idea any more) credible at all. They know that, the media and the punditocracy being just about completely coopted and owned, THEY DON’T HAVE TO, and Lurid works better than Credible anyway…
{and the Arabs give nothing-not even basic human rights}
STOP YOUR LIES AT ONCE
DWZ
Can you control your temper? When you read something not to your liking you explode.I have spoken to Arabs from many countries, and they designated the PALS as the most hated group of people in the ME. They will tell you that privately, that’s why the WEST has to provide all the aid., and the Arabs give nothing-not even basic human rights, except Jordan, for other selfish reasons.
tzvi gross
The problem is Zionism and not Judaism.
Zionism is the greatest enemy of Jews by using them and abusing them in this colonialist, apartheid and barbaric project.
It is an offense to intellect that the West can see thousands upon thousands of evidence of Zionist atrocities and continue supporting this fascist state with its sick pretence to ‘democracy’.
61 years ago, Palestinians were happy because there was no Israel.
All of a sudden people from all over the world came to Palestine and terrorised the indigenous Palestinian people, stole their land, forced them out of their homes and established this raciest and apartheid state of Israel that we see today.
The entire world is aware that occupation is a crime, the Israelis are the aggressors, and the Palestinians are the victim.
So many decent Jewish people in Israel are totally against their governments murderous atrocities in Palestine.
More than 80 Israeli students announced their refusal to serve in the Israeli military because of what they call their nation’s track-record of oppression in the occupied territories.
The conscientious objectors issued a letter declaring their determination not to join up during a news conference in Tel Aviv in protest against the government’s policies towards Gaza and the West Bank.
They publicly declared that:
“We cannot ignore the truth –
The occupation is a violent, racist, inhumane, illegal, undemocratic, and immoral.
“We, who were educated on the values of liberty, justice, honesty and peace, cannot accept it.”
It was signed by 84 high school students.
The biggest problem facing the world and the Middle East peace process are the powerful Israel lobby organisations in USA.
The US media is a complete mouthpiece for the Israel Lobby. Never a critical word is heard against Israel.
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, He wrote: http://petras.lahaine.org/todos.php
“The great majority of the world’s people are sickened and incensed by Israel’s mass murder of the citizens of Gaza.
Israel’s embargo, the daily ‘targeted’ assassinations of Palestinians, the ‘targeted’ missile attacks against civilians, the land, sea and air blockades and the blatant ‘targeted’ destruction of the infrastructure of Gaza.
No government, indeed a democratically elected Hamas government, can stand by while its people are starved and murdered into submission.
According to the respected Congressmen Bermans, only the lives of Jews matter, not the growing thousands of murdered, dismembered and mutilated citizens of Gaza – they do not count as people!
Until we neutralize the pervasive power of the Zionist Power Configuration in all of its manifestations – In American public and civic life – and its deep penetration of American legislative and executive offices,
We will fall short of preventing Israel from receiving the arms, funding and political backing to sustain its wars of ethnic extermination.
Israel will continue its barbaric ethnic cleansing.
Israel objective is to obliterate Palestinian civilization and to wipe Palestine off the map.”
Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford wrote;
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe.
,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine,
“A wide gap separates the reality of Israel’s actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen.
It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November 2008 that killed six Hamas men.
Israel’s objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers.
And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. ”
Israel has imprisoned 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza strip.
They have caged them in like animals, and control their food, water, electricity and more importantly their freedom, and when Hamas tries to defend its people and resist this illegal occupation, Israel call them terrorist.
Hamas is a democratically elected government.
Israel wants us to believe Hamas is a terrorist organization, but the truth is that Hamas is a democratically elected government.
In January 2006, President Carter together with UN and British observers monitored Hamas’s election and categorically confirmed that the election was free and fair.
I have lost counts of how many times Israel has deliberately massacred the innocent Palestinian civilians during the past 61 years.
This makes Israel is a terrorist state and the biggest threat to world peace.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Israel’s leaders are guilty of crimes against humanity and must be brought to the international court of justice and tried as war criminals.
The most destructive power in the world is the Israel lobby in America, they control the media and they are the reason why Israel kills with impunity.
Israel disregard for justice & human rights will have far-reaching consequences for mankind
We already know that Israel genocide in Palestine has created terrorist and fundamentalism around the world, which will indirectly, effects all of us one way or another.
The whole world is suffering because of Israel desire to exist by force and occupation.
Why do we all have to suffer because Israel wants to exist by force and occupation?
When is it going to sink in, that Israel has never wanted peace, it wants the West Bank and Jerusalem without Arabs, and of course, it requires continued hostility to justify the charity and sympathy it receives!
Israel is a serial killer and will continue to kill until and unless the international community collectively make the leaders of Israel accountable for their actions.
I cannot understand how the world can stand by and make excuses for an Israeli government hell bent on instigating aggression. It’s unfathomable that the people, who were victims of unspeakable crimes in World War 2, are now the perpetrators of equally heinous acts.
tzvi gross ,You are a clear example of how Israel encourages their supporters to hijack public opinion in forums.
The supporters of Zionist terrorists believe in Brainwashing the international public opinion by playing “the self-defence” card, “rockets”, “Human shield”, “cover ups” and blaming the victim.
In the age of satellites and television, This does not work anymore, and the international community have called your bluffs.
tzvi gross ,Just remember, we are defending the justice and fairness for the innocent and defenceless Palestinian women and children but you are defending Israel’s illegal occupation and 61 years of atrocities.
In the carnage in Gaza, we all witnessed with horror how Israel brutally massacred more than 700 innocent and defenceless Palestinian women and children.
The Zionist leaders of Israel did not even let the international press inside Gaza because they knew that their atrocities & genocide would be revealed and their propaganda machine would collapse.
In a sick attempt to brainwash the public opinion in this forum and others, the supporters of this apartheid state are still trying to portray that the aggressor (Israel) is the victim, how low and sick can you get.
It is time the international community get together and put sever pressure on this apartheid and racist state, as they did to South Africa.
Those of us who condemn Israel’s atrocities believe in Love, justice, fairness and the rule of law in this world and we cannot tolerate to see the criminal and terrorist leaders of Israel to get away with murder.
Eric,
But I am talking about a so called peaceful ” post settlement era”, following a return to pre 67 borders, and recognition of Israel. I still think that unless the demand to accept PAL refugees back will be removed from the table, this discussion- Islamic proposal- is a non starter.
{attempted through the corruption of the Green movement in Iran: each ethnic group should have its own geographical area, and their united strengths should be weakened by their opposition to each other.}
stop this nonsene at once. Iran is A NATION, not bunch of tribes. Federation is hoax designed by the zionist stooges like Dennis Gelb to partition regional states for the interest of Israel. We are not fool.
If you must, start the Jane Harman tape at 1.35.
The point is not to divide Iran by oneself, but to pay the Iranian people to do it themselves, and call it freedom.
As was urged in the USSR, as was initiated in Iraq, as is being carried out in Afghanistan, as will be attempted through the corruption of the Green movement in Iran: each ethnic group should have its own geographical area, and their united strengths should be weakened by their opposition to each other.
Don’t kid yourself, the western world is sold on the idea of redefining the world along “ethnic” lines and “may the most powerful country win”. Interestingly, the US itself needs to maintain its cohesion against racist ideologies, so has a domestic rationale and a foreign affairs rationale. That’s what’s really interesting, and explains the historical necessity of Obama at this moment.
In historical terms, it is a demonstration of the continuing weakness of Christianity as a transnational force, and the many forces against that aspect of Christianity are also solidly aligned against Islam, which also dedicates itself to transcending ethnic (racist) divisions.
Please, everyone, if you doubt the American desire to break (or at least weaken) Iran along ethnic lines, please see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1oon3KNXag
Jane Harman at AIPAC, more than a year ago. She gets to that point at 1.45… but don’t jump there, get the lead in.
Here is an adviser for an invasion to southern Iran if needs be, his specialty was supplying chemical weapons and aerial reconnaissance to Sadaam, and fought with Iraqi’s in Fav against Iran, his final solution to stop the Iranian was mustard gas
“In 1987, Lt Col Rick Francona was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency as the assistant Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East. During this assignment, he spent much of 1987 and 1988 at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, as a liaison officer to the Iraqi armed forces directorate of military intelligence. Lt Col Francona traveled extensively as an observer of Iraqi combat operations against Iranian forces, and flew sorties with the Iraqi air force. His observations were key to the discovery of Iraqi chemical weapons capabilities and ballistic missile modifications.”
Tzvi,
“Are you aware that the entire geographical depth of the state of Israel is only 12 miles at some points-based on pre 67 borders?”
You’re being charitable, Tzvi. Some of the West Bank settlements are even closer than that to Israel’s border with Jordan.
Eric A. Brill,
“Bear in mind that US troops already are traversing this Kuwait-to-Baghdad main route every day, since we’ve got a war still going on in Iraq. Despite the occasional difficulty protecting that route, and the at least short-term threat posed by Iranian air attacks on the route, we’ve got a pretty well-established infrastructure in that neck of the woods if it should turn out that the Iranian air threat is neutralized very quickly. Try as it might to keep on the straight and narrow path of virtue, the US government just might be tempted by all of that free oil owned by its enemy.”
Pretty compelling case. I just thought it would be wiser for the US not to expose any more ground forces and thus risk any real casualties. But hey, if things are going well as you say they may very well feel like being up for an adventure.
Nasser,
“I continue to maintain however that this is not very plausible and that an attack would likely be limited to air strikes.”
I tend to agree with you, despite all my writing about Abadan. Even so, if those air strikes are going well, I wouldn’t rule out an Abadan adventure. Bear in mind that US troops already are traversing this Kuwait-to-Baghdad main route every day, since we’ve got a war still going on in Iraq. Despite the occasional difficulty protecting that route, and the at least short-term threat posed by Iranian air attacks on the route, we’ve got a pretty well-established infrastructure in that neck of the woods if it should turn out that the Iranian air threat is neutralized very quickly. Try as it might to keep on the straight and narrow path of virtue, the US government just might be tempted by all of that free oil owned by its enemy.
Jame Cunning,
Even the cease fire resolution of the UN after the 1967 war didn’t require Israel to withdraw completely to the pre 67 borders, as in many sections those borders were completely indefensible.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t they also demanded Israel to accept back the Palestinian refugees, which would have meant the dissolution of the State of Israel by other means?
And even if a global Israel-Muslim peace agreement is signed, and Israel is back to it’s indefensible borders with a piece of paper in hand, what will happen following the first anti-Israeli provocation sure to follow by a rejectionist faction? How many of these agreements will withstand the anti-Israel pressure of the Arab/ Muslim street, but this time Israel will be much less able to defend itself within those reduced borders?
Are you aware that the entire geographical depth of the state of Israel is only 12 miles at some points-based on pre 67 borders?
Kooshy,
If the US ever attacked Iran – which, again, I doubt will happen – I don’t think the US would make any serious effort to occupy any part of Iran for any significant period. Nonetheless, bear in mind that the main route taken by the US troops on their way from Kuwait to Baghdad – a route which might again prove useful in a war with Iran – passes closer to Iran’s Abadan refinery than Sarah Palin’s house is to Russia. I don’t think the US plan would call for swinging up that way to take the Abadan refinery (though I do expect that US troops would at least “secure” the refinery while they were in the area). Nevertheless, if a large contingent of American troops happened to be in the area, along with a couple of hundred US fighter-bombers with a little free time on their hands, it strikes me as possible that some contingency plan might be dusted off (or quickly drafted) so that they all could spend a little more time in sunny Abadan. All of this would be very upsetting to the Iranians, of course, and to anyone else who felt the US had no business attacking Iran, but, given the circumstances – the US being at war with Iran and all – I suspect the US government wouldn’t be overly concerned about public relations with Iran and its allies, nor would the US be worried that Iran and its allies might take retaliatory measures that they had not planned to take in any case.
If this happened, I doubt the US would stay any longer than its cost-benefit analysis dictated it ought to stay. That might be a few days, a few weeks, a few months, possibly longer. At the very least, my hunch is that cost-benefit analysis would persuade the US that it ought to stay long enough at least to load a million or so barrels of Iranian oil onto friendly tankers – perhaps for the entirely unselfish purpose of defraying the cost of a war that had been forced upon peace-loving Americans by the war-monger Iranians.
James Canning,
“Are there fools in the Obama administration actually calling for dismembering Iran?”
I can see how this thread drifted. We were discussing a hypothetical occupation of Iran, which I argued was such an impossible task that no one will even attempt this. So it was decided that IF an occupation was attempted (big if as Mr. Brill already highlighted the poor performance of US ground forces) then that occupation would only be limited to the region of Khuzestan. I continue to maintain however that this is not very plausible and that an attack would likely be limited to air strikes. Of course that too is a very bad idea because Iran would counter by trying to disrupt energy supplies; something that should be an unacceptable risk to any rational government in the West.
Richard,
You mistakenly believe that you are valiantly resisting those who press for war on Iran by insisting that Iran might be able to keep up a stiff upper lip and get through it a lot better than most Americans predict. Iran wouldn’t get through it well at all – a war would be utterly devastating for it. This doesn’t mean a war would not also be devastating for the US – and for Israel and just about anyone else (though perhaps not for the Marshall Islands, which may be why the US can always count on its vote on UN resolutions).
If you want to persuade Americans that attacking Iran might not be such a good idea after all, you might be more effective writing about its likely adverse effects on the US, which many Americans might not fully appreciate (as, we all recall, was also the case during the run-up to the “home by Christmas” Iraq and Afghanistan wars). I doubt that very many (as in “none’) will be persuaded by your arguments that a US attack really wouldn’t be as tough on Iran as many predict. Even if you were correct about that, I doubt they’d be impressed by your arguments. The fact that you’re not correct makes your arguments even less effective.
Eric
“Of course the US could hit Iran’s refineries (just as Iraq knocked out Iran’s Abadan refinery early in the Iran-Iraq war).”
Eric, we all know US can send the bombers out, and knock everything out, point taken but it sounds that you want to focus more on the Rambo part (swing the discussion that way since if I may say I suspect you hate to see if that ever happens), than the aftermath, let’s imagine that US occupies the southern Iran what would be the aftermath and focus on what strategic gain will US get, how will it govern (Iraq, Afghanistan comes to mind), the point is not just to have a fight, my point is what will US gain from a fight and another occupation?, wars like anything else are cost benefit calculations at a political level, at least that’s true for other countries (perhaps except US and Sadam’s Iraq).I suspect that you fear a neocon initiated war more and you know a new US initiated war will have a huge cost on both sides, that same fear you have is what has stopped the war so far.
Dan Cooper,
Read my response to Rehmat. More can be said, as the Middle East is a very complicated place, but what will happen to Israel in that neighborhood if they will not be diligent in trying to safe guard themselves? How about thousands of rockets on exclusively civilian targets, even after full withdrawal from Gaza, Sout Lebanon?
tTere are not very easy and encouraging options out there, but demonizing Israel is not a solution either.
There isn’t much good will going around in the ME towards any one,wether intra Arab,Non-Arab muslim V Arab Muslim, Arab Muslim V Arab Christian, Sunni V Shia, Muslims and Arabs V Israel,Arab and Muslim V the West, etc.
Tzvi Gross,
Israel does not have to fight any wars. 57 Muslim countries offer peace if Israel ends the occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
Richard,
“The US can bomb a few bridges and the gasoline embargo will be complete. Right. One can only shakes one’s head at the total lack of comprehension of what war looks like and what happens in war.”
I’m surprised and dismayed at how you’ve distorted what I’ve written. I’ve never suggested the US should attack Iran. Others, including you, speculated that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for Iran if that happened – because, for example, Iran could still obtain gasoline from Iraqi smugglers. I merely pointed out that – if the US were to attack Iran, as you, not I, had speculated – the US would find it a very easy matter to terminate gasoline-smuggling. I’ll concede that a few brave truckers might find some unbombed back road, and that a few brave motorcyclists might bypass some blown-up river bridge by walking their cycles down to the river bed, ferrying it across, and pushing it back up the river bank on the far side. But that wouldn’t get enough gasoline into Iran to fuel a trip to the local falafel stand for most families.
You’re overstating what I’ve written.
Rehmat,
Quoting Gilad Atzmon- another Jew found profitable job of opinionating fantastic conspiracy theories on Israels’ expense. The world leadership is so mindless that Israel can pull their strings like a puppeteer. I wonder how come the Israelis are still the most threatened people on earth , then?
The Arabs lost 4 major wars,and survived. What will happen if Israel will loose one? Any suggestions?
Frankly, I’m going to go back to not discussing this any more.
The Pollyannas are impervious to any reason, so there’s no point.
Let the US taxpayer waltz into another military disaster that causes the weak economy to evaporate, kills thousands more of their kids in the military, creates real terrorism in the US that kills THEM, and further erodes civil freedoms in the backlas while the rich get richer and the politicians continue to lie. It’s going to happen anyway and there’s absolutely nothing any one can do about it.
The Leveretts should shut down this site. Nothing is going to come of it anyway.
Richard,
“He assumes that the US or Israel can drift in to Iran, bomb some stuff and drift out.”
Quite to the contrary. I don’t assume that at all, much less think a US attack is likely to happen, and even much less desire that it happen.
What I wrote was that SINCE the US government believes that sanctions might work (which I don’t: a fact that should make clear to you that I often think differently from the US government about these matters), it strikes me as possible that the US government might also think (which I do not) that a “surgical” bombing campaign might work even better.
I don’t actually think that the Obama administration believes, or could be persuaded, that attacking Iran in any way, “surgical” or otherwise, is a good idea, for many reasons – some of which you and others have presented here. If the Obama administration and the US government cease to be the same thing, which could happen as early as January 20, 2013, I would not be quite so confident of this, but for the time being I am.
As for Israel attacking Iran, I tend still to agree with Uri Avnery, the Israeli writer whose take on that was mentioned here several months ago: Israel is like the guy who shouts “Hold me back so I don’t hurt this guy!” – hoping that his handlers will themselves take the initiative so that the shouter’s objectives are accomplished in a more rational manner. If Israel were to attack Iran, it would do so either without the US’ prior blessing, in which case Israel would be taking a very serious risk (notwithstanding the often-made argument that Israel would thereby force the US to assume responsibility for the fighting), or it would do so with the US’ prior blessing, in which case that fact would soon become clear to all, which in turn would cause the US to understand what it should have figured out before “green lighting” the Israeli attack: If we’re going to get blamed for it anyway, we might as well “man up” and do it ourselves, thus having greater control over the outcome. Indeed, in that latter event, I would expect Israel itself to make this very argument to the US.
In fact, read that again:
“Israel has been brought into the planning process, I’m told, because U.S. officials are frightened by the possibility that the right-wing Netanyahu government might go rogue and try to whack the Iranians on its own.”
Now ask yourself: does this make ANY sense?
Hey, Israel is going to attack Iran, so instead of letting them do it and thus we get blamed, hey, WE’LL do it!
Try to twist your head around that logic.
The answer is this: there IS NO logic. There never was. It’s a LIE. The intent was ALWAYS to attack Iran, the only problem is that Israel might do it BEFORE we want to do it, before we are PREPARED to do it, before we have laid the PUBLIC PROPAGANDA sufficiently to do it, before we have secured ourselves in our domestic political situation to do it.
Whatever the reason, it only emphasizes once again that even if Obama wants to dither about with starting the war because he’s “skeptical” or just scared he’ll be blamed for it like Bush was for Iraq, ISRAEL is calling the shots here. If the US doesn’t attack, Israel will. If Obama doesn’t attack, AIPAC will cost him the Presidency in 2012. That was the message Netanyahu brought him.
Obama is going to attack Iran in his first term, or at the latest in his second term (if he gets one).
Mr. Brill’s problem is one that could be described as an absolute lack of imagination.
He assumes that the US or Israel can drift in to Iran, bomb some stuff and drift out. Iran will do nothing. Or, whatever Iran does, it won’t cost anything…much.
The US can bomb a few bridges and the gasoline embargo will be complete.
Right. One can only shakes one’s head at the total lack of comprehension of what war looks like and what happens in war, especially Fourth Generation War.
Meanwhile, read this Joe Klein article:
An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table
www dot time dot com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2003921,00.html#ixzz0tljb3DXn
Yes, Obama has caved to Netanyahu. The speculation by some is that Netanyahu explictly told Obama in his visit that Israel would attack Iran if the US didn’t. This is explicitly said in the article:
“Israel has been brought into the planning process, I’m told, because U.S. officials are frightened by the possibility that the right-wing Netanyahu government might go rogue and try to whack the Iranians on its own.”
Despite Klein’s attempts to smooth it over, saying that the White House is still “skeptical” about an attack and that military analysts are (correctly) saying that it would be a disaster, there is no doubt that the title is correct – an attack on Iran is in the cards.
Again, the REASON is that Obama’s negotiations ARE GOING TO GO NO WHERE! WHAT HAPPENS THEN?
This is the point the Pollyannas continue to totally ignore. NO ONE has EVER answered my question as to how the US and Israel are going to allow Iran to keep enriching for the next twenty years without doing something about it, while still CREDIBLY keeping the “crisis” atmosphere alive in order to pressure Iran to do…what?
I keep hammering on this point and the Pollyannas keep ignoring it: there has to be a resolution at some point. You can’t keep this going for another twenty years – especially if all the politicians involved have repeatedly staked their political careers on “preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons”. And if that goal were IN ANY WAY TRUE, ALL they would have to do to achieve it is DO NOTHING.
But we KNOW that is not the goal. We KNOW the goal is regime change in Iran. So HOW do you continue to do “regime change” in Iran for the next twenty years?
It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, which is why it enrages me that people are so dense and so full of “cognitive dissonance” that they can’t see the inevitable end to this business is exactly the same as Iraq and Afghanistan. THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER WAR!
James,
“Are there fools in the Obama administration actually calling for dismembering Iran?”
I have no idea. I’m not sure what I wrote that made you think I believed that.
Tzvi,
Wanted to be sure you didn’t overlook this question I posed to you:
“Tzvi, ‘But they admit to bankrolling it, so why is it so important who actually delivers it?’ News to me. Where did you read this, Tzvi?”
I hope you’re not having any trouble tracking down quotations from Iranian officials acknowledging that Iran funds Hezbollah weapons purchases. Or are you arguing that since Iran supports Hezbollah’s and HAMAS’ humanitarian aid programs in Lebanon and Palestine, Iran is effectively financing their purchases of weapons since Iran’s funding frees up other funds that Hezbollah and HAMAS might otherwise have used to feed people.
If I were you, I’d limit myself to that argument, since I’m not optimistic about your search for Iranian government statements that Iran funds weapons purchases by either group. If your argument is indeed so limited, I’ll confess there’s no way to dismiss it. But the very same argument can be made against any government, or any NGO, or any individual, who finances humanitarian aid in a country whose government spends money on weapons. Very rarely does the donor have an effective way of assuring the financial aid is used where it is intended by the donor to be used. And even if every dollar of that aid is used for its intended purpose, the recipient government is very often financially benefitted by off-loading that humanitarian-aid financial burden onto the donor.
Didn’t even the US contribute to the Iran earthquake relief fund a few years back? Might that have freed up some Iranian government funds? If so, I’m wondering whether the Iranian government used those funds to supply weapons to Hezbollah. What do you think?
Eric,
Are there fools in the Obama administration actually calling for dismembering Iran? Or is this just idiocy advocated by WINEP and other organs of the Israeli warmonger crowd? This kind of thing seems to come from the mouths of serious lunatics like John Bolton.
James,
“The US should be supporting the territorial integrity of Iran, as it does that of Iraq and Afghanistan. Changing borders by military means is not in the best interests of the US.”
I agree entirely. I’ve noticed, though, that my views don’t always jibe with those of the US government.
Arnold,
First, let me emphasize that I neither think a US attack would be a good idea NOR do I think one is likely to happen (even though I’ve been known to warn that we need to push back against those who would like to see one).
That said, if the US believes sanctions will work, how much more effective might it be to drop a couple of bombs? A pipeline here, enrichment plant there, whatever. Cheap, easy in, easy out. The US certainly wouldn’t do this just to steal a little oil or to transfer some equipment to Iraq. But if the US happened to be in the neighborhood anyway, I certainly wouldn’t rule out a short visit to the Abadan refinery, a mere 2-minute kayak ride away from neighboring Iraq. I didn’t mean to suggest this, or any other form of occupation, would be a big part of US plans if it attacked Iran. The US’ dismal performance in ground operations undoubtedly is well enough understood by US planners that I can’t imagine that would work its way into US plans yet another time.
Independent Khuzestan never joined the NPT. Maybe it’ll build some nuclear weapons or buy some from Pakistan.
Then vote to rejoin Iran.
Eric:
I agree that the US would not hold Khuzestan for long, or any Iranian territory. So what would the US accomplish with its military? No regime change, no holding territory, just stealing some oil? The US? stealing equipment from Iran?, to give to to Iraq?
It would be much cheaper just to buy the equipment and the oil, even from Iran.
The US would be under fire as it leaves, Iran will claim that it forced off the invaders. It’s nuclear program would continue, it’s popular sponsorship of regional anti-Zionist movements would continue. The US would lose however many lives it loses before leaving for absolutely nothing.
The question I’m looking at is what exactly happens in a US military campaign against Iran? If the US is not going to hold Iranian territory, then what strategic objective can it accomplish?
It seems to me that a military strike cannot accomplish any strategic objective for the United States.
Eric,
The US should be supporting the territorial integrity of Iran, as it does that of Iraq and Afghanistan. Changing borders by military means is not in the best interests of the US.
Tzvi Gross,
The article about Ali Akbar Mahtashamipour, and the issue of whether Iran’s foreign policy should be pragmatic or ideologically driven, proposes that Iran can pressure the US by giving support to Hezbollah and Hamas. I see how Iranian support for Hamas poses problems for Israel, but I do not see such support as putting pressure on the US. In fact, the US would do itself a great favor if it recognized Hezbollah and Hamas.
Castellio,
You write: “I believe Israel wanted to push its northern border to the Litani in Lebanon, and to colonize that land as it has colonized the West Bank. I believe that desire remains on the long term agenda.”
I honestly thought their actions were motivated by their threat perceptions not territorial gain. If you think about it Israel has most stable borders to the North and Lebanon is its most prosperous neighbor (when it is not at civil war). So I thought their past invasions were motivated for security reasons and not for territorial gain. But you could be right! Shimon Peres in an Al Jazeera interview offered to withdraw from the Sheba Farms in exchange for Hezbollah disarmament (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsR4zFAbQFU 3:05 to 4:05, the rest of the interview is garbage).
Arnold,
Actually I don’t think the US would intend to hold Khuzestan for very long. Just pump a few million barrels of oil into friendly tankers, possibly transfer some useful equipment to Iraq (just a few hundred yards away, after all), and call it a day the moment it stopped being worthwhile hanging around. My principal point here is that, however long (or short) the US and/or Iraq occupies Khuzestan, they probably wouldn’t destroy it, even if keeping it there made it a bit more difficult to stop gasoline smuggling.
Humanist,
Thank you for the links. I’ll take a look.
Eric:
1) Afghanistan hosting Al-Qaeda has more salience with US audiences than Iran refusing to suspend its LEU program.
2) The US may well be losing lives at more like an Iraq 2006 rate than anything the US has ever experienced in Afghanistan.
Also about occupying Khuzestan: Let’s say the US separates it (despite the fact that I consider that very unlikely). Who is going to rule it? A US military governor? A US-appointed stooge? Either one will face strong resistance and heavy US losses until it gives way to a somewhat representative leadership.
But that leadership will have plenty of oil money and not a big population. I’d expect it to use its surplus of cash to make investments in Iran, the market its people know best, fund foreign policy initiatives its people support, for example Hamas and Hezbollah and have money left over for defense that likely would include missiles capable of reaching Israel.
Khuzestan political parties, which will be Arab and exist across a range of ideologies are eventually, in at least some cases, also going reach out to other Arab countries, posing an even bigger threat to the US colonial structure than Iran does.
I really cannot see a way for a US occupation of Khuzestan not to end up as a disaster for the US/Israel. Khuzestan is not really going to become independent, but if it does, it is going to be far more Iran-oriented than Iraq is today.
Blasts leave 20 dead in southeast Iran
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=134939§ionid=351020101
perhaps a more realistic perspective vs bombing refineries, bridges, etc..
http://irdiplomacy.ir/index.php?Lang=en&Page=21&TypeId=&ArticleId=8054&BranchId=31&Action=ArticleBodyView
Nasseruddine (Bussed-in Basiji),
You write that Iraq didn’t win because they failed to achieve their political objectives: “First, if war is defined as a continuation of politics than Iraq and its backers did not achieve their goals in the imposed war (I don’t know how old you are and whether you were around at that time). They had a number of goals including, for Saddam occupying Khuzestan and getting hold of its oil reserves and being the hero of Arabs as the “liberator” of “Arabestan”, weakening and destroying the newly formed Islamic republic, preventing the rise of Islamist political ideology and bleeding Iran and Iraq vis-a-vis other regional and global rivals.” In that regard I certainly agree. But if you look at the difference in casualties between Iran and Iraq I hope you can understand why some bitter Iranian might describe it as a loss for Iran.
But you left out the part about Iranian objectives. After Iran regained her territories and pushed the war into Iraq, the Islamic Republic wanted regime change in Baghdad. It failed to do this.
Later, this was done by the Americans. What Iran couldn’t do after 8 years of bloody warfare the Americans did rather easily. So I was puzzled why you would seem so confident of a confrontation with them.
Arnold,
“US troops [would be] dying for this [if the US went to war with Iran]? The US is going to lose its will long before Iran does.”
I presume your own answer to your rhetorical question would be or should be “no,” but I’m not at all sure recent history gives you good reason to believe that. If you change “Iran” to “the Taliban” in your second sentence, would you agree that that sentence would remain just as true? If so, make that change and then take another look at your first-sentence rhetorical question in that light. Change “Iran” in my brackets to “Afghanistan,” and then tell me the answer to your rhetorical question.
Kooshy,
“If the hostilities get to that stage, then why not hit the refineries as they are much easier targets and still produce majority of Iran’s fuel.”
Of course the US could hit Iran’s refineries (just as Iraq knocked out Iran’s Abadan refinery early in the Iran-Iraq war). But you’ll recall that the US didn’t behave that way in the current Iraq war (to some extent, it did during the first Iraq war in 1991), because it knew that (1) fixing what it had broken might end up getting paid for by the US, despite all the early assurances that clean-up would be funded solely out of Iraq’s oil revenues; and (2) regardless of who ended up paying for repairs, it would be preferable for the US to get the asset up and running again ASAP.
I suspect the US would follow the same course if it ever attacked Iran. Bombing the Abadan refinery, for example, would mean that Iranian tank trucks couldn’t fill up there, but it would also mean that Iraqi tank trucks couldn’t fill up there — important if, as I can’t help suspecting, the US might decide to redraw some border-lines in Khuzestan, at least temporarily and possibly permanently.
That’s why the US might prefer just to knock out a few highway bridges on the gasoline-smuggling routes, or, better yet, just threaten to knock out a few highway bridges and hope that’s enough to shut down most or all of the thousand tankers that pass along this road every day.
The United States can damage Iran’s economy. I don’t think anyone questions that. This is the most in-depth discussion I’ve found on the internet about exactly what would happen in a US conflict with Iran. I’d like to encourage everyone who is contributing or who can contribute to do so or continue to do so.
Iran can damage US positions, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once hostilities start, at some point they will stop, whether it is the next day, the next year, ten, twenty or fifty years later.
After hostilities stop, will the US be in a stronger or weaker position in the region? Iran will begin rebuilding, and one of the things it will rebuild will be its nuclear program, if that program ever fully stopped, which is questionable.
Iraq would not recognize any leadership of Khuzestan other than Tehran. If Tehran ever lost control, it will get it back. Holding any Iranian territory means that the US is in the position Israel was when it held southern Lebanon, except that Iran is far more cohesive and far better equipped and prepared to impose costs on the US than Lebanon was on Israel.
I do not think the US can hold Khuzestan for a prolonged period of time, and I think any attempt will be more expensive in terms of US lives than the US is willing to tolerate, especially indefinitely. A US occupation of Khuzestan strikes me as very likely to end in a failure that the US comes to regret.
The point of the original post, that such an attempted occupation would be executed ultimately to ensure Israel’s strategic position, with every step of the escalation advocated by Israel and self-identified supporters of Israel and by nobody else may cause the US to ask how much the US is willing to spend to ensure that about 5 million Jewish people in the area get to keep a majority state.
There will eventually be thousands of dead US soldiers in an attempt to hold Khuzestan, and if the attempt ends up not working, not advancing the US’ regional position, the fact that Netanyahu was such an outspoken advocate of these policies is going to look bad.
But back to what happens in the actual attempted occupation. The US can deny Iran oil revenues and the actual oil from that region for some period. During this period, Iranians will vastly reduce their consumption. Of course, there will be no unemployment since everyone will be in the Army.
I’m pretty sure basic food will continue to be distributed and the US will not be able to cause a wide-scale Iranian famine. If it does, perish the thought, Iran will certainly eventually build nuclear weapons and the US will have a permanent enemy in the Iranian people that will transcend governments and the chance of an eventual nuclear retaliation for such an act is substantial.
As long as food is distributed, Iran kind of cannot lose. There have to be patrols to prevent Iranian infiltrations into occupied territory and the territory has to be supplied. This means there is a steady supply of US targets for Iranian forces to kill as they can. This will continue for as long as the US holds the territory.
And exactly what is the US holding the territory for and losing these troops? Because Iran would not stop its UN supervised enrichment program? US troops are dying for this? The US is going to lose its will long before Iran does.
Rattling the Cage: Why we’re so unpopular
We’ve gone from being a Jewish state to being a Jewish mini-empire. A Jewish hegemon.
We fly spy planes over Lebanon on a daily basis. We blew up the beginnings of a nuclear reactor in Syria. We run the lives of two million Palestinians in the West Bank and take their land piece by piece.
Why? Because might makes right. If anybody tried to blockade our coast and our airspace, if anybody flew spy planes over us, if anybody blew up one of our nuclear installations, if anybody ruled our lives at gunpoint and built foreign settlements on our land, we’d kill whoever we had to kill to stop it.
But the Arabs are weak and we’re strong, so we get away with it.
And we wonder why we’re not so popular in the world?
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=181444
“Kurdistan is a land locked state, who’s best and most needed friend can’t be anyone else except Iran, Kurds know this since the Ottoman era and Iranians know it as well, since they are of the same culture and race is easier for Kurds to trust Iran than any other neighbor.” – Well said, I don’t get why some Iranians seem to espouse so much hostility towards the Iraqi Kurds. Iran should wholeheartedly support the Kurds and the Armenians.
Gilad Atzmon in his speech at the ‘Debunking the war on Terror’ Symposium in London (UK) on July 14, 2010, said: “The Israelis realized a long time ago that it’s far cheaper to buy the entire Western political system than buy a single tank. Consequently, British and american soldiers are dying in growing numbers fighting Zionist wars“…..
http://rehmat2.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/afghanistan-senate-gets-cold-feet/
War with Iran?
Anyone here has seen Dr Strangelove?
Years ago I did an amateurish research on how our brains work. I found out two grupos, 1) those who carry out sermons in religious centers and 2) Warmongering leaders and Military men (Generals) fit best to description of Dr Strangelove.
However I didn’t find the topic funny…for many disturbing reasons…Kafka was constantly popping to my mind.
“Kurds have been smuggling all kinds of things across the Iran-Iraq border for the past 60 years using single cyclinder motor-cycles. Mountains be damned.”
Traditionally Iraq’s Kurdistan does not have too many options for import anything other than using Iranian ports; I have personally seen this, majority of supplies, food, fuel, etc. for Kurdistan transits thorough Iran. Iraq only has one commercial port, Kurdistan is a land lucked state, who’s best and most needed friend can’t be anyone else except Iran, Kurds know this since the Ottoman era and Iranians know it as well, since they are of the same culture and race is easier for Kurds to trust Iran than any other neighbor.
In actuality I have seen that the fuel trucks coming back empty from Kurdistan and is the other way around, unless the American allies are air lifting fuel to Kurdistan. They get checked at the border for luxury goods smuggled from Iraqi Kurdistan. NYT doesn’t have one straight bone in its body it is waste of time reading it.
Eric (re: arms shipment)
I used Google Search, I found an article that might interest you www dot papillonsartpalace.com/arafat.htm It contains many details of the story I told you. If you want to research further you can start with www dot polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/research/working-papers/wp16cjones.pdf
Are you arguing that, if one assumes most Iranians would prefer that Israel cease to exist (by natural causes), the Iranian government should refuse to back the two-state solution?
Is this a serious question? If most Iranians would prefer Iran’s government not back the two-state solution, then Iran’s government should not back the two state solution.
What’s the question here?
If most Iranians shouldn’t determine Iran’s policies, then who should? You?
Eric
“I just recognized from your comment that you may be misunderstanding my point. It isn’t necessary for US planes to “look for gasoline trucks.” It’s just necessary to knock out a few river-gorge bridges so that no gasoline trucks can use the road.”
If the hostilities get to that stage, then why not hit the refineries as they are much easier targets and still produce majority of Iran’s fuel. The point is not that US is incapable of knocking down Iran’s fuel infrastructure on the contrary the focus should be what consequences US is willing to bear, considering the current US’s global economic and political standing I bet not much, otherwise we already had a military attack by non other then clinched teeth Cheney.
Tzvi,
“But they admit to bankrolling it, so why is it so important who actually delivers it?”
News to me. Where did you read this, Tzvi?
If you have a liter of gasoline cheaper than a liter of water you are obviously going to get artificially high demand. Iran wouldn’t need to import any gasoline or natural gas if it simply removed the subsidies and allowed prices to rise to market levels. I realize this would be enormously unpopular but the government could have used the sanctions as political cover to do so.
Eric,
But they admit to bankrolling it, so why is it so important who actually delivers it? They also admit to cynical “cost-benefit” rather then some kind of altruistic “holy liberation” motivation as primary, in contrast to some claims made here.
Eric A. Brill:
Kurds have been smugglin all kinds of things across the Iran-Iraq border for the past 60 years using single cyclinder motor-cycles. Mountains be damned.
Tzvi,
I understand that Iran supports Hezbollah. It’s acknowledged that hundreds of times, quite openly. But it denies supplying weapons. That’s my point.
Eric,
http://www.payvand.com/news/10/jul/1102.html
Read the entire article, quoting among others the head of the Iranian armed forces admitting the high financial and Political cost of their Hezbollah and Pal support.
What do you think?
FYI,
“To smuggle gasoline all you need is a fleet of motor cycle or light trucks.”
Motorcycles and light trucks can’t carry much gasoline and, much like tankers, have a hard time moving along mountain roads when a river-gorge bridge has been blown up.
I’d move on to other battles if I were you.
FYI,
“Regretably, I forgot to ask you if you know the number of fighter bombers that US has and which could be brought to bear from Iran’s Eastern borders to Iran’s Western borders to look for gasoline trucks.”
I just recognized from your comment that you may be misunderstanding my point. It isn’t necessary for US planes to “look for gasoline trucks.” It’s just necessary to knock out a few river-gorge bridges so that no gasoline trucks can use the road. If you read the NYT article I mentioned, you’ll understand that “more than a thousand tankers” pass along this road every day. One bombed bridge means one thousand fewer tankers – today, tomorrow and the next day.
A US attack on Iran would almost certainly result in Iran doing many things to harm the US and its allies. This important point is not changed at all by my simple observation – uncontroversial, I’d imagined – that the US would have little difficulty disrupting, if not entirely stopping, the large-scale smuggling of gasoline from Iraq to Iran.
Eric A. Brill:
To smuggle gasoline all you need is a fleet of motor cycle or light trucks.
I wonder if US has the requisite forces in the theatre – almost certianly they need to be gathered from the 4 corners of the Earth.
FYI, James and Richard,
Here’s a link to the NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/world/middleeast/09kurds.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=smuggling&st=cse
If you check out this place on Google Earth, use this spelling: “Panjwin”.
FYI,
“Regretably, I forgot to ask you if you know the number of fighter bombers that US has and which could be brought to bear from Iran’s Eastern borders to Iran’s Western borders to look for gasoline trucks.”
I don’t know the number, but I’m confident the answer is “more than enough.” We’re not using a lot of fighter-bombers in Iraq these days. I have no idea how many are being used in Afghanistan, but I’m entirely confident a few squadrons can be spared for as long (not very) as it takes to knock out a few dozen river-gorge bridges along the Iraq-Iran border mountain roads, and to check every now and then to be sure those bridges haven’t been rebuilt.
Smuggling gasoline is not like smuggling diamonds, or drugs, or even weapons. Gasoline is very bulky, and wet. I suggest you look back at that NYT smuggling article from a few days ago, which describes, and shows photos of, long convoys of gasoline-filled trucks moving across the Iraq-Iran border. There are a lot of gas-hungry cars in Iran.
FYI,
“You miss my point. A war will not be confined to air.”
It would require ground troops to subdue Iran entirely, which I gather is your point. That was the US’ objective in Iraq. It might not be the US’ objective in Iran. In fact, I seriously doubt it would be.
“You could, in principle, disrupt gasoline supplies. But you will be harmed elsewhere.”
Of course – just as I’ve said. (Minor point: the disruption of gasoline supplies would be more than just “in principle.”)
Eric A. Brill:
Regretably, I forgot to ask you if you know the number of fighter bombers that US has and which could be brought to bear from Iran’s Eastern borders to Iran’s Western borders to look for gasoline trucks.
Eric A. Brill:
You miss my point.
A war will not be confined to air.
You could, in principle, disrupt gasoline supplies.
But you will be harmed elsewhere.
War is not an isolated abstraction.
FYI,
You wrote:
“US could not stop cross-border traffic in Vietnam. She will not be able to so with a country having land and maritime borders with 15 countries.”
I’m pretty familiar with stories of smuggling along the Ho Chi Minh trail, where vast amounts of supplies were carried on the backs or bicycles of peasants. Not a lot of gasoline, however.
I’m also pretty familiar with arguments about the limits of air power, and tend to think even many of those arguments don’t go far enough. But when it comes to blowing up bridges over rivers on mountain roads, just enough to prevent large gasoline-filled trucks from passing along those roads, air power works just fine. A few trucks might well get through, but not many.
You wrote:
“The land route, from Kuwait to Baghdad, that is currently used to resupply US troop is 13-hours long; at a minimum. US cannot guard that supply line with the 50,000 that are supposed to be there at end of August at, to wage war against Iran at the same time.”
You’re making my point here, not yours. If this key US supply route can be disrupted this easily, without the insurgents even using any air power, how many insurgent gasoline trucks do you suppose could make it from Kuwait to Baghad if this road were instead being used by insurgents and were patrolled by US fighter-bombers?
James,
I would hope you understand my views well enough by now not to conclude that I favor a US attack on Iran. Quite the opposite. I was merely pointing out that it would be an easy matter for the US to stop (or very nearly stop) all cross-border gasoline smuggling.
James,
“Given that the Lebanese PM says Hezbollah is an essential part of his country’s defence against another Israeli attack, Lebanon may prefer that Hezbollah be adequately armed.”
You’re undoubtedly correct, and the Iranian government almost certainly feels the same way. So do you, I suspect. But that doesn’t make you guilty of arms smuggling.
If I were the Iranian government and knew that others – aka “smugglers” – were very ready, very willing and very able to bring about some result I desired without requiring any help whatsoever from me, and I preferred that my fingerprints not be left on the operation, I would leave the dirty work entirely to those other guys. If profit-hungry smugglers did not rise to the occasion, I might consider getting directly involved, but that hardly seems necessary in view of the large profit presumably to be made by smuggling weapons to Hezbollah.
As I wrote earlier, some might consider it sufficient evidence of Iranian government involvement that the smugglers managed to get past Iranian customs officials (though the Francop smugglers’ felt need to camouflage the weapons inside the containers suggests that those Iranian customs officials might not have been “in” on the operation after all). Even if Iranian customs officials were bribed, however, do you believe this establishes Iranian government participation? If so, should it not also be considered sufficient evidence when we assign blame for the cross-border Mexico-to-US drug trade, or for the large spike in opium-based drug exports from Afghanistan since the US government took over from the Taliban in 2001? Are you willing to generalize your speculation to include US customs officials or border guards along the US-Mexican border – especially if, for example, we find drugs being smuggled in US-made trucks, or packed in cardboard boxes that were manufactured in the US?
Whether or not you would be willing to “slap the cuffs” on the US government based solely on speculation that its border officials were acting under orders from superiors, rather than quietly trying to line their own pockets with some bribe money from smugglers, I’m willing to bet that the US government would disagree vehemently with you. So would the Mexican government, which would (as it often does) blame the problem on the insatiable demand of Americans for illegal drugs and the impossibility of preventing cross-border movement of drugs. And the US government predictably would respond (as it often does) by saying: “It’s possible for the Mexican government to stop drug traffic, but not possible for us.”
And most observers would (as they often do) acknowledge that the porosity of the US-Mexican border was not evidence that either government was participating in the drug trade.
Why should it be different for Iran?
Eric,
I think you are alarmingly cavalier about the efficacy of a US attack on Iran. Gen. Egon Ramms (commander-in-chief, Allied Joint Force Command in The Netherlands), says Iranian help is essential if stability is to be achieved in Afghanistan. An idiotic US attack on Iran would be one of the greatest acts of stupidity by an American administration, in the history of the Republic.
Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford (Yorkshire, UK) has an excellent warning of dangers arising from insane Israeli attack on Iran:”Israel vs. Iran” in opendemocracy.net today.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/israel-vs-iran-fallout-of-war
Eric A. Brill:
US could not stop cross-border traffic in Vietnam.
She will not be able to so with a country having land and maritime borders with 15 countries.
The land route, from Kuwait to Baghdad, that is currently used to resully US troop is 13-hours long; at a minimum.
US cannot guard that supply line with the 50,000 that are supposed to be there at end of August at, to wage war against Iran at the same time.
Like all proponents of air power you are over-estimating its efficacy.
Richard,
“[In the case of a US attack on Iran], hundreds of tanker trucks go from Iraq to Iran via smuggling routes already. … The US will have to move troops to the Iran-Iraq border and close the crossings themselves.”
I certainly don’t favor war with Iran, but you’re mistaken that it would be difficult for the US military to stop cross-border smuggling of gasoline. No US ground troops would need to be anywhere within a thousand miles.
See for yourself: open Google Earth, and locate “Panjwin, Iraq,” the dateline for the recent NYT story on Iraq-to-Iran gasoline smuggling. Look about 2.5 miles east and you’ll see where all those gasoline trucks cross into Iran. (You’ll also see a much longer line of trucks heading the other way – from Iran into Iraq – but I suppose that’s another story.)
How many US bomber sorties do you suppose it would take to close that road by taking out a couple of bridges on each side of the border — and to make sure the road stays closed by bombing any work crew that shows up to rebuild one of the bridges? Might the answer even be “zero sorties,” since it would suffice to send a friendly email to border-station officials, threatening to wipe out their source of income (and perhaps even the building where they work, with them in it) with a few well-placed bombs if even one east-bound gasoline truck is spotted on that road in Iran within 150 miles of the border? If the US becomes worried about night-time no-headlights smuggling, it might consider a little “preventive maintenance” — such as by bombing a couple of river-gorge bridges on each side of the border.
Then let your eye wander up and down the border between Iran and Iraq. There are other roads large enough to carry gasoline trucks. But not all that many. Maybe some daring cash-strapped truckers would ignore the email, undaunted by the prospect of dying in a large fireball if their gasoline-filled trucks happened to be spotted by a US fighter-bomber on patrol. But not many.
It’s pointless and dangerous to suggest that Iran will somehow hang in there in a war with the US. Certainly Iran could cause trouble for the US, and the prospect of such trouble should make the US think very long and very hard about attacking Iran. But the difficulty of putting an abrupt end to the Iraq-Iran gasoline-smuggling will not be high on the US’ worry list. The US military may have a poor record when it comes to ground-troop operations, but it usually does just fine when the recipe calls for dropping large bombs from several miles up in the sky.
Simeon Kerr and Roula Khalaf of the Financial Times had a lengthy report in the FT yesterday (July 14th) on the sanctions as they are applied in Dubai: “Closing the back door”.
One of many interesting facts in the story:
“Ironically, observers in the UAE say many Iranian businesses in Dubai are close to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president and main supporter of the reformist opposition…”
Arnold,
Turkey is an “anti-Zionist” regional power of the first rank. By “anti-Zionist” I mean it is the object of Turkish foreign policy to achieve or help achieve an end to the occupation of the Golan Heights and the West Bank. And an end to the blockade of Gaza.
Arnold,
Are you arguing that, if one assumes most Iranians would prefer that Israel cease to exist (by natural causes), the Iranian government should refuse to back the two-state solution?
Would you prefer that Israel cease to exist? I’m not referring to a military attack, but simply to the workings of demographics (assuming failure to end the occupation of the West Bank)?
Eric,
Given that the Lebanese PM says Hezbollah is an essential part of his country’s defence against another Israeli attack, Lebanon may prefer that Hezbollah be adequately armed.
http://www.mehrnews.com/fa/newsdetail.aspx?NewsID=1117019
http://www.mehrnews.com/fa/newsdetail.aspx?NewsID=1117017
http://www.farsnews.net/plarg.php?nn=M635994.jpg
Richard,
I should correct part of what I just wrote:
“If the Toronto police find a well-hidden crate of methamphetamines in a truck that can be traced back to a meth lab in New York, it’s a fair guess (though not evidence) that some Americans were involved…”
Not so: that WOULD be evidence – though my main point doesn’t change: it would not be evidence that the American government was involved. One could argue it is evidence of a government’s involvement in the drug trade (or the arms trade) every time some illicit shipment slips through border officials, but that alone is rarely considered to be sufficient. Good thing: if it were, the US government might be held responsible for the booming Mexico-to-US drug trade, or the virtual explosion in heroin production in Afghanistan since the US took over from the Taliban in 2001.
Richard,
“I don’t know why you’re harping on this issue.”
The Iranian government disclaims any involvement in this arms shipment to Syria. The Israeli government has persuaded much of the world that that is not true. Many observers of the world situation, I included, consider it important to determine whether the Iranian government is helping to supply weapons to Hezbollah. I wondered what evidence supported the Israeli government’s claim. I looked, and found none. You speculate that it’s “Iranians of SOME sort,” which strikes me as plausible if you mean only that private Iranian smugglers were probably behind the shipment, but quite a stretch if you also offer your speculation as evidence that the Iranian government was behind the shipment.
If the Toronto police find a well-hidden crate of methamphetamines in a truck that can be traced back to a meth lab in New York, it’s a fair guess (though not evidence) that some Americans were involved, but that would be a pretty shaky basis for concluding that the American government had participated in the operation.
Richard,
You wrote:
“Mr. Brill: I see once again you’re ignoring the main question: if SOMEBODY in Iran wasn’t involved, then WHO WAS? … The Iranians have the most to gain from shipping weapons to Hizballah. Ergo, they did.”
By “they,” do you mean the Iranian government? Or Iranian smugglers?
FYI (and Richard Hack):
FYI wrote (with which Richard disagreed):
“Almost certainly the closing of the Straits of Hormuz is a red herring. There are easier ways of harming the world economy.”
I agree with FYI. The Straits would close all by themselves for a while, since no commercial vessels would risk passing through them. Oil prices would spike, but Iran wouldn’t benefit, since it’s largest (by far) refinery, Abadan, would have no way of getting its oil to international markets. Only when the Straits re-opened would Iran be able to resume oil shipments from Abadan — and only if it hadn’t been responsible for closing the Straits since, if it had, the US would insist that it be punished for a good long while by being denied passage through the Gulf.
If one thinks through the likely war scenarios from, say, Step 1 to Step 10, the foolishness of closing the Straits appears somewhere around Step 3.
Mr. Brill: I see once again you’re ignoring the main question: if SOMEBODY in Iran wasn’t involved, then WHO WAS?
It’s that simple. Occam’s Razor. The Iranians have the most to gain from shipping weapons to Hizballah. Ergo, they did. If it was anyone else, pray explain how they were able to do all this right in Iranian ports on Iranian ships using Iranian products without detection by the Iranian customs or Iranian intelligence. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
I don’t know why you’re harping on this issue, other than your weak argument that somehow accepting that Iran is shipping weapons to Hizballah is somehow going to make anything different in terms of who blames Iran for what. Iran is already blamed for everything. Get over it. Nobody is going to be convinced by your notion that somebody else, anybody else, is shipping weapons to Hizballah other than the most obvious source.
Nobody but Shia Iran is supporting Shia Hizballah. It’s that simple.
Rehmat: The amusing thing is that even a US naval blockade of ships going to Iran won’t stop Iran from importing petroleum products, since hundreds of tanker trucks go from Iraq to Iran via smuggling routes already. And you know Iraq isn’t going to comply with any US demand to halt that. The US will have to move troops to the Iran-Iraq border and close the crossings themselves. Which in turn will put them within range of Iranian guns should further hostilities break out.
So the petroleum blockade definitely isn’t going to work.
Richard,
YOU WROTE:
“Mr. Brill: Everything you cited [is evidence of Iranian-government involvement in the Francop incident]: the use of Iranian vessel, Iranian containers, Iranian packing materials, etc. There is, however, as you correctly cite, no evidence of the Iranian government [involvement] – which as I said is exactly how it would be done.”
I’m bewildered. You cite three pieces of “evidence,” promptly acknowledge that none of them is evidence of Iranian-government involvement, but then find alternate “evidence” in your speculation that, if the Iranian government were involved, it would make sure the operation looked like it had been carried out by bumbling smugglers so that nobody would suspect the Iranian government and, since that’s how the operation was carried out, the Iranian government must have been involved.
That’s your “evidence?”
“Again, I find it hard to credit that somebody other than Iranians of SOME sort were involved given the amount of Iranian products involved in the entire episode.”
Aren’t you answering a different question?
FYI: I believe that has been discussed here before. I believe the Iranians will attempt it if the attack on them is serious (i.e., not merely “symbolic” – a few hits on one of their nuclear facilities just to show the US is serious.) They have nothing serious to lose by trying as it will aggravate the oil price spike which will occur in any event. Economic warfare is one of their main weapons and closing the Straits – or at least impeding Straits traffic – is part of that.
There is also a military advantage IF they can pull it off, keeping the US naval forces further out in the Gulf. They have the gunboats, they might as well try. If their swarm tactics manage to pull off some major damage to even one US Navy ship, it will be valuable for PR to their own people, if nothing else. If they can do anything even close to what Van Riper did in the 2002 war games, it will be the worst US Navy disaster since Pearl Harbor. That would be a major coup. I don’t expect that result, but it will be interesting to see how close they come.
“There is a dangerous logic to US attempts to choke off gasoline supplies to Iran. As several articles in the US press have pointed out, even if major foreign corporations pull out of the gasoline trade with Iran, Tehran will still have access to refined petroleum products – at a price – through various black markets operating in the Persian Gulf. If financial penalties fail to stop gasoline supplies and bring the Iranian economy to its knees (as it’s not going to happen), a clamor (by the Jewish lobby groups) in the US for a military blockade is certain to intensify,” wrote Peter Symonds, member of WSWS international editorial board.
http://rehmat2.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/obama-declares-war-on-iran-for-israel/
Richard Steven Hack:
Almost certainly the closing of the Straits of Hormuz is a red herring.
There are easier ways of harming the world economy.
Nasser says:
“-I must have misunderstood you. I didn’t notice you mention Khuzestan before. I thought you were suggesting Iran take advantage of its vast size to resist occupation.”
I was – as in strategic depth, not that the US would occupy it. Iran could use the size of the country as a strategic benefit, precisely because the US could not possibly occupy it all.
“BUT, you concede that the occupation of All of Iran is such an impossible task that the invader would not even attempt this! So, there is NO prospect of guerilla warfare on a vast scale at all.”
Depends on what one means by “vast scale”! Doesn’t necessarily mean territory. For instance, Iran can probably summon a million or more insurgents from the ranks of the Basij. I’d call THAT a “vast scale” of guerrilla war compared to Iraq or Afghanistan, where the US was up against barely 20,000 or so guerrillas. Besides which, I didn’t say anything about “vast scale” – I simply said Iran would use guerrilla war extensively. This isn’t rocket science – every military commentator has mentioned that it would be an obvious Iranian tactic against vastly superior US military forces.
“I’d think that that piece of land (as opposed to ALL of Iran) would be easier to occupy than Iraq or Afghanistan. So, unless the invader tries to breach the Zagros into Iran’s main population centers, there is nothing for Iran TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF as compared to Iraq or Afghanistan when conducting fourth generation warfare.”
Again, if you’re thinking strictly in terms of terrain, perhaps. Nonetheless the reality is that if the US attempted to make some sort of “Fortress Khuzestan” and attempt to hold the oil fields…Well, just let’s say I’d hate to be a GI in that situation. Plus that oil would go no where, just as the 600 miles of Iraq oil pipeline was continually sabotaged during the early years of the insurgency. Plus the endless attacks on US supply lines – including those from Kuwait via southern Iraq, where the Iraqi Shia and IRGC infiltrators would be harassing those lines. William Lind doesn’t hold much hope for that process.
Keep in mind that the efficiency of Iran’s efforts to close the Straits of Hormuz will depend on their maintaining control of their coastline. To prevent this, the US will have to conduct regular air strikes and coastal patrols and probably have to land Marines on Iranian islands and coastal facilities in order to interdict Iranian Navy and IRGC naval forces. This implies US forces on Iranian soil – which in turn will be subject to Iranian attacks.
The same applies to ANY attempt by US forces to cross into Iranian territory from Iraq.
There’s simply no way you can conduct an effective war against Iran without booting US boots on SOME Iranian ground at SOME point for SOME time. And depending on how the Iranian retaliation goes, this could easily escalate to putting a LOT of US boots on a LOT of Iranian ground – and then we’re off to the guerrilla war races. You simply cannot win any war from the air – this has been proven over and over again ever since Vietnam. It is a known military dictum, whatever the US Air Force wants to believe. If the US attacks Iran, at some point the US will have to move ground forces against Iran somewhere for X amount of time, assuming that Iran retaliates in the immediate region (i.e., the Gulf, Iraq, missiles against nearby US installations, etc.)
“-You also suggest that the US wants to overthrow the regime through an invasion. You however recognize that the US is not willing to occupy Iran. But, you cannot overthrow the government unless you occupy All of the country. So you must concede that regime overthrow is not something they would realistically hope to achieve with the invasion.”
No – they could attempt to kill all the leaders, then try to import some bozo like they did Chalabi in Iraq. It would fail, but doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try. You might end up with a puppet “government” somewhere in the occupied area and the REAL Iranian government hidden in the mountains. Basically like Afghanistan is now – a puppet in Kabul and the real power in the north and in the hidden Taliban who really control most of the rest of the non-north.
“-I hope I have proved that the prospect of an occupation is not a serious one.”
Not even close. The real problem is what the US will do if Iran manages to retaliate SERIOUSLY in the region, especially in Iraq where at least 50,000 vulnerable US troops will probably remain indefinitely after Obama’s so-called “withdrawal”. The fact is that if Iran manages to put up a serious asymmetric fight which shows no signs of winding down, and once it is proven that air strikes are quite insufficient to quell this resistance (which they will be, as was proven in Serbia, Iraq and indeed in Vietnam), then the US will either have to back off or invade in order to try to bring Iran to heel.
In other words, no one can be sure what happens if the war ESCALATES, as it is quite likely to do once the Iranians get their act together.
“And a US attack would probably be limited to air strikes and perhaps sanctions to soften the country for later (like Iraq).”
Again, the problem is: what happens AFTER Iran RETALIATES? “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
“I showed you the youtube clip to point out that Iran would not have any real defense against such an attack. If there is an attack only limited to air strikes, the US would suffer few losses (like in the first Gulf War) while catastrophic suffering would be imposed on the Iranians. I don’t find the prospect of this to be very appealing for the Iranians.”
Absolutely true – but also irrelevant.
“-You cite the example of Hezbollah as a model for Iran. But you have to remember that Israel lies next to Lebanon and so it was possible for Hezbollah to cause damage and disrupt the economic life of Northern Israel.”
The damage Hizballah caused was fairly minimal. The real problem for Israel in that war was the fact that Hizballah inflicted nearly as many casualties on Israeli troops as was inflicted on Hizballah, despite a ten to one numerical superiority on the part of Israel. In other words, Israel got its head handed to it. The fact that the war was going badly and probably would go even more badly if Israel had seriously tried to penetrate into the Bekaa Valley was what made Israel back up and try to save face. That and the fact that Israel was unable to stop the rockets AT ALL.
Now, in Iran’s case, there are two possibilities. One if that Hizballah would launch attacks on Israel. Now, Hizballah is not Iran’s lap dog. Nasrallah may or may not attack Israel if Iran is attacked by the US. But if he does, Israel will be in the same situation they were in 2006.
Second possibility is Iran will launch rockets against Israel just as Saddam did in 1991. However, the real problem for Israel will be if Iran targets Israeli assets elsewhere in the world. The same problem will exist for the US. If Iran wants, it could send a hundred men into the United States proper with a load of AK’s, pistols, Semtex, and grenade launchers and bring major cities like New York to its knees in a matter of months. I know a great deal about how terrorism COULD be conducted in this country, and it is not pretty. The US has been very lucky so far that no real professionals have attempted to conduct all out terrorism here.
“Israel has no desire to reoccupy Lebanon; it just wants to crush Hezbollah to ensure its security.”
First, Israel may not want to OCCUPY Lebanon. But it definitely wants to DOMINATE Lebanon, as well as control access to the Litani River water and related resources.
Second, it’s not going to “crush” Hizballah no matter what it does (again, short of nuking the entire area, which is not feasible.) It may damage Hizballah’s ability to launch rockets temporarily, it may reduce Hizballah’s numbers temporarily, but the Lebanese Shia are not going anywhere, and the more damage Israel does to the Shia in Lebanon (and the collateral damage to others), the more recruits Hizballah is going to get in the future.
“Israel did to Lebanon (& Gaza) what the US is likely to do to Iran; impose catastrophic suffering as punishment and dissuade them from launching any further adventures.”
How’d that work out for Israel? Hizballah is now more powerful than ever before militarily, it has more influence than ever before in Lebanon, it has more members, and more support in the region, and Nasrallah is a hero for having handed Israel its head. Meanwhile, both sides continue to heat up the rhetoric, and while a lot of people think there won’t be another war soon, personally I suspect one could start at any time.
“I hope you have noticed that Hezbollah hasn’t violated the cease fire agreement because of this and Israel is enjoying the kind of quiet to its North that it hasn’t had since the 60s.”
Then you haven’t been paying attention to the reports. Hizballah and UNIFIL have been clashing regularly. Israel has been threatening and hawking its “revised strategy” for the “next war” regularly, as has Hizballah. If you think the Lebanon situation is over with, good luck with that.
“So the 2006 war might have been embarrassing for Israel but I’d hardly call it a loss or failure.”
It was a major failure, acknowledged by the Israeli military itself, and by numerous military observers.
“-You also seem to glorify guerilla warfare when you rave about its effectiveness. Take the casualties in the Vietnam War for example. I say you cannot compare 4-6 million dead Vietnamese with about 60,000 dead Americans.”
Who won? Do I REALLY have to quote that North Vietnamese officer to you?
“only the cruelest of person would describe it as a victory for the SE Asians.”
And the Vietnamese economy today is doing fine compared to those days. The US military took thirty years to recover its balls and still hasn’t learned anything as Iraq proved and Afghanistan is proving yet again.
“-I hope you can understand why such a scenario would be very unappealing to the Iranians. Having already lost a generation of men not too long ago, such an outcome would hardly be described as “victory” in Iran.”
Who said they would enjoy it? I said it would be the result. When the US economy evaporates as a result of a war with Iran, tell me it was a victory for the US.
“-Regarding Iraq and Afghanistan: Yes it is true that those occupations have been costly for the Americans. But that cost is miniscule compared to the cost imposed on the people of those countries. And let us not forget that the US is still in those countries.”
Are you really this obtuse? The monetary cost alone for the US is $300 billion so far for Afghanistan, a trillion for Iraq (some estimate three trillion before ALL the costs are tabulated). The cost of a war with Iran would probably be in the neighborhood of at least two, probably four, and possibly ten times that. The number of US soldiers injured is at least half a million for Iraq and Afghanistan so far (not dead, injured, crippled, PTSD, etc.)
“So the people there would hardly describe their efforts as victory.”
Iraq is slowly kicking out the US. Iran is Iraq’s major trading partner, heading for $10 billion a year in trade. The Pashtuns will eventually drive out the US as they have driven out everyone else. NO aspect of the goals of the US neocons were achieved in Iraq, or will be achieved in Afghanistan. Even Al Qaeda, reduced to 100 individuals in Afghanistan tops, 300 including Pakistan – and they were never much more than that anyway, in terms of the hardcore members – are still functional, if minimally. The Taliban will be back, to some degree at least – or Afghanistan will be another civil war zone for another decade, spawning more “blowback”.
To you, this is all “acceptable” to do…what? To achieve what?
“-So you see guerilla warfare, even one that results in “victory” (read: destruction of the country) should be very unappealing to Iranians and so I was surprised that some would seem eager for a fight.”
There are always people eager for a fight. Look at the morons in the US Marines, for example. I have no doubt that there are people in the IRGC who believe they can inflict the same sort of damage on the US that the Vietnamese, the Iraqis and the Afghans are inflicting, and they look forward to it.
“I don’t think the US is keen to start a war and probably won’t do so without a major provocation because there are a lot of unknowns and a lot of risks associated with such an attack.”
Which is about the only reason, aside from the bog downs in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the US hasn’t attacked Iran. The Pentagon is known to have pushed back against Dick Cheney’s intentions during the Bush administration. Nonetheless, I find it hard to believe Obama is so stupid that he can’t see the inevitable end of his policies toward Iran, and so stupid that he can’t comprehend that there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program. Therefore, one must conclude that he does in fact know these things, but that he is following the same policies as the Bush administration and presumably for the exact same reasons.
“-Iran’s most potent and well publicized counter to such an attack is to try and disrupt energy supplies including attempts to block the Straits of Hormuz. I don’t think the US and the Europeans would risk a major disruption in energy supplies at this critical juncture of their economic recovery. This is Iran’s primary deterrent. THIS is what would bleed the Americans”
That is correct. I don’t think this will stop the war but the oil spike will definitely damage the Western economies severely.
“not some guerilla warfare which are like in the words of Ahmedinejad: “annoying like flies.”
The COST of the guerrilla war will bleed the US – economically, militarily, and geopolitically. I didn’t say that Iran’s military actions would physically DEFEAT the US. Again, like the US officer told the North Vietnamese officer, the US will never lose a battle against Iran – but the US won’t win the war, either. The whole point of guerrilla war, and why it is the most efficient means of war, is to damage the enemy disproportionately at less cost to oneself. That should be obvious.
“-Similarly the Israelis have good reason to fear that an attack on Iranian nuclear sites might draw retaliation on Dimona.”
Agreed – but I’m not sure Israel is that concerned about the accuracy of Iranian missiles or their capacity to destroy Dimona.
“-There are also other reasons to hold off on an attack on Iran. The Americans and the Israelis aren’t sure of the quality of their intelligence. There is no way intelligence sources can be sure that they know of all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. ”
That’s irrelevant, because both the Israelis and the US know that a minimal attack on the Iranian facilities won’t stop the Iranian nuclear program for more than a few years, short of an all out attack to essentially destroy the Iranian industrial infrastructure (which, by the way, Pat Lang suggested recently would probably have to be done). The US has already reportedly drawn up target lists of up to 10,000 or more targets in Iran.
The whole point of an attack on Iran by Israel is to get Iran destroyed by the US. That means Israel expects Iran to retaliate, the US to escalate, and Iran to be severely damaged. Otherwise, why would Israel even both complaining about the situation if there was nothing to be done about the nuclear facilities in the long run? Simple – because that’s not the point. The point is to goad the US into destroying Iran for decades.
“-Also, it is not known what the Iranians’ true nuclear capabilities are. There is very good reason to assume that the Iranians have been mostly forthcoming about their program. But, it is possible however that their covert capabilities remain unknown and would surface in the event of an attack. This creates an unknown and potential risk as to why military planners would want to avoid any adventurism and hold off on any attacks.”
Again, unlikely. If Iran had nuclear weapons, they would say so, or intimate as Israel has done in their transparent “opacity”. Iran has no covert nuclear program that would be of any use to them in any short term attack, and both Israel and the US know that.
“-I am sorry for getting into hypothetical doomsday scenarios about nuclear attacks but I was just pointing out that when Iran suffered from chemical attacks (something you describe as ineffective but hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Iraqi Kurds died) the international community remained mum.”
You’re overestimating the casualties from chemical weapons. Even counting the attack on the Kurds, the only figure I can find for casualties from chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war is 10,000, although presumably the figure was actually much higher since Iraq used chemical weapons frequently. “Hundreds of thousands” however is just not accurate.
“I was simply pointing out that there is a deep sense in Iran, (particularly in this current generation of rulers that went through the war) that the international community cannot be counted on. That experience also makes the Khamenei regime extremely risk averse in international affairs and they are thus likely not to make any serious provocations.”
I agree with that. But it’s not relevant to my points, which is that any provocations that occur are likely to come from either the Israeli or US side, OR an over-reaction by the Israelis or US to a minor provocation by Iran, such as the gunboat buzzing done in the Gulf. And of course Iran isn’t going to provoke the US to attack it. While some IRGC might welcome a war with the US, I’m quite sure the leadership does not.
Nasser-jan,
Your analyses are interesting however you make some incorrect assumptions. First, if war is defined as a continuation of politics than Iraq and its backers did not achieve their goals in the imposed war (I don’t know how old you are and whether you were around at that time). They had a number of goals including, for Saddam occupying Khuzestan and getting hold of its oil reserves and being the hero of Arabs as the “liberator” of “Arabestan”, weakening and destroying the newly formed Islamic republic, preventing the rise of Islamist political ideology and bleeding Iran and Iraq vis-a-vis other regional and global rivals.
In terms of bleeding Iran and Iraq there is no doubt that many people were killed (I’m sure you have relatives and friends who died in the war as most Iranians do) and that resources were spent on defense, not on other things. However when a country is attacked it has to defend itself- and that’s what we did. Following the war we returned to what diplomats call status quo ante. Saddam was not able to occupy Khuzestan and was recognized as the aggressor by the UN (for what it’s worth), the Islamic republic was not toppled, Islamist political ideology has swept the region.
In fact the war (and sanctions) forced Iranians to build there own indigenous institutions and capabilities- security, military, economic, political, educational and cultural. Of course they are not all perfect, some of them are good and some need improvement. And if they are destroyed again we will rebuild them again and sacrifice whatever we have to keep our religious identity and national independence. As during the imposed war some will stay and fight, some will be scared and flee to the west and some will be traitors and collaborate with the enemies- nothing new about this.
So I leave it you and others to judge whether Iran “lost” the war against Iraq or whether Iraq and its backers where the losers in the long-run.
Incidentally the so-called Israeli support for Iran that you are so enamored with, was part of the bleeding strategy. Israel does not care at all about anyone but itself and only a fool would be friend with such a pathological nation and society. The worst thing for Iran would be to be friendly with this rotting corpse of a society. Turkey and Syria are better options for Iran (please re-read the Crooke article).
As for incompatible interests- US policy in the PG is framed within the Carter Doctrine which declares the Persian Gulf as an area of vital US strategic interest. An area in which the there is a zero-sum equation according to US strategists of all political persuasions. The US has to control the PG and nobody else- in order to control Saudi oil reserves which can be used to control oil prices and in order to control the most important oil reserves in case of a global conflict with other global rivals (Soviets in the past, today China or India).
Iran views the PERSIAN Gulf as its God-given right (in my view correctly) and says that security of the Persian Gulf should be handled by local countries and that the presence of the Americans causes military tensions and political and social instability and injustice, because of US support of the local dictators (military or monarchical). Iran’s vision of the Persian Gulf region is fundamentally different than that of the US and its local lackeys (see posts about UAE and Saudi). Let’s not forget that the Iranians have some experience with a local US lackey and so it’s understandable that the Iranian-Islamic-republican challenge to the imperial US (or previously UK) model of managing the Persian Gulf results in vicious reactions by the US and its local sheikhs.
Taking what I have suggested in terms US security construct in the PG and what the other participants mentioned should be enough to explain the inevitability of a US/Israeli military action.
I hope what I have written will in some ways answer your question about why we are confident about long-term victory (you mentioned “triumph” I didn’t). The real question Nasser-jan is whether me and you will defend your homeland, flee to the west or become a traitor and collaborator when the conflict starts.
Mr. Brill: Everything you cited: the use of Iranian vessel, Iranian containers, Iranian packing materials, etc. There is, however, as you correctly cite, no evidence of the Iranian government – which as I said is exactly how it would be done.
Again, I find it hard to credit that somebody other than Iranians of SOME sort were involved given the amount of Iranian products involved in the entire episode.
Nasser, good post at 12.44 am… One argument. I believe Israel wanted to push its northern border to the Litani in Lebanon, and to colonize that land as it has colonized the West Bank. I believe that desire remains on the long term agenda.
As far as I know Israel has no intention of declaring its international borders in the near future, nor, interestingly, is there evidence that the US have any intention of asking them to do so…. unless you or someone else has evidence to the contrary.
Richard,
Other than “cui bono” speculation, what is the “evidence” you see of Iran’s involvement in the Francop incident?
Richard Steven Hack,
“Nothing in your comments to me is responsive to my points.” – I’m sorry I thought I addressed all the issues. I’ll try again, this time in greater detail.
You write: “No one is suggesting that anybody would try to occupy ALL of Iran. The only useful occupation from the point of view of the US neocons would be Khuzestan where the oil is.”
-I must have misunderstood you. I didn’t notice you mention Khuzestan before. I thought you were suggesting Iran take advantage of its vast size to resist occupation. You talked earlier about Iran’s size and population in comparison to Iraq and Afghanistan and wrote: “Iran is a very large country with a relatively large population compared to both Afghanistan and Iraq.” I agree that Iran’s size and population is precisely why they would be better at conducting fourth generation warfare than say Iraq or Afghanistan against a potential invader. BUT, you concede that the occupation of All of Iran is such an impossible task that the invader would not even attempt this! So, there is NO prospect of guerilla warfare on a vast scale at all.
-You suggest that IF the US were to try and occupy Iran, their occupation would be LIMITED to Khuzestan. As you know it is Iran’s geographically most vulnerable region. Saddam occupied it very quickly and it took the Iranians a Looong time to get him out. I’d think that that piece of land (as opposed to ALL of Iran) would be easier to occupy than Iraq or Afghanistan. So, unless the invader tries to breach the Zagros into Iran’s main population centers, there is nothing for Iran TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF as compared to Iraq or Afghanistan when conducting fourth generation warfare.
-You also suggest that the US wants to overthrow the regime through an invasion. You however recognize that the US is not willing to occupy Iran. But, you cannot overthrow the government unless you occupy All of the country. So you must concede that regime overthrow is not something they would realistically hope to achieve with the invasion.
-I hope I have proved that the prospect of an occupation is not a serious one. And a US attack would probably be limited to air strikes and perhaps sanctions to soften the country for later (like Iraq). I showed you the youtube clip to point out that Iran would not have any real defense against such an attack. If there is an attack only limited to air strikes, the US would suffer few losses (like in the first Gulf War) while catastrophic suffering would be imposed on the Iranians. I don’t find the prospect of this to be very appealing for the Iranians.
-You cite the example of Hezbollah as a model for Iran. But you have to remember that Israel lies next to Lebanon and so it was possible for Hezbollah to cause damage and disrupt the economic life of Northern Israel. Iran would not have this advantage here when confronting the US. Second, Israel has no desire to reoccupy Lebanon; it just wants to crush Hezbollah to ensure its security. So Hezbollah’s goal of keeping the Israelis out of Lebanon and not die off was not a very complicated task. Israel did to Lebanon (& Gaza) what the US is likely to do to Iran; impose catastrophic suffering as punishment and dissuade them from launching any further adventures. I hope you have noticed that Hezbollah hasn’t violated the cease fire agreement because of this and Israel is enjoying the kind of quiet to its North that it hasn’t had since the 60s. So the 2006 war might have been embarrassing for Israel but I’d hardly call it a loss or failure.
-You also seem to glorify guerilla warfare when you rave about its effectiveness. Take the casualties in the Vietnam War for example. I say you cannot compare 4-6 million dead Vietnamese with about 60,000 dead Americans. You also cannot compare the devastation wrought to SE Asia with the fact that continental America suffered no damage. I realize the moral urge to stick it to American imperialism and while this so called guerilla victory might have resulted in loss of face for the US, only the cruelest of person would describe it as a victory for the SE Asians.
-I hope you can understand why such a scenario would be very unappealing to the Iranians. Having already lost a generation of men not too long ago, such an outcome would hardly be described as “victory” in Iran.
-Regarding Iraq and Afghanistan: Yes it is true that those occupations have been costly for the Americans. But that cost is miniscule compared to the cost imposed on the people of those countries. And let us not forget that the US is still in those countries. So the people there would hardly describe their efforts as victory.
-So you see guerilla warfare, even one that results in “victory” (read: destruction of the country) should be very unappealing to Iranians and so I was surprised that some would seem eager for a fight.
-You also argue that a war is unavoidable: “Unfortunately, as I’ve said repeatedly, the US is, to use a common phase, “hell bent” on starting a war with Iran with or without a major provocation.” I happen to disagree with you here and I will give my reasons as to why. I don’t think the US is keen to start a war and probably won’t do so without a major provocation because there are a lot of unknowns and a lot of risks associated with such an attack.
-Iran’s most potent and well publicized counter to such an attack is to try and disrupt energy supplies including attempts to block the Straits of Hormuz. I don’t think the US and the Europeans would risk a major disruption in energy supplies at this critical juncture of their economic recovery. This is Iran’s primary deterrent. THIS is what would bleed the Americans, not some guerilla warfare which are like in the words of Ahmedinejad: “annoying like flies.”
-Similarly the Israelis have good reason to fear that an attack on Iranian nuclear sites might draw retaliation on Dimona.
-There are also other reasons to hold off on an attack on Iran. The Americans and the Israelis aren’t sure of the quality of their intelligence. There is no way intelligence sources can be sure that they know of all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Some facilities could be hidden and not known to the outside world and thus would avoid destruction in the event of an air strike, rendering those strikes meaningless. As you also point out, there is also the possibility that the Iranians haven’t actually decided to get a bomb and an attack would convince them of their need to do so.
-Also, it is not known what the Iranians’ true nuclear capabilities are. There is very good reason to assume that the Iranians have been mostly forthcoming about their program. But, it is possible however that their covert capabilities remain unknown and would surface in the event of an attack. This creates an unknown and potential risk as to why military planners would want to avoid any adventurism and hold off on any attacks.
-I am sorry for getting into hypothetical doomsday scenarios about nuclear attacks but I was just pointing out that when Iran suffered from chemical attacks (something you describe as ineffective but hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Iraqi Kurds died) the international community remained mum. I was simply pointing out that there is a deep sense in Iran, (particularly in this current generation of rulers that went through the war) that the international community cannot be counted on. That experience also makes the Khamenei regime extremely risk averse in international affairs and they are thus likely not to make any serious provocations.
I’ll leave the discussion about the Iranian nuclear program for another post.
DWZ: Your logic seems to be that since Israel controls US foreign policy in the Middle East to its benefit, that therefore the sentence that the US has been trying to prevent Iran from being a regional power is therefore nonsense.
Excuse me, but the obvious logic here is that Israel, WITHOUT THE UNITED STATES, would be unable to do anything of the kind. Therefore, the US is ESSENTIAL to Israel’s attempt to prevent Iran from being a regional power. Therefore, it is obvious that Arnold’s sentence is NOT “nonsense” but follows from your very premise. The US IS trying to prevent Iran from being a regional power. Your statement that the sentence is “nonsense” thus makes no sense whatever itself. Arnold is talking about the consequence of the Israeli control of US foreign policy.
In other words, while Arnold would do doubt argue that there are some other elements involved in the US attempt to prevent Iran from being a regional power (and indeed there are), the FACT that the US IS trying to do so is not “nonsense”, but indeed follows from your very contention that Israel is behind it. Arnold is talking about the FACT that the US is doing this.
Do try to stop using everyone’s words to launch your own rant by first misreading their words out of context. It’s not doing your case any benefit. It just makes you look like an overly emotional, uncontrolled and illogical person. Please accept this as a lesson in using English rather than an offensive comment, since you do not seem to be a native English speaker.
{DWZ: I am at a loss to determine how you decided that Arnold’s sentence is in some way so contradictory to your subsequent paragraphs that it merited the description “nonsense”.}
Richard Steven Hack:
Arnold’s sentence assumes the United States is responsible party in this fight because “US prevents Iran from becoming a major anti Zionist regional power.”
This ASSUMPTION IS NONSENSE TO BEGIN WITH. According to Churchill “Britain has no permanent friend or enemy, only interest.” America has also followed her interest, however, since Johnson administration the influence of pro Israeli groups on US foreign policy has increased, where during the Clinton Administration reached its peak.
Iran like any other country in the world is following her interest. The tension between Iran and Israel is not ZIONISM per say, rather is the desire of both countries to become the regional power. Iran has always been a major power in the region and is an ancient civilization with documented history.
Now, Israel is trying to dominate the region from North Africa to Central Asia through destabilization and partition to achieve her goal through proxy.
Thus, it is not the United States that prevents an ‘anti Zionist’ Iran to become a major power, rather, is Israel that wants to remove his competitor using the military might of the US.
Many people have argued the same point, but Chomsky and other Zionist Liberals still misleading people to insist that is the US who goes after Iran because Iran ‘does not obey” which is nonsense. Iran has always been interested to cooperate with the US on mutual interest because both countries share many common interests, contrary to US/Israel alliance.
More than 22 percent of Israel population are Arab Palestinians, no matter what is called.
Arnold premises are wrong because he like CHOMSKY spreads a false assumption that is the United States who prevents erection of a viable Palestinian state NOT ISRAEL.
In my opinion, Chomsky misleads the public to hide Israel’s influence on US foreign policy. It is not the United States who prevent “anti Zionist regional power”, rather is ISRAEL who prevents ‘ant Zionist regional power’ to implement his Zionist project.
I suggest reading the following article by Jeffrey Blankfort:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article143703.html#article143703
Has Flynt updated his book on Syria? Any papers or speeches that continue the study of Syria from the time of Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon?
That should read: However, threats are very different from actual millions dead from a nuclear explosion. Iran – and the rest of the world – knew full well that Clinton was merely blustering.
Nasser: Nothing in your comments to me is responsive to my points.
“Anyone familiar with Iran’s topography knows that it would be nearly impossible to physically occupy the place.”
No one is suggesting that anybody would try to occupy ALL of Iran. The only useful occupation from the point of view of the US neocons would be Khuzestan where the oil is.
“Iran’s mountains would protect it from major invasions and occupation but not from air strikes. It has even been suggested that The Pentagon doesn’t even have plans to occupy Iran like it did Iraq (except maybe Khuzestan, Iran’s oil producing region near Iraq which is not mountainous). But this is what I fear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzvP5p2SMec. They will be bombed “back to the stone age” or worse.”
I did say that. That doesn’t change the fact that if the US attempted to occupy Khuzestan and overthrow the regime that they would attempt to occupy at least a significant part of Iran. And the end result of that would be a guerrilla war against the US occupation that would dwarf Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Which is why Iran would win – eventually.
“Iran saw first hand what that coupled with serious sanctions can do to a country. So I found it puzzling why Mr. Basiji was so confident of a confrontation with the US after noticing what happened to Iraq.”
And I explained why – that Iran, despite any major devastation inflicted on it by the US using conventional weapons, would be able to outlast the US just as Vietnam, similarly devastated, and Iraq, and now Afghanistan’s Pashtun, are doing, by using the same Fourth Generation War and asymmetric and guerrilla war tactics that were used so effectively against the US in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
“You see, I don’t see a war as imminent at all, not without a major provocation.”
Unfortunately, as I’ve said repeatedly, the US is, to use a common phase, “hell bent” on starting a war with Iran with or without a major provocation. And major provocations have been manufactured before. Bush wanted to fake an attack on a Air Force surveillance plane by Iraq to justify his invasion. That’s hardly a problem with US and Israeli naval craft in the Gulf regularly being buzzed by Iranian gunboats.
Imminent? Perhaps not. Perhaps the intent is to allow sanctions to take their toll as the US did in Iraq and also did with the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. The US was planning to attack Afghanistan for some time before 9/11 after having imposed sanctions on the Taliban regime. But as I’ve said before here, it is hard to credit the notion that the US and Israel will allow Iranian enrichment to proceed for the next four, eight, twelve, sixteen years of US administrations before making SOME move. At SOME point, the notion of an Iranian bomb will become ludicrous even to the ignorant public. Either Iran stops enrichment or the US AND Israel have to “blink” and accept enrichment. There is no third resolution except the Leveretts’ “Grand Bargain” and no one sees the US doing that at all, controlled as it is by the military-industrial complex and the Israel Lobby.
“Richard, you call using nukes on Iran “an unacceptable option.” Are you sure about that? No one said anything when Iran was bombarded with chemical weapons.”
I was referring to the use of city buster nukes on Iranian cities. That is quite different from using nuclear bunker buster bombs on Iranian underground facilities (at least to public perception), let alone the (mostly ineffective) chemical attacks. The US is not prepared to nuke Tehran and kill its millions of civilians, absent either some major US military disaster in the region or an actual nuclear threat from Iran. That should be obvious. Israel, on the other hand, might well nuke Tehran, but that would also be a huge risk given the inevitable outcry from the international community. If they can’t shoot some Turks on a boat without pissing people off, I’d like to see how Israel manages to kill eight million Iranians without getting people angry.
“So, if you are the ruler in Tehran charged with the welfare of your people, would you risk such a catastrophe and base your fate on something as fickle as world opinion?”
Tehran’s leaders do not need to concern themselves about it, as I’ve said. The US is not going to nuke Tehran directly, absent Iran giving them an extremely good reason. The US may bomb Tehran into rubble using conventional air strikes, but that is a different matter.
“To cite a more recent example, no one seemed to protest much when Iran was very bluntly threatened with nuclear strikes. I believe the word used was “obliterate”.”
Very true. However, thr- and the rest of the world – eats are very different from actual millions dead from a nuclear explosion. Iran knew full well that Clinton was merely blustering. Also remember that her remarks were in response to the question of a deliberate Iranian nuclear first strike on Israel – an event that is so unlikely to occur as to be laughable. And Clinton did take a certain amount of justified criticism for the remark from the antiwar community.
“Regarding Iran’s nuclear program: Iran has had a nuclear program since the 50s. They have had assistance in one form or another from many successful nuclear weapons states including Israel, Pakistan, Russia, and North Korea. I say if Iran doesn’t have some form of nuclear capability by now I am so utterly convinced of their incompetence that I can safely say they probably never will.”
They have not had a nuclear weapons program, they have had a nuclear energy program. And the history of the West’s interference with that program has been clearly documented. It’s completely irrelevant to the nuclear weapons issue.
I expect Iran has most of the information it would need to make a functioning nuclear weapon by now, at least a relatively older technology version. What it does not have is the ability to manufacture enough of them in a short enough time to be useful to them. Therefore I suspect that Iran’s leaders know it would be a waste of time and resources to do so – absent an actual attack on Iran and a clear intent to overthrow the regime by military force – which as I’ve said they could resist more effectively using Fourth Generation War methods.
“On the other hand, I have heard George Friedman of Stratfor suggest that Iran is actually in an ideal position by being very ambiguous and creating doubts about their true capability. This way Iran can use its program as a bargaining chip while not justifying international outrage or an attack. The ambiguity creates too many unknowns and unacceptable risks for the military planners and forestalls actual attacks.”
Unfortunately for that argument, the absence of a program altogether also provides the same benefits, intentional or otherwise, without actually having to spend any money or effort on it.
As I’ve said repeatedly, Iran’s military almost certainly wants to know how to build a nuclear weapon. ANY military in Iran’s position would. This does not constitute an official leadership ordered program to DEVELOP AND DEPLOY nuclear weapons. That is an entirely different proposition altogether, and the consequences of the latter are far more profound than the former, and also far more difficult to do without subjecting the nation involved to serious geopolitical problems.
This is why Japan does not have nuclear weapons despite more than enough economic and technological capability and nuclear resources to develop them. It simply would be far too geopolitically costly for Japan to do so absent a direct nuclear threat from China or North Korea. And while there has been some discussion in Japan about North Korea’s weapons program, so far that has not motivated the Japanese government to further pursue deploying nukes.
The same situation is true in Iran – except that Iran doesn’t have anywhere near Japan’s capabilities and may never have in the next few decades. Therefore Iran has no need for nuclear weapons and may never have the capability of transitioning from NOT having them to having them with any degree of success even if they DID want them – which from ALL indications OTHER than the minimal evidence of an Iranian military interest in them they simply don’t.
DWZ: I am at a loss to determine how you decided that Arnold’s sentence is in some way so contradictory to your subsequent paragraphs that it merited the description “nonsense”.
Richard Steven Hack,
Anyone familiar with Iran’s topography knows that it would be nearly impossible to physically occupy the place. Iran’s mountains would protect it from major invasions and occupation but not from air strikes. It has even been suggested that The Pentagon doesn’t even have plans to occupy Iran like it did Iraq (except maybe Khuzestan, Iran’s oil producing region near Iraq which is not mountainous). But this is what I fear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzvP5p2SMec. They will be bombed “back to the stone age” or worse. Iran saw first hand what that coupled with serious sanctions can do to a country. So I found it puzzling why Mr. Basiji was so confident of a confrontation with the US after noticing what happened to Iraq. You see, I don’t see a war as imminent at all, not without a major provocation.
Richard, you call using nukes on Iran “an unacceptable option.” Are you sure about that? No one said anything when Iran was bombarded with chemical weapons. The US even tried to prevent resolutions in the UN condemning those acts. After that experience Iranians learned not to have much faith in the international community. So, if you are the ruler in Tehran charged with the welfare of your people, would you risk such a catastrophe and base your fate on something as fickle as world opinion? To cite a more recent example, no one seemed to protest much when Iran was very bluntly threatened with nuclear strikes. I believe the word used was “obliterate”.
Regarding Iran’s nuclear program: Iran has had a nuclear program since the 50s. They have had assistance in one form or another from many successful nuclear weapons states including Israel, Pakistan, Russia, and North Korea. I say if Iran doesn’t have some form of nuclear capability by now I am so utterly convinced of their incompetence that I can safely say they probably never will. On the other hand, I have heard George Friedman of Stratfor suggest that Iran is actually in an ideal position by being very ambiguous and creating doubts about their true capability. This way Iran can use its program as a bargaining chip while not justifying international outrage or an attack. The ambiguity creates too many unknowns and unacceptable risks for the military planners and forestalls actual attacks.
{The United States for 30 years has been working to prevent from Iran from becoming a major anti-Zionist regional power.}
I NEVER READ A STATEMENT AS NONSENSE AS THIS ONE. There are thousand of articles which shows ZIONIST EXPANSIONIST POLICY IS to blame not Iran support of Palestinian people, and the events of the past 60 years since the erection of the zionist state shows that very clearly.
How does the United States benefit from Iran containment designed and implimented by the zionist Jew, Martin Inkyk since the Clinton administration where Zionist control over the foreign policy reached its highest point.
Iran is a natural ally of the United States NOT Israel where her expansionist policy has turned, at least, over 1.5 billion Muslisms against the United States and her presence in the region.
How does the US benefit from Israel, a liability where a Mossad agent said Israel is a burden on the United States? Shame
Arnold: “I don’t agree that this means there must be a war, but the alternative to war is that the US watches its position slide in the region as Iran, unchecked, does attain regional power status with the threat to Zionism inherent in that.”
Your overall analysis is very correct. However, the sentence above raises the fundamental question: WILL the US watch its position slide in the region WITHOUT war with Iran? Can the US, structured as it is, with the interests that it has in the region as you have analyzed, with the political climate in this country controlled as it is by the military-industrial complex and the Israel Lobby, POSSIBLY allow itself to fail in its intentions without at least TRYING a war with Iran?
Given that we’ve already experienced Iraq (and Afghanistan) and given your point that, as I’ve said many times, Obama is merely “Bush Lite” (and who know who the next President will be – Palin, for Pete’s sakes?), I think it’s pretty obvious that war with Iran is by no means unlikely. The question would appear to be: do the elites in the US who are controlling US policy believe that a war with Iran would be worse than watching the US fail in its intentions in the Middle East?
I say that, since the elites in the US are not going to be harmed in any way by a war with Iran any more than George Bush was by Iraq, they believe that a war with Iran is an acceptable price to pay in order to make those military-industrial complex profits, and to support Israel.
Thoughts?
Nasser: If I may be so bold as to respond to your question to BIB about how Iran could achieve a victory in a war with the US/Israel.
I see Iran playing the Vietnam War Scenario (or perhaps it should now be called the “Afghan War Scenario” since the Pashtun in Afghanistan are doing it to the US now.) This scenario calls for fighting a low intensity guerrilla war over as many years as necessary to bleed the occupying power economically, militarily and geopolitically until that power gives up.
Iran is a very large country with a relatively large population compared to both Afghanistan and Iraq. They have also spent a lot time studying the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and developing the same asymmetrical, Fourth Generation War tactics being used by insurgencies all over the world, including their allies in Lebanon, Hizballah.
These tactics are unbeatable. The US cannot win in Afghanistan, did not win in Iraq, and would not win in Iran, short of nuking the entire country, an unacceptable option due to the international community’s probable reaction.
Iran’s economic and conventional military infrastructure would undoubtedly be severely degraded or even destroyed in a ten year war with the US. But in the end, the US would be forced to withdraw, just as it withdrew from Vietnam and as it will be forced to withdraw from Afghanistan.
The only other possibility is that the Iranian leadership would break at some point and surrender as Saddam did in Iraq. In Iraq, it didn’t matter that Saddam surrendered; the insurgency the US faced really didn’t want him back anyway. In Iran, if the leadership was intact and blamed for the devastation of the war, they might decide to surrender if they felt their leadership was threatened by their own people. But the Iranian people themselves would STILL be against the US. There is no way the US would be able to install a puppet regime in Iran. So in the end, whoever ended up running Iran would STILL be hostile to the US – and whatever good will the US used to have with the Iranian PEOPLE would be destroyed.
There’s no way the US can win in Iran. They can destroy Iran to a large degree – but that’s not a “win”. Iran will remain, Iran will rebuild and Iran’s new leadership may very well try to develop and deploy nuclear weapons again in the future – this time in much greater secrecy.
If there’s one thing Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam have proven to the world, it is that the US, shorn of its nuclear capability, is a paper tiger. It can be beaten – at great cost, perhaps, but it can be beaten.
James:
There is a school of thought that Israel is fundamentally strategically fragile. I subscribe to it as do a large number of Israel’s strategists.
The reason I believe Israel is strategically fragile is that it has a small population and in the region there are vastly more people who would rather there be no Jewish state that that there be one.
As the West’s technological advantage wanes, which is a natural process that clearly has been ongoing since the end of WWII, Israel’s ability to force populations orders of magnitude larger than to tolerate it wanes with it. At some point it will not be sufficient. The question is just when.
Israel is a small population on a small amount of land, it is also a first-world population, one that is used to a European standard of living and many, if not all of its members can go to the United States, Europe or elsewhere if they choose.
As opponents of Israel become able to impose increasing costs on Israel for refusing to accept Palestinians as full citizens and thereby refusing to relinquish Israel’s Jewish identity those costs will cross a threshold where it is less costly for Israel’s Jews to either accept a non-Jewish majority or leave.
Keeping the costs of Israel remaining Jewish from reaching that threshold requires many things. One of them is that there cannot be a major anti-Zionist (or even potentially anti-Zionist) power in the region. The United States for 30 years has been working to prevent from Iran from becoming a major anti-Zionist regional power.
Now Iran is anti-Zionist because – and this will be very difficult for you to understand James, you’ll probably have to take my word or the results of polls – most people in Iran do not believe there is a legitimate claim that there should be a Jewish state in Palestine. For most people in Iran, as for most people in the region, the rights of the non-Jews in or from the territory, both in 1947 and today, outweigh the right or moral need or moral benefit of there being a Jewish state.
If Iran was to get a leader who was not anti-Zionist, that leader would be moving against the sentiments of those he represents. There would be a constant risk that a leader who does not move against those sentiments will emerge. The United States applies a substantial amount of intelligence and political resources to prevent this from happening in the US colonies of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc. But it is not stable.
Even if Iran has a Zionist leadership, as it effectively did under the Shah, it is one revolution away from reverting to the state its people would prefer of being anti-Zionist. If Iran has become a major power, then it is one revolution away from being a major anti-Zionist major power. Many people do not believe Israel can, in the long term, survive with a major anti-Zionist regional power.
Because of that, the United States has an interest in ensuring that Iran does not become a major regional power.
Iran has an interest in becoming a major regional power – not only or primarily to resolve the conflict over Zionism in favor of the Palestinians – but from an Israeli viewpoint, that’s what Iran becoming a major regional power would do.
Now you’ll say “everyone accepts two states”. Kind of. First, this came about after it was completely clear that Israel will not accept the 1967 borders. So there is a certain degree of disingenuousness in saying “we’ll accept two states if Israel accepts the 1967 borders”. Second, two states can still be a step along a path to one state.
Barack Obama agrees with you that everyone in the region will accept Israel, if not everyone then the regional consensus, if the US’ preferred representatives of the Palestinian people accepts a two state solution. Barack Obama is wrong. Abbas’ popularity can only rival that of anti-Zionist parties if Obama can associate voting for anti-Zionist parties with going hungry. But an election or referendum under that kind of duress, if it happens, will not be legitimate or valid. It would not end the conflict, nor would it end the need for the US to hold its string of colonies. It would literally not change anything from what we have today.
Barack Obama could not be more disappointing than he is on this issue, but what he is doing is showing the degree to which the United States is unable to distance itself from Zionism. The world is learning that there was nothing uniquely bad about George Bush, which, since it is true, is an important lesson.
But because a major anti-Zionist regional power, or a potential one, would threaten to both impose unbearable costs on the Zionist project directly, and would weaken the colonial structure the US has established and inherited in the region which is required for Israel to continue, the United States opposes Iran becoming a regional power.
That cannot be reconciled with Iran’s national interest in becoming a regional power.
I don’t agree that this means there must be a war, but the alternative to war is that the US watches its position slide in the region as Iran, unchecked, does attain regional power status with the threat to Zionism inherent in that.
Mr. Canning: “The problem, obviously, is that the Jews control the army, police, security services, etc etc etc etc, and they would not under any conceivable circumstances relinquish such control.”
Well, that depends on who is forcing them to relinquish that control, and what the consequences would be if they did not, and also whether you believe Israel would employ “The Samson Option” of nuking everybody in sight if so coerced.
In fact, if the UN, the US, Europe, and the international community in general, told Israel to disarm its nuclear arsenal, and it refused, then employed a full on blockade of Israel’s air and sea ports and land routes, as well as a full economic sanctions package, Israel’s economy would evaporate over night. If Israel attempted to use nuclear weapons to threaten anyone, the US could easily overwhelm their forces or nuke them into oblivion, just as Clinton threatened Iran.
Naturally, this will never happen, because the political will does not exist to force Israel to disarm.
However, that is the only solution: for the UN to reverse the 1947 partition decision, declare Israel an illegal state, resume the Palestinian Mandate, then set up a new state.
The alternative is, as many have said, since the two state solution is dead on the ground, that eventually Israel will have to become an apartheid state. Well, where does that lead? Obviously it leads to the same progression as South Africa. Eventually Israel will be subject to economic sanctions, etc. Whether this occurs in the next ten years or the next fifty is irrelevant – it will have to happen. So we end up in the same place – with Israel having to stop being a Jewish apartheid state or being forced to do so.
Better to deal with the issue directly than waste another fifty years.
Unfortunately, as I’ve said, this won’t happen. So what will happen? What will happen is either the Palestinians are beaten down into non-resistance (I find that unlikely), OR the Palestinians are forced out of the West Bank and Gaza into Jordan and Egypt and Lebanon (likely to start a war with those countries who are adamant about NOT taking any more Palestinians), OR some smart Arab terrorist (if they exist) steals an Israeli nuclear weapon and makes Tel Aviv glow in the dark, OR some other military solution occurs. Perhaps the Arab states will just get fed up, spend their oil money on conventional weapons and nuclear weapons regardless of US pressure and eventually overwhelm Israel (doubtful scenario).
But there WILL be a resolution to this and it won’t be a “two state” solution that can’t be made to work. The only question is when there will be a resolution – sooner or later.
But unless the international community steps in to sideline the hardliners on both sides, the resolution is likely to be bloody. This is why my solution is the best, regardless of how the Zionist fanatics feel about it.
The Zionist fanatics may think they have can use the “Samson Option” to force the world to stand down but when push comes to shove it will prove to be a dud. Nobody can stand up to the entire world.
This is why the lynch pin is the United States and the Israel Lobby. Without those two factors, Israel would already be a sanctioned pariah state.
Mr. Brill: “I have pointed out only that I have found no actual evidence that the Iranian government has participated in this, at least in the case of the Francop.”
Well, no, that isn’t what you’ve found. What you found – IF of course the facts of the case were not manipulated by the Israelis, as we all should keep in mind – was that ALL the evidence pointed to Iran being involved. The question was whether the Iranian government participated, however – and here I said the ODDS were that they were, that they did not care if they were ACCUSED of that BECAUSE the way these things are done nobody WOULD be able to PROVE they were, due to “plausible deniability” (even given that ALL the evidence was that Iran in some way involved.)
In other words, what you found was exactly what one would expect to find in cases of this sort, namely, plenty of evidence but no proof.
Again, the problem with that is: cui bono? Who profits? The only two parties who are likely to profit from arms shipments to Hizballah (aside from Hizballah itself, of course, the recipient) are in order of likelihood: a) Iran – or SOMEBODY within Iran; b) general smuggling organizations; c) the CIA (as a provocation); d) Israel (as a provocation). Since I doubt Israel would be shipping arms VIA IRAN to Hizballah merely as a provocation, I put them last. The CIA might do it, but again it seems risky and difficult to be shipping arms VIA IRAN in order to blame Iran – I could see them shipping arms from Europe or Africa in an Iranian ship with Iranian containers, but doing so IN IRAN would seem rather hard to pull off even for the CIA. That leaves smugglers in Iran operating on their own accord – possible. And somebody in the Iranian intelligence services or IRGC – which to my mind is the obvious, Occam’s Razor answer.
“My general concern here is that many writers on this website, and others, who consider themselves to be strong defenders of Iran against unwarranted criticism from the Western world are so eager to reach conclusions favorable (they believe) to Iran that they uncritically accept assumptions from which their opponents gleefully draw precisely opposite conclusions.”
I’m afraid I can’t give this much weight. There is reality and there is perception. I can’t be held responsible for other people’s poor logic or comprehension. This is a general problem that afflicts all issues.
“1. Many argue that Iran should preserve its “nuclear option,””
I don’t. I think Iran is best served without a nuclear weapons DEPLOYMENT program. However, it is simply realistic and logical to me that Iran would want to know HOW to build a nuclear weapon, in case the leadership should change its mind about that and circumstances might change allowing Iran to actually do so WITHOUT being immediately attacked (an unlikely scenario). John Mearsheimer said the same thing in the recent IRMEP panel discussion – he said Israel in the 1950’s and early 1960’s could reasonably conclude it needed nuclear weapons, and if he were Ahmadinejad’s adviser today, he would suggest that Iran should have nuclear weapons capability. I disagree with that, partly for the reasons that Iranian diplomats have made – that it would actually hinder Iran’s regional influence – and secondly, as I argued before here, that Iran CAN NOT effectively transition from not having nukes to having them in a manner that would really provide them any military advantage.
“Iran’s actual or assumed (by Iran’s enemies) ability to produce and deliver a nuclear bomb on short notice”
As mentioned above, I don’t see Iran being able to do that BEFORE it is attacked, and even if it could, having ONE nuclear weapon is almost useless. Iran would need to simultaneously produce a half dozen or more (as is estimated that North Korea has done), would need to test one to establish credibility (or produce the plans for international inspection), and THEN would have to be able to deliver them effectively. The odds of Iran being able to do this before the US or Israel nuked them into oblivion are NIL, in my opinion, if not impossible.
North Korea cannot be compared to Iran. The reason North Korea has not been attacked by the US and South Korea over the nuclear issue is NOT because NK is known to have nukes (it’s NOT known, only suspected – and the tests have been duds) – it’s that it has a million-man army with scores of thousands of artillery and rocket launchers that could turn Seoul into a blast pit within 48 hours, and an unstable leadership that could start a CONVENTIONAL war that would result in a million deaths within several months and 50,000 US military casualties in ninety days. There is no comparable situation in Iran. nukes or no nukes.
“What country that gets kicked around as much as Iran would NOT try to build a bomb?”
Iran is that country. The Supreme Leader has said so explicitly, and so has many of the other leadership and diplomats. We can assume that Iran can lie about not supplying weapons to Hizballah because that is conventional state behavior. We can not assume Iran is lying about not wanting nuclear weapons because such a position does indeed make sense given their geopolitical situation and desire for greater influence in the region (which being a nuclear threat would not help).
“Israel has the bomb, so why shouldn’t Iran have it too?”
Again, this is John Mearsheimer’s position. But it’s an argument for disarming Israel – which Mearsheimer doesn’t believe is possible – not for Iran having them.
“2. Iran’s support of Hezbollah and HAMAS (in the form of weapons, not just humanitarian aid) is entirely justified because Israel is evil, oppresses the Palestinians and threatens Lebanon.”
I agree with this position.
“3. Regardless of whether some electoral fraud occurred in last year’s election, Ahmadinejad would have won anyway and, besides, the Iranian people really don’t like the Greens or other opposition groups.”
The Leveretts appear to have a good case for this, so I would tend to agree. More importantly, it’s not a matter for anybody except the Iranians to care about.
“The point is that many people do disagree with them, are able to persuade very many others to reject those conclusions, and, when the dust clears, are left with very useful concessions”
But these are not concessions to anything! These are the facts on the ground. Your problem is: what would you substitute for those arguments if you can’t use those arguments? What leg is left to stand on?
“which are promptly fashioned into even stronger arguments against Iran. I’ll paraphrase a few of those even-stronger arguments here:”
These are not significantly stronger arguments in the least. I can’t imagine why you see them as such. They are weaker arguments because they explicitly acknowledge some ambiguity. This is not how the proponents of attacking Iran argue. They argue based on CERTAINTY that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, that Iran is an irrational actor, that Iran wants to destroy Israel, etc ad nauseum. Injecting the idea that these comments are subject to disagreement would significantly weaken their arguments.
“There is considerable disagreement over Iran’s nuclear program, but both sides appear to agree at least on this: Iran is probably working secretly on a nuclear bomb. Some people think that’s entirely justified. We don’t. Do you?”
Both sides do not agree on this. This is a misrepresentation that might well be employed by proponents of attacking Iran, but it is nonetheless incorrect. Many of the opponents of attacking Iran are very clear that there is almost NO evidence that Iran intends to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. And what evidence there is suggests merely that Iran’s military is interested in knowing HOW to build a weapon should they ever be asked to do so.
“There is considerable disagreement as to whether Israel is oppressing the Palestinians and threatening Lebanon and other neighboring countries, but both sides appear to agree at least on this: Iran is supplying weapons to Hezbollah and HAMAS. Some people think that’s entirely justified. We don’t. Do you?”
This argument presumes that the listener has ALREADY accepted the common perception that Hamas and Hizballah are “terrorist” groups rather than national liberation resistance organizations. If the listener is already of that opinion, it won’t matter whether one claims Iran is justified because the listener has already made up their minds. The proper approach to such an argument is to argue that Hamas and Hizballah exist because of Israeli aggression and that the proper resolution is to resolve that issue – Iran is not even relevant in the discussion.
“There is considerable disagreement as to whether Ahmadinejad stole last year’s presidential election. His supporters don’t think it really matters because, they argue, he would have won anyway and, besides, Iranians don’t really like the Greens or other opposition groups. We disagree with both those conclusions, of course, but our point here is different: Even if Ahmadinejad’s supporters are correct, we still don’t believe that electoral fraud is acceptable, regardless of whether it changes the election result or whether Ahmadinejad’s opponents are as unpopular as he claims. Do you?”
To which one immediately brings up Karzai in Afghanistan, where electoral fraud was very clear. The argument again presumes the conclusion it is arguing about.
“My plea, therefore, is that, in one’s haste to establish some argument that appears to yield a favorable conclusion for Iran, the proponent restrain himself enough not to accept useful assumptions that later become even more useful to his opponents. Almost always there are other routes, more carefully chosen and followed, to the very same favorable conclusion.”
I would be interested in seeing you make those “carefully chosen and followed” arguments. I don’t think you can, because a) they would likely be either illogical or factually incorrect or both; b) they would be much less convincing than the correct arguments I have outlined above.
Your argument in this regard is in my opinion extremely weak. There’s no benefit in avoiding making clear statements in preference to some perceived ability of the opponent to twist your words. They’re going to do that no matter what argument you make.
The link is
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion/134-134/2425-the-national-interest-has-gone-missing
Davidson compares Israel’s spurning of al-Assad’s peace offer, with the foolish spurning of Iran’s proposal (the May 17 Tehran declaration) by the Obama administration.
I recommend Lawrence Davidson’s comments, “The National Interest Has Gone Missing”
on readersupportednews.org today. He observes that Israel can have peace with all the Arab countries. In fact, 57 Muslim countries offer peace to Israel.
Bussed-in Basiji,
I share Nasser’s curiousity as to why you think the interests of the Iranians and the Americans are incompatible. Many many Americans think their country squanders hundreds of billions of dollars every year, on unnecessary weapons, military deployments, etc. Normal relations with Iran would help clear the way for substantial reductions in “defence” spending. Obviously, the neocons, other warmongers, the Israel lobby, etc., want garganuan “defence” spending because it helps to obscure the grotesque cost to the American taxpayer to facilitate Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.
fyi,
I readily can see why you would say the “one-state” solution is at hand, or nearly so.
The problem, obviously, is that the Jews control the army, police, security services, etc etc etc etc, and they would not under any conceivable circumstances relinquish such control.
James Canning:
What you wrote: “…a prosperous Israel, living securely within recognized borders (aka The Green Line)”.
Any peace deal based on such a conceptualization is no longer tenable.
That now quaint and antiquated notion must be discarded.
What is possible is a one-state solution.
The one-state solution is very close – disregarding the specific modalities of its realization – to the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Bussed-in Basiji, I was hoping you could answer a few of my questions regarding your remarks.
You write: “…I have said before that it’s unlikely that there will be a “grand bargain” between Iran and the US. The reason is that some of the real interests of each side are incompatible…” – I’m interested to hear what you feel those imcompatible interests are.
You also write: “…but in the final analysis I believe that some sort of military conflict is inevitable and it will result in a long-term political victory for Iran regionally and globally and it will result in a serious crisis for American republicanism (with a small “r”) and democracy.” – What makes you think that a military confrontation is inevitable? And more importantly what gives such confidence that Iran would triumph if such a confrontation were to occur? Didn’t you guys have a ring side view of what the Americans did to someone Iran fought for eight years and lost to?!
Rehmat,
Joeseph Farah puts out the total rubbish, does he not! Only an idiot would fail to see that Israel is a millstone around the neck of the US. That said, I support a prosperous Israel, living securely within recognized borders (aka The Green Line), and at peace with its neighbors. How many scores of billions of dollars, do the US taxpayers spend each year, to enable Israel to continue its scheme of oppression of the Palestinians?
Rehmat,
As you will recall, the US very stupidly joined with Israel in subverting the unity government the Saudis put together, of Hamas/Fatah. American foolishness in trying to isolate Hamas, continues. The Lebanese PM has said Hezbollah is an essential element in maintaining the national security of Lebanon, for the present and probably for a number of years to come. Hezbollah can act much more efficiently and effectively, than can the Lebanese government.
Rehmat,
“Instead, the report recommended that the best way to harness these Islamic Resistance [groups] would be to integrate both Hamas and Hizbullah into the PA and Lebanese forces – lead by pro-West secularist military elites.”
That should be easy enough. One thing can’t be denied about the people who write such reports: they’ve got an excellent grasp of reality.
Paul,
“Little commented on is the ridiculous circularity of the Middle East ‘peace process’ Iran ‘linkage’ arguments, which tend to hold that Iran is our enemy because of Iran’s association with Hezbollah and Hamas and Hezbollah and Hamas are our enemies because of their association with Iran.”
Good point.
fyi,
Your description of the US as “dysfunctional” is an accurate one, as regards foreign policy toward the Middle East and toward Cuba. In both cases, an “ethnic” minority is able to control policy to an alarming degree and in a manner inconsistent with the best interests of the American people.
The US and Israel have to accept that Hamas is an essential element in any resolution of the Israel/Palestine problem.
Syria has offered peace to Israel for many years now, and it really is rather pathetic that the US has done so little to facilitate achieving it.
In March 2010 – the ‘Red Team’ at CENTCOM had prepared a 5-page report, titled ‘Managing Hamas and Hizbullah‘. The report had questioned Washington’s current policy of isolating and marginalizing Hamas and Hizbullah to protect the zionist regime from its ultimate demise. Instead, the report recommended that the best way to harness these Islamic Resistance would be to integrate both Hamas and Hizbullah into the PA and Lebanese forces – lead by pro-West secularist military elites. The report had concluded: “The US role of assistance to an integrated Lebanese defense force that includes Hizbollah and the continued training of Palestinian security forces (Fatah) in a Palestinian entity that includes Hamas in its government, would be more effective than providing assistance to the entities – the government of Lebanon and Fatah – that represents only a part of Lebanese and Palestinian populace respectively”.
Some senior CENTCOM officers involved in preparing the report say that though the out-going CENTCOM commander, Gen. David Petreaus, had read the report – it’s hardly expected that he would be honest enough to pass-on the recommendation to Zionist-controlled Obama administration. Gen Petreaus is known for his blind support for the Zionist entity. Professor James Petras in his March 8, 2008 article had called Gen. Petreaus a ‘millitary poodle of Zionism‘.
http://rehmat2.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/how-to-destroy-hizbullah-and-hamas/
Little commented on is the ridiculous circularity of the Middle East ‘peace process’ Iran ‘linkage’ arguments, which tend to hold that Iran is our enemy because of Iran’s association with Hezbollah and Hamas and Hezbollah and Hamas are our enemies because of their association with Iran.
Joseph Farah in his latest post “The phoney Mideast debate” has adised Barack Obama not to abandon America’s best ally for the sake of its Jew-hating neighbors.
http://rehmat2.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/not-giving-heeds-to-zionist-fables/
Arnold,
As you know or should know, I have the highest respect for you. As your prompt and pointed response suggests you recognize, your views on one of the three issues I mentioned – the nuclear issue – were at the very front of my mind when I drafted my last post. Those two points lead to the third: I have not forgotten my promise, made several weeks ago, to clarify my comments on the nuclear issue that provoked strong responses from you, Lysander and one or two others. I intend to do that, though obviously I’ve not done so yet and I can’t promise when I will.
Eric:
Many argue that Iran should preserve its “nuclear option,” a term whose precise meaning I still consider unclear in its use by various writers but which means essentially, I gather, Iran’s actual or assumed (by Iran’s enemies) ability to produce and deliver a nuclear bomb on short notice, thereby commanding respect from Iran’s enemies.
I’m one person who argues that. I also find your definition of it reasonable. I’m not very hung up on “short notice”. For me the test is, if the US was to stage on Iran’s borders for an invasion, could Iran have a weapon in the year or so between when it received solid indications of what was approaching and the US being able to attempt to capture Iranian territory.
If you’ll call “short notice” about a year or so, I’d say the definition of nuclear capable you present it something Iran should achieve and something Iran is likely to achieve very soon, certainly this decade. It is also something that is legal and something that does not violate the NPT or any of Iran’s obligations. It is also a status Iran can achieve at the same time it ratifies and implements the Additional Protocols and does not require there to be any opacity in its nuclear program.
A Japan option does not depend in any way on Iran’s program being mysterious. One thing Iran is not doing though, is addressing issues contrived for the sole purpose of justifying US demands that Iranian suspend and then cease enrichment to prevent it from keeping the capability that Japan has. Another thing Iran is not doing is giving the US information about its nuclear program beyond that required by its agreements that could assist in US sabotage and possible bombing efforts.
This issue is easy to resolve when the US accepts that Iran has a Japan option, and it is impossible to resolve in the absence of that.
There is considerable disagreement over Iran’s nuclear program, but both sides appear to agree at least on this: Iran is probably working secretly on a nuclear bomb.
Woah, is Japan working secretly on a nuclear bomb? Maybe a hostile party can deliberately misread me to say I agree Iran is secretly working on a nuclear weapon, but hostile parties can lie about whatever they want.
I don’t think by now I’ve been unclear at all. Iran wants what Japan has: no weapon today – if there is a provocation, such as the US imposing a no-fly zone over Iranian territory, or staging troops for an attack, or a bombing campaign, Iran or Japan has the option of leaving the NPT and after that could build a bomb.
That does not mean either is working on a nuclear bomb, certainly not secretly.
When you feel ready, I’d appreciate you coming off the fence and presenting your understanding of the Iranian nuclear issue, especially regarding the issue of nuclear capability.
Because the nuclear issue today ties so centrally with the conflict between Iran and the US over the middle east, I do not consider this fully off-topic.
Forgive me for moving this post into this thread from the “Who Gets Blamed…” thread, but I do want to keep it alive because it involves a point I consider important generally.
On that previous thread, someone wrote:
“In the end, what matters is that Hizballah is armed to repel an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.”
To reach this conclusion, the writer was willing to assume, based not on actual evidence but on speculations that struck him as at least plausible, and probably true, that the Iranian government in fact participated in the Francop arms smuggling operation in November 2009, and probably in many others.
Maybe the Iranian government did; I’ve never claimed to know, and I’ve frankly acknowledged that Iran almost certainly is pleased that weapons make their way to Hezbollah somehow or other. I have pointed out only that I have found no actual evidence that the Iranian government has participated in this, at least in the case of the Francop.
My general concern here is that many writers on this website, and others, who consider themselves to be strong defenders of Iran against unwarranted criticism from the Western world are so eager to reach conclusions favorable (they believe) to Iran that they uncritically accept assumptions from which their opponents gleefully draw precisely opposite conclusions.
Three examples here:
1. Many argue that Iran should preserve its “nuclear option,” a term whose precise meaning I still consider unclear in its use by various writers but which means essentially, I gather, Iran’s actual or assumed (by Iran’s enemies) ability to produce and deliver a nuclear bomb on short notice, thereby commanding respect from Iran’s enemies. Many such arguments conclude with rhetorical questions such as: “When did North Korea start getting respect?” or “What country that gets kicked around as much as Iran would NOT try to build a bomb?” or “Israel has the bomb, so why shouldn’t Iran have it too?”
2. Iran’s support of Hezbollah and HAMAS (in the form of weapons, not just humanitarian aid) is entirely justified because Israel is evil, oppresses the Palestinians and threatens Lebanon.
3. Regardless of whether some electoral fraud occurred in last year’s election, Ahmadinejad would have won anyway and, besides, the Iranian people really don’t like the Greens or other opposition groups.
Whether or not one agrees with some, all or none of those conclusions is not the point here. The point is that many people do disagree with them, are able to persuade very many others to reject those conclusions, and, when the dust clears, are left with very useful concessions by the proponents of those rejected arguments which are promptly fashioned into even stronger arguments against Iran. I’ll paraphrase a few of those even-stronger arguments here:
1. “There is considerable disagreement over Iran’s nuclear program, but both sides appear to agree at least on this: Iran is probably working secretly on a nuclear bomb. Some people think that’s entirely justified. We don’t. Do you?”
2. “There is considerable disagreement as to whether Israel is oppressing the Palestinians and threatening Lebanon and other neighboring countries, but both sides appear to agree at least on this: Iran is supplying weapons to Hezbollah and HAMAS. Some people think that’s entirely justified. We don’t. Do you?”
3. “There is considerable disagreement as to whether Ahmadinejad stole last year’s presidential election. His supporters don’t think it really matters because, they argue, he would have won anyway and, besides, Iranians don’t really like the Greens or other opposition groups. We disagree with both those conclusions, of course, but our point here is different: Even if Ahmadinejad’s supporters are correct, we still don’t believe that electoral fraud is acceptable, regardless of whether it changes the election result or whether Ahmadinejad’s opponents are as unpopular as he claims. Do you?”
My plea, therefore, is that, in one’s haste to establish some argument that appears to yield a favorable conclusion for Iran, the proponent restrain himself enough not to accept useful assumptions that later become even more useful to his opponents. Almost always there are other routes, more carefully chosen and followed, to the very same favorable conclusion.
Here is an example of US Policy in Cambodia:
http://csis.org/publication/cambodian-debt-united-states-ring-consecrated-sand
Note that even here the policy can be criticized on several levels.
US is dysfunctional, it seems to me.
Is the US likely to begin with the “grand bargain” approach while the nuclear issue remains unresolved? In order for Americans to go these next steps, they need to see a realistic achievable nuclear settlement as perhaps an initial part of a pckage. As you know, the most viable approach (welcomed by Iran) is to trade international or somehow constrrained uranium enrichment inside Iran for the additional protocol and other transparency mechanisms (as well as security guarantees, which link to the grand bargain advantages to both sides). To talk “grand bargain” in the face of enormous political and media emphasis on the nuclear issue is not enough.
As participants know I view what the Leverrets are tryng to do as positive but I have said before that it’s unlikely that there will be a “grand bargain” between Iran and the US. The reason is that some of the real interests of each side are incompatible and beyond interests, each side has a self-identification which doesn’t allow it to compromise on certain core matters.
I happen to think that this is a good thing that nations, societies, leaders, individuals are not willing to compromise on certain core matters. Some things are not negotiable, some things are not up for a bargain. We can discuss the sepcifics of this in the case of Iran and the US, but in the final analysis I believe that some sort of military conflict is inevitable and it will result in a long-term political victory for Iran regionally and globally and it will result in a serious crisis for American republicanism (with a small “r”) and democracy.
Arnold Evans:
You are correct in the power structure that US maintains in the region.
You are also correct in your assessment of the Sadat/Mao dyanmics versus US; both had something to gain that was of fundamental strategic value to them. For Sadat that was Peace with Israel and recovery of Sinai and for Mao was fear of USSR.
US gains nothing out of a colonial relationship with Israel, Jordan, Egypt and others. They are drains on her much like the Central Asian Republics were to USSR.
US leaders laugh at the Principles of Peace of Westphalia and the idea that they have to pay something to get something. The 1990s has accustomed them to cost-free foreign policy.
I have come to the conclusion that a US-Iranian rapproachment is not in the cards. For that, US strategic position globally must deteriorate more than it has now. Or else, we need a Regime Change in US.
Pirouz:
Point taken, but if the Leveretts actually are advocating finding a Sadat in Iran then they have to take into account the implausibility of such an endeavor.
Nasser, while he didn’t leave the throne to his son, which right there puts him into a class above most Arab leaders of his time and now, did not establish a competitive political process relatively independent of foreign influence the way Khomeini and Mao did. So even if Rafsanjani or Mousavi would be willing to be Iranian Sadats or Mubaraks, Iran is just not in that position.
So we have a problem if the Leveretts and the American foreign policy community think Sadat and Mubarak are normal. They, like many Americans, seem to have convinced themselves that the reason Mubarak assists the blockade of Gaza is not because the US threatens to withdraw support in the form of direct payments and US hostility to Egyptian democratic impulses. Any efforts to extend that model to Iran, which does not need a US Congressional allowance for its leader and can withstand US “democracy promotion”, will fail.
The Leveretts also present China as a model. China is independent of the US in a way that Egypt and Jordan are not – even if China is not a participatory democracy. If we draw an analogue between Iran and China, Taiwan provides a useful stand-in for Israel, as a country in the region whose legitimacy is the basis of a profound disagreement with the US.
But Taiwan has the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan is defensible and will be for the foreseeable future because the defensive side has such a huge advantage in operations across significant bodies of water and the US has a large lead in naval forces.
Israel does not have that. Israel requires that no power be both interested and able to disrupt the colonial structure the US maintains in the region. Saudi Arabia’s king has to fear the CIA, and worry that US doubts of his usefulness could cost him his throne, but cannot fear anyone else. If not, Saudi Arabia, which has more money to spend on arms than Iran does, and is geographically in a more crucial position would be far more of a threat to Israel than Iran is today.
Egypt and Jordan are similar. Their leaders have to fear Israel and/or the US and nobody else. Not their own people, but also not any alternative regional power. If Egypt and Jordan leave the US colonial structure Israel again becomes strategically vulnerable. And it is not like an alternative power would have to emplace a stooge dictator as the US or its imperial predecessor Britain did. One person one vote is enough to turn any of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia or the other colonies into reliable members of the “resistance” faction. (As we’re seeing in Iraq.)
Hostile combinations of Egypt, Jordan and/or Arabia, combined with at least factions and probably a majority of Palestinians, are a true strategic threat to Israel. Far more than China is a threat to Taiwan. The Palestinians combined with the resources of their neighbors could disrupt national life in Israel in many ways to the extent that it would not remain viable as a Jewish state. China, across water, cannot do that to Taiwan.
So what this means is that finding an Iranian Sadat won’t work. Rapprochement with an Iranian Mao won’t work. If the US wants to remain committed to there being a Jewish state, it has no better choice than to try to prolong the status quo. If that is the decision the US is to make, I’m just pointing out aspects of the cost of that that are not widely acknowledged in the United States.
Paul – I figured out some years ago that the passion with which Ahmadinejad was being attacked must mean he had struck a nerve; I started paying closer attention. I suspect the concept is not unique to zionism, that it attacks most viciously the one ‘witness’ that is the greatest threat to its defense; it’s just that zionists think they are so much more clever than anybody else that the dumb jury won’t catch on. ohh, shhh, you didn’t hear me say that.
Serifo – I had not been supportive of Boycott, Divest, and Sanction, as a way to bring Israel to heel, but tzvi’s boasting of how ubiquitous zionist products are in US culture, and Jonathan Cook’s rational explanation of the series of shocks to the zionist system that ensue from a broadly based campaign of BDS, something clicked: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
I think it can work.
I am very careful to check the codes on products: I do not purchase 729- products, but that’s just a token. It will take a good deal of effort, but eventually, Israeli corporations will be scrubbed from NASDAQ; Intel and Microsoft will be shamed into bringing their Israel-based offices back to the US and those jobs will be given to young Americans — yes, I’m an America firster, why wouldn’t I be? Israeli academics will be barred from any other country’s universities and pop culture figures will be shamed from taking their acts to Israel. J Street is already behind an petition to have the US Department of Justice investigate the use of tax-exempt Jewish charities to fund settlements, which may turn out to be in violation of terror finance regulations — Stuart Levey, are you listening?
taunts and goads, tzvi; why didn’t I think of that? Guess I’m just not as smart as your average brainwashed zionist wannabe. btw, are you a true believer — a willing participant in your own exploitation by zionism’s criminal gang bosses or are you desperate for a place to belong and get paid?
That should read “empathizing” not “emphasizing.”
Arnold, you’ve a talent for emphasizing with the resistance to Zionism and the “World Arrogance.” But keep in mind, the Leveretts’ are advocating Iran policy to the US establishment, from an American-centric perspective. This is really the strength of their advocacy, and it promises advantages not only for the US and Iran, but the regional as a whole.
Regrettably, they are severe underdogs in this policy debate.
As long as the Zionist lobby groups ( e.g AIPAC ) and neoconservatives are infiltrated in the U.S Senate and Congress , there will be no real ” peace”
initiative. Simply because , by ideology these interest groups are unwilling to talk ( let alone negotiate ) with key players such as Hamas!
The only thing that will force the Washington political elite change their arrogant attitude and back a ” real ” peace process , is for the U.S to find itself in a big strategic crisis , which could be any of the following :
1 – Military showdown against Iran.
2 – An anti – American like revolution in Egypt ( or one of the Gulf states ).
I just have to say, that’s funny about us being Ahmadinejad fans. That’s typical. Anyone who bucks the insane hate propaganda must heart the object of the propaganda, according to the propagandists, naturally. So far as I can see, many of Ahmadinejad’s points about the US and Israel are actually quite cogent, especially when they are translated properly. Like Chavez, he criticizes the American Empire. Yeah, much of the world does that. Only here in America is it virtually forbidden to criticize the Empire.
Another good thing about Ahmadinejad is that he at least gives the appearance of trying to govern with special concern for the vulnerable in society. Our pols don’t like that, of course, nor do our media, since they care only for the concerns of the upper classes. So there are some good things to be said for Ahmadinejad.
But no one likes a religious bigot. And a religious bigot who rules by the sword is demanding to be hated. But, then again, if you don’t like religious bigots who rule by the sword, you should really hate our pals in Saudi Arabia. One might almost wonder why our friendly religious bigots in Saudi Arabia DON’T get bad press each and every day, like Ahmdinejad does. Do you know that in Saudi Arabia, it’s forbidden to even have a demonstration, much less to try to overthrow the government with a demonstration?!!!!
Really, sometimes I think the only reason most Americans seem to hate Ahmadinejad so much is that he has such an awful hairpiece. I mean, that’s pretty superficial, but as superficial as US media treatment of Iran usually is, what else does anyone have to go on?
Iran could be a stabilizing force. In Iraq, according to most reports, it already is and has been for years, despite the constant stream of accusations against Iran by the US, blaming Iran for its own mistakes in Iraq. But when will we choose to recognize openly that ISRAEL DOESN’T WANT PEACE? If peace comes, Israel will have to stop gobbling up the West Bank and start giving stolen land back. Does anyone really think that Israel wants to do that or intends to do that? Come on, let’s talk reality here. Of course they don’t. Any peace negotiated by Israel, as long as the US continues to back Israel unconditionally, will at best be a legalized form of apartheid, where the Palestinian State is really just a state in name, it’s land riddled by Israeli land, and its ’sovereignty’ totally or nearly totally controlled by Israel.
I dont agree with alot of what you say but I think you guys should be heard. Though it seems like the only people responding to your blog posts are your Ahmadinejad-supporting fans.
I’ll point out again that the US rapprochement with Egypt, that both Leveretts describe in such glowing terms, required then and requires now Egypt’s foreign policy to be outside of accountability to the people of Egypt.
Mubarak today is no less a colonial dependent on the United States than King Farouk was on Great Britain before Nasser’s revolution.
If we acknowledge that the restoration of the Shah or something equivalent is not a possibility then Egypt no can no longer serve as a model.
Leveretts:
Could you please give us a link for the video of this conference? Thanks
Very well thought out and articulated statement of the situation and the way forward.
Looking forward to seeing the exchange between Hillary and Indyk.
indeed, Pirouz; a tour de force.
if you’ll forgive a sexist comment, intended as a compliment: there is no one so fierce as a young mother: like a lion guards its cubs.
Another outstanding post.
You know, I have a problem with terming Hamas and Hezbollah as “non-state” actors, mainly because they do possess a representative element. And I also think the term “non-state” is used by detractors to purposely
undermine their legitimacy.
I believe it’s more appropriate to refer to Hamas as “proto-state,” and Hezbollah as “intra-state.”