I have long argued– most recently here— that if an act of war is launched against Iran by the US or by Israel, then one of the most obvious ways for Iran to engage in the war that ensues would be to attack, or surround and cut off, the US troops distributed broadly throughout Iraq, very close to Iran’s borders and at the end of agonizingly long and vulnerable supply lines.
My argument has always been that if Iran suffers any aerial (or naval) attack– even if only Israeli forces participate in it directly– then it could easily demonstrate that that attack could not have been launched without the active and premeditated collusion of the US, whose military dominates all the airspace around Iran, especially from the east, as well as the waters of the Gulf.
That would make the US’s forces in the region legitimate targets for an Iranian counter-attack.
And now, Israel’s Y-net website tells us, quoting unnamed “sources in the Iraqi Defense Ministry”, that,
- Israeli fighter jets have been flying over Iraqi territory for over a month in preparation for potential strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, sources in the Iraqi Defense Ministry told a local news network Friday, adding that the aircraft have been landing in American bases following the overflights.
The original reports of Iraqi defense officials reporting seeing Israeli military aircraft using US bases in Iraq seem to have come from the Iraqi news agency Nahrainnet. (That was also what AFP reported.) They have also been carried by the website of Iran’s international Press TV station.
But it is interesting that Israel’s Y-net carried the report– even if attributed to those non-Israeli sources. The Israeli media is, like the old Soviet media, subject to heavy censorship on all military matters. But as in the old Soviet Union, when the Israeli military censors kind of want to “get the news out” about one of their own military developments, they allow a news medium to run the item– but with attribution to foreign sources.
Update 4:20 p.m., July 11: After I wrote the main post here, Y-net updated their article, on the same URL, to feature an IDF denial that they had been doing any “training” activities in Iraq. I note this is not a categoric denial that they’ve been doing anything else, such as reconnaissance or prepositioning of materiel.)
(The second update, at 4:25 p.m. on July 14, is reflected in the new language (underlined) in the next paragraph, with the deleted material struck through. ~ HC)
The fact that Y-net carried the report, even with– at first– no confirmation or denial from their military sources close to home, indicates strongly to me that it’s true. Also, that the Israeli defense authorities want us to know that it’s true. indicated to me at the time that it was true– or, that some portions of the Israeli defense authorities wanted us to believe that it was true. Otherwise, wouldn’t they simply have squashed or denied the whole report from the get-go?
So that’s even more interesting. It means they want the US to know that, at one level, they have us over a barrel. Our 157,000 troops spread widely throughout Iraq are not only hostages to any Israeli military adventurism, but those of them running the air-bases where the Israeli jets have been reported as landing have, in addition, been forced to support Israeli acts that greatly increase the risk to themselves and their G.I. buddies.
Where is the national leader in Washington who can put his foot down, who can tell our Israeli blackmailers that they can no longer play around in this extremely risky way with the security of our men and women in uniform in Iraq and throughout the Gulf; tell them that their military and special-force provocateurs are no longer welcome in the US-controlled battlespace of Iraq; and thereby restore the integrity of US national defense planning?
I will quickly add a few more thoughts.
- 1. All the war games that US military planners have done to game out the sequelae of a US (or Israeli) act of war against Iran have shown that they are truly devastating for the US.
2. Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stated on July 2 that Iran does not, actually, fear an Israeli attack. That is consonant with the results of the war-gaming indicated above.
3. There is at least some possibility that this current piece of Israeli muscle-flexing– like Iran’s own recent, widely publicized, missile tests– is an intentional precursor to Iran and the P5+1 sitting down to start the serious, de-escalatory negotiations that imho sorely need to happen. (Glenn Kessler posited this explanation, regarding the Iranians, in today’s WaPo, I see.) But Israel’s muscle-flexing is of a notably different order than Iran’s– not least because Israel is not, actually, a potential participant in the Iran-P5+1 negotiations. For that reason, Israel remains in the role of a potentially very dangerous ‘rogue’ actor– and it might even have an incentive to prevent or spoil those negotiations. The fact that PM Olmert is in such deep political trouble at home, and that the country’s whole political system is in such a shaky situation, means that Olmert’s decisionmaking may indeed be reckless and risk-embracing.
4. We need to think much more about what “message” Olmert and his national-defense people are trying to convey to the Americans with this risk-taking behavior regarding Iran. This is true even if (or perhaps, all the more so if) Olmert has many enablers and supporters dug well in at high levels of the US national-security machine.
Finally, we should remember that it has all along been Pres. George W. Bush who has pushed to place scores of thousands of US servicemen and -women into the position of sitting ducks for Iranian retaliation, in Iraq. In December 2006 the bipartisan group headed by Baker and Hamilton recommended strongly that the US should withdraw a sizeable portion of its troops from Iraq and concentrate the remainder into a small number of more easily defended (and supplied) bases. But Bush’s response to that was to pump large numbers of additional sitting ducks into the potential duck-abbatoir, and to spread them out thinly into many distant parts of the country under the logic of his so-called “surge.”
It is time to end the madness, end the Israeli blackmail, end or substantially reduce the tensions with Iran (which could still flare out of control any day), and end the very vulnerable and counter-productive US troop deployment in Iraq.
We have a pretty good idea how to do all these things. But please God get on with it. This reminder from Y-net about the presence and muscle-flexing propensities of the Israeli wild card makes the whole task of de-escalation much more urgent.
The fact that Y-net carried the report, even iwith no confirmation or denial from their military sources close to home
headline: ” IDF: Air Force jets aren’t training in Iraq”
first sentence: “The IDF dismissed Friday evening earlier reports claiming that Air Force jets have been training in Iraq ahead of a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
Did you miss this part of the article? Has it been revised somehow since this post went up? Or is a direct blunt public denial from the IDF too obvious to count as a “real” denial?
Pentagon is out denying the story too — now. And have a hunch Israeli outlets will be backpedaling and removing their own stories. (JPost also ran hard with it)
That said, oil futures markets have been roiled once again…..
Alas, as a parent of one of those soon-to-be “sitting ducks,” thank you Helena for continuing to emphasize the obvious issue — that Israel seems determined to drag the US into a catastrophic clash with Iran. They only have to prick the lion to get the lion to lash back — except that then the mouse is expecting the game warden to step in and “obliterate” the Lion.
And the IDF simply NEVER lies, does it, Vadim?
I think it is most appropriate to approach both the claim and the denial with a healthy skepticism, don’t you?
PS And of course, everything that comes out of the Pentagon is ALWAYS pure truth.
Given the history of truthfulness on the part of the IDF and the Pentagon, if I had to trust one more than the other I am afraid it would be the report on Y-net, unfortunately. Furthermore, the denial from the IDF has a slight ring of typical political sleight of hand to it. Perhaps they are not exactly training in Iraq, but that does not exactly constitute a denial that they are IN Iraq, does it?
Shirin, I completely agree that we should “approach both the claim and the denial with a healthy skepticism.” That isn’t what Helena did, though, is it? In the main article, she used words like “our Israeli blackmailers” as if this were absolute truth.
And I won’t comment on her comparison of Yediot Ahronot to “the old Soviet media” except to note that Israeli newspapers are anything but government house organs.
Actually, this story was reported onall major news outlets, including on Kol Yisrael. I might add that it was reported with a healthy level of skepticism, based on the origin of the report.
Azazel, you may not want to comment on Helena’s rediculous charge of Soviet-style censorship, but I will. Helena simply doesn’t know what she’s talking about. News stories that are published outside of Israel are not subject to local military censorship when cited in the local media.
I think that you are missing the point azazel: the characterisation of Israel’s public warnings of aggression as blackmail does not require that the latest report be authenticated. The massive exercise over Greek air space, the bombing of a building in Syria and the regular threats from sources close to or in the Cabinet show that this behaviour is well established.
As to the media in Israel, Helena makes the point that they are under military censorship. My view is that, as you suggest, this is because they are relatively free. I cannot imagine a major Canadian or a US medium requiring outside censorship where Israeli interests are concerned.
Bevin, I accept your point that a report need not be true to constitute blackmail. If the article had been leaked by Israeli sources or if it appeared in a media organ associated with the government, then I might give that argument more credence. However, this particular report came from non-Israeli sources and was published in a non-governmental Israeli media outlet, and thus constitutes official blackmail only if one accepts the equivalence of Yediot Ahronot and Pravda. Apparently you do not accept that equivalence.
In any event, Helena also argued that “the fact that Y-net carried the report, even with no confirmation or denial from their military sources close to home, indicates strongly to me that it’s true.” (She also contended that, if it were not true, the IDF would have “simply have squashed or denied the whole report,” apparently unaware that it has done so.) I don’t see that as bespeaking the “healthy skepticism” that Shirin so rightly advocated.
Azazel,
What Bevin said.
Plus this general comment: Israel has worked very hard to make it clear that it poses a grave and growing threat to Iran, and a pretty imminent one at that. Iran has every right to defend itself against a clearly very serious threat.
further, taking into account the historical and contemporary standard behavior and self-justifications of both Israel and the United States, that defense would legitimately include preemptive strikes, would it not? Or do you hold to the double standard that that what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.
PS Azazel, the reality is that the report, true or not, is completely consistent with both the behavior and the statements of Israeli officials as well as their American enablers. I will grant that the report in Y-net might not have been accurate. Even so, the entire complex of Israel’s behavior towards Iran constitutes blackmail.
This business with Iran is, in any case, a manufactured “crisis” just as was the Iraq “crisis” manufactured. Iran has not been a threat to anyone for centuries, it is not a threat now, and there is no reason to believe that it will ever be a threat EVEN IF it one day it really does acquire nuclear weapons which is more likely the more the United States and Israel threaten it. On the contrary, it is Iran that is under threat, and under the circumstances has every right to put into place whatever it needs to do to fend off an attack, or to defend itself should one occur.
Shirin, my standard is a single one: I don’t support pre-emptive strikes by anybody.
I might rephrase your comment, though, to say that Israel and Iran have worked very hard lately to portray themselves as threats to each other. Newton’s Third Law is a law of politics as well as physics, although I’m not qualified to say which is the action and which the reaction.
My comment and your postscript crossed in the mail.
Shirin, Iran may well not be a threat to anyone. It hasn’t started any aggressive wars in the past half-century unless one counts Hizbullah’s July 2006 raid as a casus belli by proxy, which I believe is contrary to evidence. That’s more than can be said for most other countries in the region. Nevertheless, its president and military forces certainly seem to be engaging in threatening behavior where Israel is concerned. The recent missile test, which Helena herself described as muscle-flexing, was accompanied by quite a bit of anti-Israeli rhetoric from those quarters. And while you might characterize that as a response to Israeli provocation, there have been other times when the rhetoric has been gratuitous.
Ahmedinejad, whatever you may think of him and whatever his actual place in the Iranian power structure, has chosen to make extreme rhetoric about Israel a staple of his administration. I don’t think one can blame ordinary Israelis for seeing that as threatening, and it’s my strong impression that Ahmedinejad is deliberately cultivating this perception.
Azazel, sorry, I did not make it clear that my double standard remark was not addressed to you in particular, but in general to those who tend to consistently hold a double standard when it comes to Israel and the U.S.
And sorry, Azazel, but I don’t see any moves that Iran has made to present itself as a threat to Israel other than those it has made in reaction to Israel’s and the U.S.’s very clear and active threats.
I repeat that Iran has not attacked or invaded another country for 300 years or so, and there is no evidence that is about to change. Unfortunately, you cannot say the same about either Israel or the U.S. Both have a consistent history of aggression, and sadly that, too, does not look as if it is about to change.
McCain has been braying lately about Iran’s “violation of multiple international treaties” (now THERE’s the pot calling the kettle black!). Really? What international treaties has Iran violated in the context of this latest crisis? A well-monitored and openly inspected nuclear development program, which Iran has every right to undertake, violates nothing. Having a president with a big mouth (who is more often than not maliciously translated in any case) is not a violation of any international treaty I know of. Who has Iran bombed, invaded, attacked, etc. in the context of this current crisis? Why, they cannot even provide a scintilla of real evidence that Iran has been supplying weapons to the “insurgents” (sic) in Iraq. On the other hand, Israel is infamous for its habitual violations of international treaties, and the United States hardly has a sterling record either.
“[Iran] hasn’t started any aggressive wars in the past half-century…”
Make that 2.5-3 centuries.
“The recent missile test, which Helena herself described as muscle-flexing, was accompanied by quite a bit of anti-Israeli rhetoric from those quarters.”
Don’t you suppose that maybe both the “muscle flexing” and the spurt of anti-Israel rhetoric might have been a response to the clear and explicit Israeli (and American) threats on Iran? It looked to me like Iran saying “are you sure this is what you really want to do because if you hurt me, I am capable of hurting you back”. It is exactly like the high stakes equivalent of a cat raising its back and growling, or a dog raising its lip in warning when threatened by another animal – a 100% justified response, and completely to be expected.
“And while you might characterize that as a response to Israeli provocation, there have been other times when the rhetoric has been gratuitous.”
Yes, there are times the rhetoric has at least seemed gratuitous, though we don’t always know what may have prompted it. But rhetoric is just that – talk – which, given Iran’s history of non-aggression (as contrasted with Israel’s) should not throw leaders into a tizzy after all these decades.
“I don’t think one can blame ordinary Israelis for seeing [Ahmadinajad’s rantings] as threatening…”
Ordinary Israelis, perhaps not, particularly given the malicious and sometimes downright wrong translations that MEMRI et al. so generously make available. However, one would hope that Israeli leaders and experts are more sophisticated than the average Israeli, no? Shouldn’t they know enough, for example, about the power structure in Iran to know that he is in no position to take any action? And shouldn’t they know enough about those in the Iranian government who hold the real power to know what their priorities and tendencies are? It seems to me they should. So maybe, like so many other international actions this is really coming down to manipulating the people for domestic political purposes?
“…it’s my strong impression that Ahmedinejad is deliberately cultivating this perception.”
Very possibly. It’s hard to think of another explanation other than a very bizarre kind of Tourette’s syndrome. But is this a valid reason to bring the Middle East, once again, to the brink of catastrophe, and perhaps beyond?
Shirin, I can only speak to the past half-century; I’m not familiar enough with the pre-Mossadegh history to comment. I’ll provisionally accept your figures, subject to fact-checking by anyone qualified to check the facts.
Regarding the discrepancy between “ordinary Israelis” and Israeli government figures: unfortunately, Israel is a democracy. I say “unfortunately” not out of any dislike for democracy, but because one of international politics’ dirty little secrets is that democratic countries are often as bad or worse at responding to external threats than non-democratic ones. Citizens vote their fears and demand that those fears be addressed, and the government has to listen. Hence rhetoric like Ahmedinejad’s cannot simply be glossed over, even if the government’s threat perceptions are different from the citizens’.
I’d argue that, in this context, the way the Israeli government has responded to Iranian muscle-flexing is much more ambiguous than you paint it. For instance, while Israeli ministers have used inflammatory rhetoric and the IDF has engaged in some pointed military exercises, they have been very careful not to get too close to actual Iranian targets or to cross any red lines. This back-and-forth action has gone on for several years now but not a shot has been fired, despite the Sunday Times’ repeated predictions that war was around the corner.
This may be consistent with incipient aggression, but it’s also consistent with reassuring the Israeli public that it will be protected and sending Iran the message “mess with us and you’ll be sorry.” I’d argue that the latter explanation is more likely than the former. Actually, I’d argue that Israel and Iran are sending very much the same messages to each other, which leads back to my question about which is the action and which the reaction. In the Middle East, by this time, most behavior is both cause and effect.
Ahmedinejad: yes, Tourette’s syndrome might be an explanation for his antics. So might shrewd political calculation, or genuine fanaticism. Whatever the reason, though, it’s very irresponsible to deliberately needle people two generations removed from genocide in this way. And I don’t only mean Jews: Rwanda and Armenia have shown much the same hair trigger, much to the detriment of the Congolese and the Karabakhi Azeris. By this I am not excusing anything Israel may have done or might do, but I think we should all be aware that Ahmedinejad’s rhetoric has more than ordinary potential to inflame.
And here was I, thinking that “blackmail” implies that an unfriendly agenct has most unfortunately come to possess certain old photographs of one that she is willing, for a consideration, to suppress….
Could we maybe say “neo-blackmail” to describe such human events as sticking an additional missile into dirty pictures that you never intended even for an instant not to publish, or, indeed, “allow[ing] a news medium to run the item — but with attribution to foreign sources” ?
Happy days.
Ahmadinejad has in the past called for Israel’s elimination. But his exact remarks have been disputed. Some translators say he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” but others say that would be better translated as “vanish from the pages of time” — implying Israel would disappear on its own rather than be destroyed.
Ahmadinejad also said Tuesday that the next U.S. administration “would need at least 30 years in order to compensate, renovate and innovate the damages done by Mr. Bush.” “Today, the government of the United States is on the threshold of bankruptcy — from political to economic,” Ahmadinejad said.
Iran’s not a threat to the U.S., just as Iraq wasn’t a threat to the U.S. The threat is to Israel, which has always worried about any of its neighbors getting ahold of nuclear weapons. Israel, of course, has many nuclear weapons. So Israel is egging on the U.S. to do something about it, and is hinting that if the U.S. doesn’t stop the Iranian nuclear program, then Israel will—the same way it stopped Iraq’s nuclear program years ago, by blowing up their reactor. The U.S. professes that it supports democracy in the Middle East yet when there was a democratic government in Iran the U.S. destroyed it.
Ted Rudow III,MA
]”Ahmadinejad has in the past called for Israel’s elimination.”
What he has said has been less a call for Israel’s elimination than a statement that Israel would disappear. It was not by any means a threat of or a call for any kind of action against Israel no matter how some people try to spin it.
“Ahmadinejad also said Tuesday that the next U.S. administration “would need at least 30 years in order to compensate, renovate and innovate the damages done by Mr. Bush.” “Today, the government of the United States is on the threshold of bankruptcy — from political to economic,” Ahmadinejad said.”
Who in their right mind could argue with that realistic assessment?
“Iran’s not a threat to the U.S., just as Iraq wasn’t a threat to the U.S.”
Iran is not a threat to anyone, and unlikely to be in the foreseeable future.
“The threat is to Israel, which has always worried about any of its neighbors getting ahold of nuclear weapons.”
Depends what you mean by threat. Threat to Israel’s existence? Not at all, and not even to its safety and security. The chances that Iran would ever do anything to Israel are somewhere between zero and none. Its leaders are too smart for that, and their priorities are elsewhere in any case. If you mean Iran is a threat to Israel’s image as the only 500 pound gorilla in the Middle East room, I can see how the Israelis would not want that jeopardized, and I see that less as a real concern about security than about losing its status as the bully who can freely beat everyone else up whenever he feels like it.
By the way, Sy Hersh makes the case pretty convincingly that Israel doesn’t have the wherewithal to attack Iran without the active participation of the U.S.
What he has said has been less a call for Israel’s elimination than a statement that Israel would disappear.
he said neither. it isn’t a matter of what ‘some translators’ say, it is the way some propagandists have mingled the words and meanings and used them for their own purpose. here is what he said “This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”.
the regime. this says nothing about israel disappearing. personally, and i have said this numerous times, i would love for the cheney regime to vanish from the page of time. doesn’t mean i want america to disappear or be wiped off the map.
I don’t think one can blame ordinary Israelis for seeing that as threatening,
so what? this is a strawman because nobody is ‘blaming ordinary israelis’. beside ‘one’ can certainly blame ordinary israelis for believing all the propaganda shoveled down their throats day in and day out. what if i said to you, besides i don’t think anyone could blame ordinary americans for being scared of saddam? i mean so what?
I am not excusing anything Israel may have done or might do, but I think we should all be aware that Ahmedinejad’s rhetoric has more than ordinary potential to inflame.
first of all you are excusing. secondly I think we should all be aware that certain aipac/neocon/zionist rhetoric has more than ordinary potential to inflame.
unfortunately, Israel is a democracy
not by my standards. in a democracy everyone is treated equally in the eyes of the law. that doesn’t happen in israel.
Actually, I’d argue that Israel and Iran are sending very much the same messages to each other,
well they aren’t and i will tell you why. israel floats its friendly relationship w/the global superpower. israel has nukes and everybody knows it. the US has nukes. therefore the level of threat one can reasonably expect to come to fruition is drastically different. iran isn’t flying over israeli airspace or bombing your neighbors. israel acts like a rogue state, like the favored child. why? because it is. but lots of americans (including jewish americans) are getting fed up w/their country’s favoritism towards israel at the cost of what is best for us and world peace.
you can try arguing this chicken egg thing , this who said it first bla bla. face it, iran hasn’t been threatening you. but the rhetoric coming out of the politicos both in the US and israel has been very threatening indeed.
I am not excusing anything Israel may have done or might do, but I think we should all be aware that Ahmedinejad’s rhetoric has more than ordinary potential to inflame.
excuse me for not placing this in italics in my last post. it was Posted by azazel and i was responding to it.
Annie, you are right. He did not say Israel would disappear.
“the rhetoric coming out of the politicos both in the US and israel has been very threatening indeed.”
What has come out of the US and Israel has gone way beyond rhetoric!
They only have to prick the lion to get the lion to lash back — except that then the mouse is expecting the game warden to step in and “obliterate” the Lion.
Mouse or Lion Iran what except from the Great Satan?
Thinking about Preventative Military Action against Iran
by Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt
“Citizens vote their fears and demand that those fears be addressed, and the government has to listen”
I’m not buying that because my observation has been the exact opposite. The government decides what it wants to do and manipulates the citizenry into going along with it. There is no more perfect example of that than what went on starting Sept. 11, 2003 with regard to Iraq. Within hours of the attacks of Sept 11 it was clear to anyone who was paying attention that the Bush regime was going to use that terrible crime as an excuse to attack Iraq, and they spent plenty on P.R. firms to get it done. And one could also point to the systematic and high-priced marketing campaign – aka pack of lies – the older Bush used in 1990 to get the public behind THAT attack on Iraq. And of course, we can now see it in action as they go all out to sell Iran as the latest attackable entity.
In fact, in a country where the government is elected, it is most often the best manipulator of the public that wins.
“Hence rhetoric like Ahmedinejad’s cannot simply be glossed over, even if the government’s threat perceptions are different from the citizens’.”
Sorry, but again I’m not buying.
“I’d argue that, in this context, the way the Israeli government has responded to Iranian muscle-flexing is much more ambiguous than you paint it.”
I paint it as I see it.
“For instance, while Israeli ministers have used inflammatory rhetoric and the IDF has engaged in some pointed military exercises, they have been very careful not to get too close to actual Iranian targets or to cross any red lines.”
Depends on where you place your red lines.
“This may be consistent with incipient aggression, but it’s also consistent with reassuring the Israeli public that it will be protected and sending Iran the message ‘mess with us and you’ll be sorry.’ I’d argue that the latter explanation is more likely than the former.”
I’d find your argument a bit more convincing if Israel did not have such a clear-cut history of aggression.
“Actually, I’d argue that Israel and Iran are sending very much the same messages to each other…”
I would argue that when you have a country that has no history of aggression for three centuries whose president merely spouts rhetoric but no actual threats (as far as I can recall) and has no authority over its modest military you have one kind of message. When you have another deeply militaristic nuclear power with one of the strongest militaries in the world and a clear history of aggression making explicit threats, staging military exercises that are obviously “practice runs” for an attack, and which may or may not be using the territory of a neighbor to the country it is threatening – which territory is, not coincidentally occupied by its biggest, strongest ally, which also is making explicit threats of attack – you have quite a different message indeed.
“…it’s very irresponsible to deliberately needle people two generations removed from genocide in this way.”
I don’t mean to be disrespectful or insensitive, but it is equally irresponsible to use the Holocaust as an excuse for every international crime under the sun. It is flippant to suggest that Jews should “just get over it already” (as so many have suggested that the Palestinians should “just get over” the ongoing ethnic cleansing and yes, genocide, that has been visited on them since before 1948), but it is also very disrespectful of the victims of the Holocaust to use their terrible fate as cynically as some continue to do (and that was not necessarily aimed at you specifically).
“By this I am not excusing anything Israel may have done or might do, but I think we should all be aware that Ahmedinejad’s rhetoric has more than ordinary potential to inflame.”
Except that as far as I know – and feel free to correct me if I am wrong – Ahmadinajad has not spoken against The Jews, but against the Zionist State, which are two different things in the minds of many people.
Iran has not been a threat to anyone for centuries, it is not a threat now, and there is no reason to believe that it will ever be a threat EVEN IF it one day it really does acquire nuclear weapons which is more likely the more the United States and Israel threaten it.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has not been around for centuries. It’s only been around for 30 years. After all, we shouldn’t confuse nations with regimes, right?
Where is the national leader in Washington who can put his foot down,
Your leaders and senators/congressmen listen to these kinds of Specialists!
When time you throw these people out from you land and push them to thier devils you will find your natinal leadrs behind your calls for peace.
Shirin, Iran may well not be a threat to anyone. It hasn’t started any aggressive wars in the past half-century unless one counts Hizbullah’s July 2006 raid as a casus belli by proxy…
Azazel, if we take Helena’s stated standard – that an attack that “could not have been launched without the active and premeditated collusion of Iran” would make targets within Iran “legitimate for… counter-attack”, then certainly Hizballah’s 2006 incursion and rocket salvo into Israel qualifies.
then certainly Hizballah’s 2006 incursion and rocket salvo into Israel qualifies.
JES, Israel targets was Lebanon as State although Hezbollah did on his own saga, the fact that Hezbollah out of control of the state. what Israelis did is destroyed Lebanon as a state and Hezbollah still there with his leaders from Mohammad Fadallah to Nasrlaah all a live not acted like what Israeli did with Sheikh Yassin when the kill him on his disability chair.
The fact is Hezbollah qualifies Israel to destroy Lebanon few time for now.
JES, you may have noticed that my standards are not always the same as Helena’s. I would argue that the preponderance of the evidence, much of which has been discussed here, indicates that Hizbullah attacked Israel for domestic political reasons rather than to achieve Iranian objectives. In fact, Nasrallah stuck Iran with much of the bill for rearmament and reconstruction. Hizbullah is an Iranian client but not a puppet, and although it would not be nearly as powerful or aggressive without Iranian backing, its actions can’t automatically be attributed to Iranian policy.
Helena and others may wish to contemplate the similarities between Hizbullah’s relationship with Iran and Israel’s with the United States.
All this does raise an important issue, though. Iran does not have a history of military aggression, but like all other current and aspiring regional powers, it does have a history of force projection beyond its borders. Moreover, some of the entities through which it has chosen to project force are actively, militarily and aggressively hostile to Israel. (Surely we can all agree that, however justified or unjustified Israel’s subsequent actions may have been, Hizbullah’s initial raid into Israeli territory and the accompanying rocket attacks were acts of aggression.) I’d argue that Israelis, even those fully informed about Ahmedinejad’s place in Iran’s power structure, might legitimately be concerned about nuclear technology being passed on to Hizbullah, at which point its use would no longer be fully under Iranian control.
Shirin, you are certainly correct that democratic governments manipulate public opinion. So do dictatorial ones. The difference in democracies is that the government cannot stop public opinion from being affected by outside sources. So when an Iranian official threatens Israel – and regardless of the debates over what Ahmedinejad really meant, other Iranian officials have made far less ambiguous statements – there is no way to stop the Israeli public from hearing about it and demanding that the state protect them.
Again, this is a principle that appliea generically, not just to Israel. The track record of democratic governments faced with external or separatist threats isn’t good. To take just a few examples from the latter half of the twentieth century: France in Algeria and New Caledonia; the UK in Kenya, Malay(si)a and Northern Ireland; Turkey with respect to the Kurdish separatists; Sri Lanka toward the Tamils; India in Assam and Punjab; the West in general during the Cold War. Depending on your definition of “democracy,” you might also add the Serbian response to Kosovar secessionism and Morocco in Western Sahara.
In some cases, the brutality of these conflicts rivaled the worst excesses of totalitarian regimes, and all of them worked profound corruption on the rule of law and political morality. Some of them were eventually resolved through political means, but the key word here is “eventually.” The first response of a threatened democracy is to lash out, and government officials are soemtimes forced by the public mood to say and do things that go against their better judgment.
I say again: Israel’s response to what its people perceive as an Iranian threat is quite typical of democratic governments. Which is not a good thing.
Regarding the Holocaust: to explain is not to excuse. My point is that Jews, like other peoples who have suffered genocide or other catastrophes, have the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder on a national scale. That does not excuse crime: a person with PTSD who commits an offense is still a criminal. It does, however, explain why most Jews identify strongly with Israel (even though “many people” may see the two as very different things) and provide context for certain self-defeating behaviors. In fact, at least in my opinion, it explain these things quite a bit better than fanciful theories of generations-long Zionist malevolence. Not to mention that a person who, knowing that another individual has PTSD, gratuitously taunts that individual, must bear at least some moral responsibility if he or she reacts.
The Palestinians have national PTSD as well, BTW, and are amply justified in having it (although the charge of genocide is, in a word, ridiculous). Again this does not excuse everything done by them, but I’d say that it goes some distance toward explaining many of the more nihilistic forms of resistance that have very probably set their cause back decades.
The importance of understanding this fact actually goes well beyond explaining present (mis)behavior. It is also necessary to forming strategies to address and correct such behavior. For instance, if this were understood by the proponents of boycotts, rocket fire, threats of annihilation and other responses that stoke rather than allay Israeli fears, they might not be so puzzled about why their measures often achieve exactly the opposite of the desired result. Likewise with conduct that stokes Palestinian fears, which the Israeli government often does quite gratuitously.
Quite a few Palestinians have made the point that, to understand Israeli psychology, one must understand the Holocaust. They were certainly not saying so in order to excuse Israeli behavior, but they are correct. Israelis must realize the same thing about the Nakba. And Ahmedinejad – well, he could do worse than listen to Khaled Mahameed.
Oh, and one more thing: As far as I know, Israel did not exhibit any threatening or aggressive behavior toward Iran prior to this century. And while I can’t say for sure if there was any such behavior pre-Ahmedinejad, I certainly began noticing it only after that point. In 2003, I was reading Ha’aretz puff pieces about Iranians who liked to listen to the Farsi broadcasts on Israel Radio.
I’m not sure where this fits into what Annie would call the chicken-and-egg argument, but I think it does have some significance in respect to who feels threatened by who.
And yet another thing: I should emphasize the distinction between “feels threatened” and “is threatened.” I largely share your view about Iran’s actual intentions.
Azazel, I do not have time at the moment to absorb and respond to your latest. However, I came across this quote this morning from Bill Moyers, that applies beautifully to my argument that democracy does not follow the will of the people, particularly in the case of military aggression, nearly as much as it creates in the people an acceptance of its will:
“Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects.”
” Here’s the point: Yes, there is a powerful faction in this administration, headed by the Vice President, which has, it seems, saved its last rounds of ammunition for a strike against Iran. The question, of course, is: Are they still capable of creating “their own reality” and imposing it, however briefly, on the planet? Every tick upwards in the price of oil says no. Every day that passes makes an attack on Iran harder to pull off.
On this subject, panic may be everywhere in the world of the political Internet, and even in the mainstream, but it’s important not to make the mistake of overestimating these political actors or underestimating the forces arrayed against them. It’s a reasonable proposition today — as it wasn’t perhaps a year ago — that, whatever their desires, they will not, in the end, be able to launch an attack on Iran; that, even where there’s a will, there may not be a way.”
Reality Bites Back
Why the U.S. Won’t Attack Iran
By Tom Engelhardt
“could not have been launched without the active and premeditated collusion of Iran”
that’s nuts. the US and israel had been prepping for that war for over 6 months, carrying out war games and such. i doubt they colluded w/iran.
you keep talking about israel as a democratic country. i don’t think that view is shared by most people. it is disingenuous to think you can eliminate everyone you don’t like based on ethnicity and then claim the remaining people (who are all like you) constitute a democracy, just because they can vote.
Israel is a barely concealed theocracy with the Haredi lording it over the secular majority in many public and private spheres. Now, we find that secular Jews can’t attend a party without the ultra-Orthodox getting their knickers in a knot over it. Isn’t it about time Israelis say they’re sick and tired of this puritanical meddling? Isn’t it about time they tell the Haredi to butt out of what’s not their business? Is Israel a democracy in which all can exercise their personal rights? Or is it a Jewish fiefdom in which all must kowtow to the moral whims of a minority?
source
most Jews identify strongly with Israel
maybe in israel, but not here.
The idea that pro-Israel lobbying groups such as AIPAC somehow represent the views of the majority of American Jews with regard to the Middle East is increasingly difficult to sustain. All available data indicate that precisely the opposite is true.
Indeed, a new study suggests that American Jews’ connection to Israel drops off sharply with each subsequent generation.
The authors of the study, sociologists Steven M. Cohen and Ari Kelman, found a consistent increase in alienation in each younger generation, with middle-aged Jews less attached to Israel than older Jews, and younger Jews less attached than middle-aged Jews.
“Every measure indicates a decline of attachment to Israel” from one generation to the next, Kelman, a sociologist at the University of California at Davis, declared.
The report, titled “Beyond Distancing: Young Adult American Jews and their Alienation from Israel,” was commissioned by the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies.
In its Sept. 13, 2007 issue, Washington Jewish Week reported that, “The major findings are that successively younger American Jews feel increasingly distant from Israel, and that this trend has been increasing steadily for decades. For example, less than half (48 percent) of respondents under 35 agreed that ‘Israel’s destruction would be a personal tragedy,’ compared to 78 percent of those 65 and older. And just 54 percent of the younger group are ‘comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state,’ compared to 81 percent of those 65 and older, 74 percent of those 50-64 and 64 percent of the 35-49 age group.”…
That means the American Jewish detachment from Israel will increase as younger Jews age and replace their parents and grandparents’ generation.
“There is growing discomfort with the drawing of hard group boundaries of all sorts,” Cohen said of the so-called “millenials,” those born after 1980. “The idea of a Jewish state reflects hard group boundaries, that there is a distinction between Jews and everybody else. That does not sit well with young Jews.”
The report also indicated that the overall slide in attachment to, or interest in, Israel does not mean that young American Jews are “less Jewish.” On the contrary, numerous recent studies and anecdotal evidence demonstrate great cultural and religious vitality and creativity among young Jews. Israel is just not as big a part of the picture.
after all first and foremost they identify as americans. as it should be.
wrt the holocaust, i suggest you review my link above and read joe klien and greenwald’s thrashing of the ADL. our society is holocaust saturated.
Jews, like other peoples who have suffered genocide or other catastrophes, have the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder on a national scale……Not to mention that a person who, knowing that another individual has PTSD, gratuitously taunts that individual, must bear at least some moral responsibility if he or she reacts.
please! so what you are saying is that because on a ‘national scale’ you have an ‘illness’ and therefore must be treated w/kid gloves because any criticism of you is considered a ‘taunt’ and those who criticize you must take responsibility for whatever the outcome of your reaction because we must understand you have an illness?
get real.
forgot the last link..Debunking Israel Lobby, Study Shows Growing Alienation of American Jews From Israel
here’s another from reuters
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Young U.S. non-Orthodox Jews are becoming increasingly lukewarm if not alienated in their support for Israel in a trend that is not likely to be reversed, according to a study released on Thursday.
Blending into U.S. society, including marriage to non-Jews and a tendency to look on Judaism more in religious terms than ethnic ones, is part of what’s happening, the study found.
“For our parent’s generation, the question that mattered was, how do we regard Israel? For Generation Y (born after 1976) the question is indeed, why should we regard Israel?” said Roger Bennett, a vice president of The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, which sponsored the study.
“Until people recognize that a healthy and animated dialogue about Israel is the first step to a meaningful connection, the ‘Israel debate’ that takes place in America is liable to become moot well before Israel celebrates its 100th birthday,” he added.
moot.
Questions here should be pauses here:
How many Iranian’s Scientists killed/assassinated by Israelis / Mossad?
In case of Iraq dozen Iraqi scientists/ engineers was assassinated during till Israeli OPRA operation when Israeli fighters bombed Iraqi nuclear centre in Baghdad.
Then they finish them after 2003; even before few are assassinated in Libya and Yemen before 2003 who managed flee Iraq and old regime.
If Israelis so concerned and passionate about Iran and here threat to them why they did not hear any killing from Iranian ‘s scientist or assassinated by Mosad for the lat 10 years or let say five years with all the propaganda that Iran near to enter World nuclear club?
Let’s not forgot Egypt in early 50 and Israelis oration with germen scientists that Jamal Abdul Nasser brought then to Egypt to start Egypt military industry after few assignation inside Egypt those German’s flee the country back home.
Did Israelis announced any operations that prepared against countries she think they threaten here future?
No, again Israelis kept Operation Opera in very secretive way even those pilots not told what their training about just in last mint, also not all Israelis politicians knew about the operation neither US when Regain was shocked to hear that Israel bombed Iraq Nuclear centre and he send letter to Israelis about it.
Another operation is Uganda/ Antibes Operation was very secretive.
So what we hear today from Israelis newspaper and US to make panic and havoc in the region the looser as usual those very shaky Gulf regimes who don’t know what’s going on having huge revenue from oil the foreigner’s attention ton that petro-dollar to make it the Gulf Walkcake.
Annie, I assume that you don’t regard the United States, Canada or Australia as democracies? All exist entirely on stolen land from which the indigenous people have been largely expunged. Likewise for Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and much of the Caribbean. I assume that, by your standards, the Czech Republic and Poland (which expelled their entire German minorities), Bulgaria and Greece (which did the same to most of their Turks), Greek and Turkish Cyprus, the Balkans, Turkey itself (which continues to systematically deny equal rights to its Kurdish population), Latvia (which still denies citizenship to most of its ethnic Russians), Switzerland (about 20 percent of whose permanent residents, some of them third-generation, are non-citizens) and Sri Lanka (which is at war with its Tamil citizens) are also not democracies. In fact, is there a democracy on the planet by your definition? Half the reason Europe is so peaceful today is because it spent most of two centuries fighting, subjugating, ethnic cleansing and genociding itself into relative homogeneity.
You seem to be confusing the ideal of perfect liberal democracy with democracy as such. If the definition of democracy is limited to states that were born without sin and live up to their ideals all the time, then it is so limited as to be meaningless. In fact, there are many flawed democracies which are illiberal in some respects and fall short of their ideals but which nevertheless have freely elected, responsive governments and institutions that protect the rule of law. Israel – where all citizens can vote and be elected, and where the rights of non-Jewish citizens are protected by the courts – qualifies. I’ll be the first to say that Israel is an imperfect democracy and that its treatment of minorities leaves a hell of a lot to be desired, but it is politically a democracy and its internal conflicts play out according to democratic procedures. I’d say that the closest outside analogues to Israeli politics are the Balkan countries and Sri Lanka, which are also frequently illiberal but are nonetheless democratic.
More later: there are things that urgently need doing in the real world.
here’s your democracy
Only 2 words missing here: Heil Hitler. What a disgusting bunch of brownshirt Jew-haters.
Oh please, Ozon, you’re as bad as they are. Nobody here has given the slightest evidence of being anti-semitic. Let’s keep it real.
The sitting duck article by Helena Cobban is an excellent analysis of our impatience to start a new war , because we cannot be stopped by Israeli blackmail and cunning connivance.
It is really surprising to me that we do not attribute to the current war our gradual deterioration in eight years, our already ruined world status (nobody cares about US any more), our miserably failing economy, pain in the house (mortgage crisis), pain at the pumps (gas prices, pain at the schools (cost of university education) and pain in travel(1 Euro=$1.60), and perennial job losses.
As testimony shows, while in the past we could not keep any country as a friend at any cost, we can at least boast of keeping one country as a friend at any cost fighting innumerable war for them, because we are indeed hotage to them. This is what hapens when in reality the tail wags the dog.
We should pray that with divine intervention a new administartion will come which will clearly see the light of the day next year, and realize how clearly we were wrong these eight years!