The wise heads at the New York Times and other bastions of liberalism are increasingly frightened by the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. But, like the Obama administration, what really scares them is the prospect Israel might strike on its own to avert the peril of a nuclear weapon in the hands of the ayatollahs. In an editorial published yesterday, the Times reverted to treating Israel’s warnings to the West about the need to act as morally equivalent to Iran’s genocidal threats against the life of the Jewish state. The Times put down put Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s assertion that Israel was a “cancer” they would eradicate as mere “saber rattling” to be pigeonholed alongside Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s prescient comment that anyone who “says ‘later’ may find that later is too late,” to deal with Iran.
The Times believes Israel’s government must be forced to wait patiently until the Obama administration’s cautious program of sanctions directed at Iran can work. But the problem with that advice is the three years that Obama has invested in rallying international support for sanctions have not worked for two reasons.
The first is the Iranians believe that in the end, Obama will, as the Times advises him to do, break down and accept a negotiated settlement of the issue that will allow the Iranians to run out the clock the way North Korea did when they bluffed the U.S. on the same issue. The chances of any such deal being observed are virtually nonexistent. Negotiations at this point would be an admission the United States is prepared to live with a nuclear Iran.
The second is the United States cannot count on the international support that would make sanctions work even if Obama had the will to enforce them. The diplomatic wild cards of Russia and China can always be counted on to spike any American initiative when they please. The evidence for this assertion was on display at the United Nations yesterday when both Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Syria that was aimed at ending the slaughter in that country and forcing dictator Bashar Assad out in Damascus. The administration thought it had forged a consensus on Syria, but in the end, they were thwarted by the desire of Russia and China to not let the West prevail. That will embolden Assad to hang on longer and kill more of his people, leaving those well-meaning pundits who keep predicting his fall disappointed again.
But it also ought to disillusion those observers who are similarly counting on an American-led sanctions plan to force Iran’s leaders to give up their nuclear ambitions. Obama’s patient approach on Iran is flawed in many respects, principally because the Iranians have good reason to doubt the president’s willingness to go to the mat with them. But Washington is also handicapped by the fact that it cannot count on either Russia or China to stand by and let Tehran be isolated or to have its fuel exports embargoed. If Obama can’t rely on them to play along on Syria where the international stakes are smaller, how can it possibly assume they will do the right thing on Iran?
These calculations are exactly why Israel’s leaders are contemplating acting on their own to stop Iran. Though the Israelis cannot hope to do as thorough a job on Iran’s nuclear facilities as the United States could, those, like the Times editorialists, who claim an Israeli attack would “make things worse” are wrong. Even a delay of a few years in Iran’s timetable might be decisive in averting the danger. And the assumption that an attack would strengthen the Islamist regime is probably mistaken. Faced with the alternative of waiting for Obama’s feckless and unreliable diplomacy to work, it’s no wonder that Jerusalem may believe there is no choice but to strike and to strike soon.
It is very difficult for U.S. leaders, actual managers of American executive power, to work the calculus of cost benefits and arrive at a go-decision on an American strike, precisely because of the developed world's de facto past enabling of Iranian nuclear weapons and Russia and China's willingness to revive antagonistic cold-war alliances should Europe change course and move beyond the so far untested proposed oil boycott to acquiescence to American military preemption. n nIsrael's calculations run asymmetrically in the other direction. n nIt is clear as daylight to anyone not a whore, a knave, or simple minded that Iran is not engaged in idle chatter. n nThis is the same "reasonable" Times that counseled against believing in Soviet famine. n nOpinions from nowhere for folks with an overabundance of disposable income and self-regard trapped in a bubble of riches, beautiful coops, and cozening elegance weakly rationalized by all the right progressive political correctness money can buy. n nThat said an air campaign commanded by the redoubtable Barak is not a guaranteed winner out of the box,.
putting off Iran's murderous intentions for a year would be very helpful. it would allow President Romney to start trying to repair the disaster former President Obama was responsible for. n nI say "send the planes today, Bibi!"
President Romney. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
30 – 90 days. Les jeux sont fait. Israel will get one shot. I think they have the will and weapons to make the most of it.
Gawd only knows we've given them enough of them.
Michiganruth, you must be referring to David Pannetta's assertion that Israel at best could delay Iran's nuclear program for a matter of one or two years. If that prognostication was a reliable one, you would be correct to assert Israel's best interest is to attack now. As it happens, you are also incredibly gullible to suggest the statement has any credibility. That Pannetta could muster such a platitude of the inevitability of a nuclear-backed Islamo-fascist, terrorist-sponsoring regime is strategically nonsensical. All too often, the dictates of the Obama administration reduce American power and grant dignity to the world's most odious transgressors of human rights. It is a statement that is as ludicrous as suggesting that Iran's nuclear ambition is purely a matter of energy, and not warfare. n nObama dreams of a world in which nuclear weapons are an anachronism. In this vision, which leaves no room for eyesight, Israel and Iran are fungible in their equal arrogation of a nuclear arsenal. Obama must feel that one Nobel Peace Prize is insufficient. n nLet's chosse not to succumb to Pannetta's poorly argued timeframe comments. Let's envision an all of the above approach to defeating Iran. If Israel strikes at Iran, and the U.S. cripples its infrastructure with sanctions concomitantly, it is conceiveable that Iran's nuclear agenda could be forestalled indefinitely. Ultimately, the extent of what damage the U.S. or Israel can do to Iran of conjecture that cannot be verified prior to acting. When there is loose intelligence, but ample evidence that Iran is a terrorist-sponsoring state with the desire to become a world power, there is no cause to hesitate on preventing that possibility. Pannetta may be content in being defeatist, but I'm not. Saying it will happen anyway seems a very convenient approach to allowing Iran become nuclear, and avoiding action that might help reverse that situation. If Pannetta was competent, he would know that Iran has thrived under Obama, and that it has relished every occasion Pannetta discredited Israel.
President Obama fumbled away any chance of avoiding this confrontation when he failed to support the Green Revolution of June 2009. That will be seen in years to come as his greatest failure, not ObamaCare or the stimulus package. It will condemn him to the ranks of the worst presidents in history, if not the very worst.
I wonder if, following your rationale, Iran should support the OWS occupation.
Israeli officials were reported as offering the same under-one year delay forecast. Problem is success for a preemption is also speculative. The future is one of those unknown unknowns.
"And the assumption that an attack would strengthen the Islamist regime is probably mistaken." n nProbably. A wonderful word, eh? And what if "probably" turns out to be reality? And what if that new reality leads to even worse outcomes? The NYT is "wrong" that an Israeli strike would make things worse. Oh, okay. What if YOU are wrong, though? Is that possible? Will you recommend more war, more bombing missions, to fix the disaster that bombing strikes produced — just as you are now recommending bombing strikes to fix the disastrous results — one of which is an empowered Iran — that resulted from the eight-year war against Iraq that you also recommended as being certain to terrify Iran so much that they would never dare cross us again? Do you think the Middle East region is less or more dangerous now than it was in 2003? So more of the same is going to make things better now? You don't really have answers for these questions — not answers for me in particular, but in general. Your war-urging articles here at Commentary never address the issue of whether war has reduced the need for more war to the present date, and if not, why you keep insisting that we resort to it again.
Dear Kathy, I do believe that back in the mid-20th century, Western powers and the Soviet Union fought a vicious war against Nazi Germany and the Japanese. Thanks to God; we won that war. Since then, we have not had any new aggressive wars coming from Germany or Japan to the present date. Sadly, in this life, war is sometimes the only option decent men and women have.
"Since then, we have not had any new aggressive wars coming from Germany or Japan to the present date." n nWe have, however, had numerous other aggressive wars involving other countries and regions that resulted directly from forces unleashed by WWII. n nIt seems to me that if WWII is the only war in human history that was justified, and/or that worked, or was won, however you want to put it, so that it is the war that is always used to justify every other subsequent war, your argument that war is "sometimes the only option decent men and women have" leads to the conclusion that no other war in human history other than WWII was necessary, justified, or successful. Indeed, I can re-state your argument to say that the only war in modern (if not human) history that has worked was WWII. Not a very convincing argument for bombing Iran.
Dear Kathy, I personally do not believe that WWII was the only just war in history. I do believe that war should be a last resort and a country can/should even make sacrifices to keep the peace. I personally do not believe the Iranian regime has shown itself to be trustworthy at all; certainly not with nuclear weapons. Like besht2003 said, Iran is not even a neighbor of Israel, yet the Iranian regime has continuously, by words and deeds, been waging war against Israel ever since they came to power in 1979. As it says in the Bible, "You shall reap what you sow."
Deeds and words? Can you show some of those "deeds" please? Perhaps, you can give us examples of say, some Israeli scientists that have been bombed by Iran's spies while driving to work in Tel Aviv?
Fact: a Jewish cultural center in Argentina was bombed in a terrorist attack several years ago. I cannot remember the exact year,sorry about that. Many innocent people were killed. Western/Israeli intelligence services know that this bombing was the work of the Iranian regime. Fact: the Iranian regime has armed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Why do they arm Hezbollah? Answer; to wage war against Israel and to increase their influence in the Muslim world. Do you think those missiles slamming into Israel in 2006 came from the Tooth Fairy? Fact; Iran supports Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Rockets regularly slam into Israel from the Gaza Strip. These "deeds" and facts my friend are acts of war. Why do you hate Western Civilization and love its enemies.?
"War is sometimes the only option decent men and women have" n nAnd there you have it, folks! The statement of the century!
Sarcasm, my friend, is not wisdom. A lot of times it is not really even that funny. Sarcasm may be at times sugar-coated bitterness.
This is about Israel's choice, really, not America's. Hitler's threats against the Jews turned out to be real and the results were no more Jews in Europe. Israel can't afford to have the same set of calculations as America does. And America's calculations, so to speak, are probably, and if history is a predictor, DEFINITELY, not Obama's whose own ideological biases would go on auto-pilot up to and past the point where diplomacy was revealed a a fig leaf for just letting the Iranians get nukes. And hoping things would be OK. n nAnyways the Middle East is BETTER off without Hussein who was impulsive and launched two major wars, one against Iran and one against Kuwait. This old pooch doesn't recall Iran being a major push one way or the other for the Iraq War II–though Iran was concerned enough to reconfigure and re-hide its nuke program. There is plenty nuff of Iraq near-miss disaster skirting botch-ups in the Iraqi in-country plannng to derive warnings against rushing off to war. n nThat said, Jews are tired of being targeted for genocide, at least those mean old tough Jews in Isael who can fight back and when the choice is between suicide and bad things happening, you go for the bad things door. n n Iran's hatred of Israel and America are baseline attributes of its ideology and rationale–they are not reactive. We haven't been to war against Iran as you would put it EVER though we went back and forth between providing intelligence to, gosh, Hussein and sending cakes to Tehran. And they railed against the Big Satan when they took hostages way before any Iraq wars when Carter was President. n nIsrael isn't even a neighbor of Iran–Iran has no claims against it and yet there Iran is using Hitlerian curses to condemn the "Zionist regime" to death. There is by the way no reason to believe that the people who attempted to protest the regime in Iran's Green Revolution and are now disaffected would change tack due to a short Israeli attack. n nPutting that to one side as a maybe, America doesn't live in the Middle East. An argument for non-involvement. Israel does and would like to continue breathing–a reason for preemption. n nStill, Commentary won't make that choice. The Israeli leaders don't read it if they even know it exists. And if Israeli leadership decides this is an existential choice then cutting off aid to Israel and threatening, G-d forbid, war against her won't necessarily alter the decision made. n nWhen it is made.
Much of the above is just argumentation from pre-existing belief; i.e., "the Middle East is BETTER off without Hussein" because he was "impulsive" and "launched" two wars, against Iran and Kuwait, respectively. How is this proof or even evidence that the Middle East is now better off, when Israel is about to launch a new war, against Iran, because of a growing nuclear capacity that the last war, in Iraq, actually opened the doors to? (Forgive ending a sentence with a preposition.) n n"Iran's hatred of Israel and America are baseline attributes of its ideology and rationale–they are not reactive. We haven't been to war against Iran as you would put it EVER…." n nIran did not even EXIST as a nation before 1918. Iran itself, along with most of the rest of the modern Middle Eastern map, was created by the West — specifically Britain — and has not been free from Western control since then. So to claim that Iran's contemporary anti-Western hatred is inherent in the Iranian character, and is not reactive to any Western action, is incorrect on its face. In addition, one has to define war very narrowly to say the U.S. has never "been to war" against Iran EVER." n nIran's hostility to the West was almost exclusively directed at Britain through WWII and for almost a decade after WWII. You may not know or believe it, but Iranians actually had a very positive view of the U.S. before 1953. We were the great liberating country, the country that saved Europe from Nazi Germany, the country that *opposed* colonialism and imperialism and freed Europe from it. It was the UK that was seen as an oppressive empire. n nAnd if you do not know what happened in 1953 to change all that, then I would (as gently as possible) suggest that you have a LOT of reading and learning to do.
The proof is lack so far of two major wars, one of which was on World War I scale in human carnage. Israel is not intending to launch a war against Iran in the sense that Iraq launched wars–its plans, so far articulated, do not involve swallowing territory or overthrowing regimes–they have in mind rendering two or three sites non-operational. Foolhardy or no, the goals are limited. n nIran existed as Persia for thousands of years. And Islam for 14 centuries. Iran is not en toto a colonial artificat any more than Israel (or the Palestinians) notwithstanding interaction with Brits and Ottomans. Iranian hatred of the West, obviously, is more specific, and the hatred of the ruling leadership and not necessarily expressive of the entire nation. We are talking about the mullahs, The shah liked Israel just fine. And the mullahs stress the Shia roots of Iran and not the pre-Islamic heritage.
Yes, the shah liked Israel just fine — which apparently makes his 25-year reign of terror against his own people just fine as well, although obviously not for everyone. Whether you think the Shah was great for Israel or not, you can't wish away the real effects of those 25 years and everything that's happened since, simply because you don't think it matters. n n"The proof is lack so far of two major wars, one of which was on World War I scale in human carnage." n nI can't figure out what you mean by this. There have been two major wars going on in the Middle East region since 2003, and one of them from 2001. One of them is nominally over, but its disastrous effects are still a reality, and the other one is still ongoing. So I don't know what you're trying to say. n n
This is besides the point . The Shah's t was a repressive regime. Not a reign of terror. Iranians would gladly exchange his delusions of grandeur for the holy warriors now running iran into a wall. The point is that animosity towards the 1953 overthrow had nothing to do with current Iranian hatred of Israel and Jews which is fundamental anti-Semitism of the IslamoNazis in charge. Not the Shah. Not 1953, Why is this so hard to understand? Because they don't urinate on the memories of your murdered family? They hate Jews. They think the Holocaust is ha-ha funny and sponsor Holocaust laugh-fests. They want Jews dead. They think Anne Frank in Dachau was the stuff of comedy. They trade in the most scabrous Nazi anti-Jewish pornography. Their hatred of Jews and Israel is not some rational reaction to past injustice but their own self-induced psycnosis for which Jews and Israel bear no responsiblity. They even went down to Argentina to kill elderly Jews in a community center in 1983 to display their hatred of Jews–and those old pensioners didn't do nothing.
What I'm tryiing to say is that present-day Iraq is a far far better place for Iraqiis and Iranians and the neighbors of Iraq than Husseins murderous family perversion of Ba'ath ideology. That war is over. America is going bye-bye. Albeit the new arrangements are not an improvement in the way the planners of that war figured, but then again, it turns out they didn't plan very much about the day after. Hopefully the Israeli planning is more subsntative and the goals as limited as they say they are. Then again, I'm not Ehud Barak and his track record sucks. But, the major point is that Iraq and Iranian nukes are two separate issues and they cant be glommed together for rhetorical purposes. The Iranians know what they want. Nukes. This week they forbade yet another peace mission from taking a look at their closed facilites. Nobody else knows what to do. Not Washington. Not Israel. Scribblers can say what they want–the West, including Israel is hesitant, some more than others. There is no rush to war. But Jews can't hide their heads in the sand because non-Jewish leftists believe that the Iranian theocracies active sponsorship of mass Jewish genocide isn't their problem. n nEthical indifference is not moral superiority.
"What I'm tryiing to say is that present-day Iraq is a far far better place for Iraqiis and Iranians and the neighbors of Iraq than Husseins murderous family perversion of Ba'ath ideology." n nI know that's what you're trying to say. I just don't know how you believe you are in a position to know this, much less say it. You are an American, living in the U.S. Who are you to declare that Iraq is better off now? From whose point of view? This simply seems to me like a presumptuous thing to claim that you know, with such certainty. n n"That war is over. America is going bye-bye. Albeit the new arrangements are not an improvement in the way the planners of that war figured, but then again, it turns out they didn't plan very much about the day after." n nUh huh. Then again, you are an American living in the U.S. who does not have to live with the results of those mistakes on a daily basis. Iraqis living in Iraq might not feel so philosophical about it. And the war is not over. It may be over for you, and for other Americans, but it's not over for Iraqis. For Iraq, the war is not over. For Iraq, the war will never be over. This is one of the reasons why it's so easy for successive U.S. administrations to launch wars against other countries, and for Americans like you to support those wars — because you do not have to deal with the consequences, and no one that you know or love has to deal with the consequences, with the exception of combat veterans and their families. n n"Nobody else knows what to do. Not Washington. Not Israel. Scribblers can say what they want–the West, including Israel is hesitant, some more than others. There is no rush to war. But Jews can't hide their heads in the sand because non-Jewish leftists believe that the Iranian theocracies active sponsorship of mass Jewish genocide isn't their problem." n nActually, as an American, leftist or not, I am very much affected by whether Israel bombs Iran or not. As a Jew (I *am* Jewish), I also have quite a strong interest in the blowback against Israel as well as against U.S. interests. I don't buy the argument that, as an American — whether a Jewish American or a non-Jewish American; whether a leftist American or a rightist American — I have no stake in this matter, no interest in the outcome, no skin in the game, and no right to an opinion. And as long as my government hands over billions of dollars a year in money and weapons to Israel, with no accountability required, I will continue to have every right to tell Israel what to do — as little as Israel might care about what I think they should do. n n"Ethical indifference is not moral superiority." n nOf course it isn't. How could it be? The problem is that people define ethical belief and action in very different ways.
Trust me. Iraq is primarily a Shia country. The Sunnis lost. The majority, notwithstanding left-wing fantasies are not n ostalgic for Hussein. Yes, you have a stake in the matter, but in actively apologizing for a regime planning genocide–in actively attempting to promote half truths and syllogisms to distract attention from the nature of the regime in question, by spreading the mistruth that t Israel and America have earned the mad rabid contempt of the Iranian mullahs,, you've helped make the bed you insist Israelwill force you to lie in. Congratulations. n nAfter a certain point, to use a valid analogy, it becoome less than useless to explain Hitler by way of the injustices of Weimer reparations or World War I. Or to explain Stalin's internal terror by recourse to the history of American anti-imperialism. etc. It became a lie. n nBut tell away. Nobody is taking away your right of speech any more than they are challenging Commentary's.
Judaism, and the self-evident inter-dependency of Western economies to Middle Esatern outcomes are no excuse for painting Israel as a rogue nation exploiting bllind American largesse and call the content, the substance of the purported Judaism into question. Unless we simply assume that Judaism is equivalent to the left-wing line of the day.
Israel *is* a rogue nation! From having illegal nuclear weapons to using depleted uranium and white phosphorous on civilian populations to committing Apartheid to attacking all of its neighbors (and the list goes on and on). Are those not the trademarks of a rogue nation? n nBTW, is Iran doing any of those things?
Left-wing lies, disinformation and propagana.
Because It isn't bllions (and billions) of dollars without accountabilty–more left wing cliche–Its between four and five billion and isn't handed over like candy and comes with strings up the ying-yang. The aid has in fact shaped Israeli policy vis a vis the Palestinians: why, for example, they built a wall and planned for no permanant reoccupation of the PA in the suicide bomb intifidah (and spared Arafat's compound). n nDo you and your social cotorie worry about the billions and billions of petrodollars funding Iranian bombs and rockets against Jews. Of course not. Your ethical beliefs trend in one simple and unquestioned direction. That's the problem. n nYou avoid actual moral dilemas by suppressing unpleasant facts while turning arguments you disagree with into straw arguments. n nYou have yet to even recognize the main point (what the hell does Iraq have to do with this) that Iran is a studiously anti-Semitc regime.
Woooooe, Moe! Watch out the "anti-semitic(tm)" card has been pulled! All bets are off now.
Takeaway: Israel didn't pick a fight with Iran's current leadership. Not history not prior Israel not prior Jewish actions justifies the violent and voluntary de facto war against Jews and Israel Iran's leadership is set on. General lessons from the two Iraq wars in which America participated ought not willy-nilly be applied to counsel non-action against Iran just because some of the same participants are still around. Similarly, the waste and miscalculations of WWI were not conclusive arguements to let Hitler have free run of Europe and Tojo have his Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (over dead of Poland or Nanking etc. etc.) n nThere is some case-by-case thinking to be done. Personally I am skeptical of air-only campaigns as a solution to much of anything. Unfortunately people choose them as some kind of middle action between lnitiating military campaigns contemplated as too costly and doing nothing. And the air force will always argue for the efficacy of air power. Well, maybe. But starting air campaigns because you don't feel you can introduce ground elements is not auspicious.
So, no, we are not talking about "Iranian hostility" as an eternal historical phenomena but the theocratic hostility of the CURRENT RULERS. The current leadership is far more disposed towards Hitler than it is to, say,. women wearing lipstick. n nThe much-touted coup against Mossedegh has nothing, zilch, to do with current Iranian policy. In fact the mullahs put the latter day followers of Moddesdegh (who started the anti-Shah revolution) in concentration camps or killed them. n nA LITTLE bit of knowledge is a DANGEROUS thing.
I said nothing about Iranian hostility being "eternal." I said that it's in large part a result of U.S. policy toward Iran for the past 60 years or so. That doesn't mean Iran bears no responsibility or moral opprobrium for the way it treats its people or for its belligerence toward the West; it means that REAL U.S. policy for six decades has a lot to do with that belligerence. History did not begin yesterday. Acting like the current Iranian government is the incarnation of some kind of free-floating evil that the actions, policies, and decisions of other countries — the U.S. prominently among them — did nothing to influence or create is both ahistorical and counterproductive to any kind of positive outcome. n n"The much-touted coup against Mossedegh has nothing, zilch, to do with current Iranian policy. In fact the mullahs put the latter day followers of Moddesdegh (who started the anti-Shah revolution) in concentration camps or kille dthem." n nSez you, I know. You don't make it true just by stating it, though. I understand that you believe U.S. policy in 1953 has nothing to do with Iran in 2012, but that really is just an opinion with nothing to back it up that you've given me so far. You just beg the point when you say the "theocratic hostility of the current rulers" is the cause of all our problems with Iran. The theocratic hostility did not exist before 1979. You can't argue that away. n nAnd I don't understand why you think that the mullahs punishing "latter-day followers of Mossadegh" shows that Iranian attitudes today have nothing to do with the past. You seem to be suggesting that the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran should logically regard Mossadegh as a national hero, and the fact that they don't means that Mossadegh's fate has nothing to do with current realities. Why would that be true, though? Mossadegh's short-lived regime was secular and not religiously extreme at all — why would Iran's current rulers consider that something positive? n nI do agree with your final sentence, though. I would add that the problem is not just the amount of knowledge; it's also the accuracy of the little knowledge that there is.
Sez history. The Iranians killed the left-wing. Period. It is an effing dictatorship. n nThere wasn't a theocratic dictatorship BEFORE 1979. n nThis isn't a dispute in kindergarten about Jimmy and Marie disagreeing about play session. n nAgain, they persecuted the left-wing and persecute those outside their small sectarian circles (which are also in internal schism). n nIt is a d-i-c-t-a-t-o-r-s-h-i-p. n nThey raped protestors in the Green Revolution and then killed them. n nThese are the men whose stink you attempt to hide with perfumed sophistry. n nAnd those women weren't part of some American foreign policy cabal stretching back for 6 decades. n nDo you think a regime that degrades, tortures, and murders female prisoners is making in any sense justified reactions to past injustice? You have yet to acknowledge their state-sponsored terrorism in targetting the 1983 Jewish community center in Argentina, much less the wave of terror against Iranians in the failed Green revolution.
Before you keep squawking the "Jewish community center in Argentina" thing, better take a look at what Israel is doing to Iranian scientists inside Iran. Or what they're doing to the Palestinians. You can take one single incident which may or may not be what you say it, ignore everything else the other side does and think you have a valid argument.
Oh, Hitler lives in Iran now! All bets are off. We have to invade. We hafta, we hafta, we hafta!
iran + nuke = genocidal W.W.3 n nthe choice is between hard and mass death.
And yet, to date, the United States is STILL the only nation that has ever used nuclear weapons in an actual war against an actual population.
And? iran's mullah blew up a community center for the aged and raped, then executed women for daring to ask for a diffderent set of rulers. I'd say that between Harry Truman and these cats, these guys are the more worrisome.
Are you serious about that statement? Are you aware of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? BTW, what nation(s) – other than the US – have used nuclear weapons against a civilian population? Am I missing something here or am I not reading right?
Has anyone told you when was the last time that Iran attacked anyone? I'll give you a hint: it was around 1855. When was the last time that Israel or the US attacked another country?
You excuse the murder of Jews, pure and simple. And the subversion of Sunni governments. Iran has no natural right to interfere in the internal affairs of the Gulf emirates or to identify, ha ha, with Palestinans by arming Hezbollah to send rockets into Tel Aviv. And no, under international law, Iran's idenfication with Palestinians is not an excuse to murder Jews in Argentina. It doesn't explain running Holocaust denial conferences with self-declared Nazis. And the U.S. is not arming rockets to murder to Iranian civilians. Or killing Iranians in old age centers. Even Hamas is backing away from Iranian support. n nThese are just empty apologetics vainly attempting to excxuse Iranian acts of freely chosen murder and attempts to revive a neo-Nazi internataional coalition. And rationalizing acts of war that have no natural rationale under international law.
And you excuse the murder of civilians by Israel, women and children. Pure and simple! Two wrongs have never made a right, you know?
Left-wing lies, disinformation and propaganda.
Right-wing lies, disinformation and propaganda.
Jews did nothing nothing nothing to justify denying the Holocaust while promoting another one. Jews did nothing to justify deploying Der Sturmer rabid anti-Semtic caricatures of Jews. These things happened. You ignore them. La-la-la-la-I can't hear you. n nDo you think a regime that tortures opposition and imposes modesty on females is making reasoned poltical points on any level? And offering silly arguments excusing any and all self-willed voluntary acts of aggression against their neighobrs, Jews and Sunni just avoids the issues here. No, Hitler was not a product of Weimar inequities. No, the Iranians have will, goals, and are not passive reactions to past injustices. Yes, the corpses of Jews and Iranian democrats and Sunnis murdered by Iranian agents in Bahrain testify to their aggressive thrust for hegemony.
What jews (and by this I mean the government of Israel which is malignant Zionists) propagated yet another lie. Iran said nothing of the sort, in fact, it is a well-known and accepted fact that it was a deliberate mistranslation so as to cast doubt against Iran just like the videos of the attack on the Mavi Marmara and the slaughter of civilians was. Anyone whose eyes are open can see that Israel is nothing but a colonial, terrorist entity.
Iran is not offering sympathy to Palestinians, it is joining with Neo-Nazis in Munich to say that Israel must cease to exist. America is not saying that Iran should cease to exist. Nor Israel. But the Iranian leadership has called explicitly for the liquidation of Israeli jews over and over and over again and gone to Argentina to blow up Jews there to underline the point–to the degree that the Palestinians themselves are nervously saying thanks but no thanks. Syrians don't seem to get the logic of Iran's interest in blowing them up in Homs either.
Wow! Where in the world do you get all that misinformation from? Maybe the fact that Israel is bombing Iranian civilians inside Iran in broad daylight gives them the right to do what you claim they are doing.
"The Shah's t was a repressive regime. Not a reign of terror." n nNo, it was a reign of terror. Torture, murder, disappearing forever, and all that. n n"Iranians would gladly exchange his delusions of grandeur for the holy warriors now running iran into a wall." n nThey would? How do you know this? n n"I'd say that between Harry Truman and these cats, these guys are the more worrisome." n nProbably a true statement. That doesn't mean bombing them is going to make things less worrisome. n n"You excuse the murder of Jews, pure and simple." n nI don't excuse the murder of anyone. I use the word "anyone" to mean anyone. Even if they're not Jewish. n n"They raped protestors in the Green Revolution and then killed them." n nFemale protesters were raped and killed under the Shah, too. Even if they didn't protest. You didn't have to actively or publicly protest to be arrested, tortured, and/or killed by Savak. n n"These are the men whose stink you attempt to hide with perfumed sophistry." n nPlease cut the sanctimonious crap, besht. Israel and the United States *created Savak and trained the Shah's secret police* (i.e., Savak). That is historical fact. There is no call for self-righteousness here. Everyone's hands are filthy. n nIn closing, about my halachic claim to Jewishness: My understanding is that, halachically, one is Jewish if one's biological mother is Jewish. My mother was Jewish (and she was my biological mother). My father was Jewish. My grandparents on both sides of my family were Jewish. I don't know about my great-grandparents, but I'm assuming this is enough to make me halachically Jewish.
Of course you're defending the mullahs. n nThe whole direction of your puniversalist moral equivalence is to de facto erase the danger that is posed to Jews (sa a parochial human community rather than some universalist cipher of anyones and everyones–i.e., nobodies) It is you who claim that Iran must be understood. There are the diversionary qualifications (maybe the mullahs aren't 100 percent perfect after all) but they are bookended by the programmatic condemnation of those who would act on the danger posed. n nAfter all somebody else did it to them. Israel is bad. The Savak was worse. Israel trained Savak and that explains why the Iranian mullahs stone children and persecute the Bahai. They care about the Palestinians. They have legitimate geopolitical concerns On and on.
Such a tired shabby crappy rhetorical device. First you say, "others did it first'" then you intone some pious Hallmark crap "we should all be brothers" and then you consign the actual misdeeds of the current leaders to the momory hole. What the hey, so they meet with actual neo-Naziis and promote neo-Nazi propaganda. So what? There's Savak. And, uh, Nagasaki. And, uh, the Indians, don't forget them. We are all wicked and everyone's hands are filthy and actually Israeli and Jewish hands are filthy above all. And the Americans too. n nSubtext: Israel has it coming. n nIsrael has no enemies it did not cause or does not deserve. n nWe are talking about a regime that speaks of the Jewish state as a "cancer" to be eradicated and literally consorts with Nazis. n nAh, but the Jews have blood on their hands. n nNot sufficiently pure of soul. n nLike the universal anybody's. n nSort of like the Bonzo dog Doo Dah Band's "urban spaceman"–they don't exist.
I guess for a conservative editorialist, commenting on the venomous NYT is a source of endless material and a guarantee of lifetime employment. But what Tobin is complaining about is one of the pillars of that institution that will never change. Whether it's Auschwitz or Iran, minimize the threat to the Jews and oppose any Jewish action to oppose it. That's really the only thing you need to know about that rag. End of story.
Obama is saying the US will not support Israel if it attacks Iran. Is that so? Did Obama say that? nIt's what I heard today. I am not surprised. Obama is so soft on Islam, it could be said he is one. nKathy's pleas for peaceful solutions are heartfelt. I am no big fan of Israeli government ever since the takeover after the assassination of Yitsak Rabin, and the scuttling of his peace initiatives….having said that, it must still be admitted that Iran holds an insane hatred of Israel and is committed to destroying Israel. Add NUKE to that, and the prospect is more than unsettling, it is intolerable. Israel must act to defend itself from these insane threats. nAct HOW? declare war? Is that the only choice? I do not think that Israel can do surgical or precision bombing and directly attack nuclear sites, without such action being a de facto declaration of war between the state of Iran and Israel. Maybe the United States could have done that, or do that, but Israel cannot do it without a declaration of total war. Am I mistaken? Total war unleashes monsters that do things we don't expect…and results happen that we never anticipated. The scenarios all turn very horrible, and are really out of control, apocalyptic even. Kathy's Jewish soul is definitely right in crying out for Peace. Here's MY SUGGESTION: Bibi needs to do what Yitzak did…show them the nukes. Say, here's how many we have, here's what we will do to you…eliminate you from Earth…if you shoot a single nuclear missile at Israel. Then build up the IRON DOME missile shield so that any incoming missile blows up over Iran…. This should postpone war for 3-4 years…and in that time, maybe there will be a regime change in Iran……
If I had any power, I'd round up all the politicians, pundits and other flag-waving fanatics who demand the bombing of Iran and send them in first.
that's bizzarre., Well, it's also Greek Ms. Apikores. but yes, you are indeed Kathy the pure. n nby definition. weird. n nBut as the sages said, there are no coincidences. n nThere is a root beyond "moral" vs. "immoral" to faith that the apparantly evil is also HaShem's blessing of goodness, although we can't see it. On all levels, not just politics (which we can blame on voluntary sins) but sickness and old age and suffering. Alzheimers. Human conflicts on every in every station every day. Sickness. Inevitable death. n n"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror." n nAs in Laura Story's "Blessings".But….. n nbut….. n nFind AZCowboy's posts. That imo is where the Iranian mullahs are coming from. n njews are not responsible for that kind of hatred.
I don't know the signiicance of "Ms. Apikores." If that's a real person, I don't know the name. n n"jews are not responsible for that kind of hatred." n nOf course they're not. I didn't say they were. n n
Apikores is the jewish loan word for an "idolater" someone who chooses to break Jewish customs–basically in the original Greek. vs. Hebraic oppositions to choose "Greek" over Jewish. So the more orthodox a person is the more people fall on the other side. that would cover me to, though my "christian" name is latin and not Greek. But if we are not responsible for Islamic hatred (or AZCowboys) then military response is not automatically war mongering or chauvenist. But personally I would prefer a little more "and then what" thinking on this.
Oh, really. Okay. I learn a new word. Personally, I'm proud to be "apikores." It's how the Jewish people survived for over 2,000 years. If we hadn't been willing to adapt our Jewish practice to changing times and places, we wouldn't be here now. We'd all be long gone like the Jewish zealots who insisted on fighting the Romans to their death, and did just that. Me, I think Yochanan ben Zakkai was much smarter.
Well, that's the ongoing debate for sure: how "pure" to be and when does flexiblity turn into anything-goes. And absolutely, in the ultra-nationalist milieu of the Zealots, Yochanan ben Zakkai was barely short of a "traitor."–who "resurrects" the Jewish faith by being carried in a coffin to greet …. a Roman emperor. And our "brother from another planet" Yeshu imo stood at the axis of another transforming leap. Zionism has deep roots in secular rejection of religiosity and then becomes a stage for its re-envisioning by Gusn Emuniim. etc. And originally as State and Temple give way to Diasporan interpretations of Oral law there are even 2 versions of the story of ben Zakka: one still "nationalist" temple-oriented one towards the sages of Yavneh and learning. etc. n nGenerally, imo, yes there's something "off" about the approach of the editors here generally lately. Maybe too much reliance on the outer Zealot to defend the inner ben Zakkai. imo tho Israel's margin of error has shrunk over the decades. n n n n