If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend reading Steve Clemons’ summary of Jeff Golberg’s bomb-Iran manifesto. Everything about it is frightening, not least the fact that the lead reporting on this issue is being done, here in the United States, by a former Israeli soldier who clearly favors bombing Iran (Goldberg). Perhaps what’s most disturbing is this:
Obama’s team knows that the world sees Israel as a client state of the United States and simply won’t believe that Israel acted alone, thus compelling the US to consider serious war options — even if, as Goldberg writes — Obama doesn’t want the initiation of a third war in the Middle East to define his foreign policy legacy.
In other words, Netanyahu can, in effect, give the United States the choice between bombing Iran itself and being blamed for an Israeli bombing of Iran. I don’t know whether or not that is true or not. Certainly, it seems strange that the United States should have so little leverage over its own supposed client state.
Netanyahu tells Goldberg:
“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs.”
Heh indeed.
Update. The article reads to me as an attempt to encourage the US to bomb Iran by saying that Israel will do it anyway. Perhaps I am wrong and should not have said that Goldberg clearly favors bombing Iran. But that is my take away here.
Update update. And dear FSM, having Hitchens talk about how the US/Israel should take out the Iranian regime in the embedded video with the article (all but sung along with the Bob Dylan soundtrack)? No, this isn’t a pro-bombing article at all!
Sheila
I don’t want anyone controlling atomic bombs (and we must remember that we are the only country to have actually used them, mea culpa mea culpa mea culpa), least of all a thug like Netanyahu.
Urza
Is it so hard to get our nation to accept that if Israel acts poorly they should handle the consequences of their actions without our intervention?
If they bomb first i’ll be the first person protesting any involvement by the US. It would go a looooong way to gaining respectability around the world if we’d stop being their bitch when they do things clearly against international law.
Ricardo Cabeza
Goldberg makes the case that the US is actually a client state of Apartheid Israel.
Erik T
As I said elsewhere:
Worst. Client state. Ever.
bkny
this from 2001 — and nothing’s changed:
Netanyahu: Especially today, with America. I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right correction.
Child: They say they’re for us, but, it’s like…
Netanyahu: They won’t get in our way. They won’t get in our way.
Child: On the other hand, if we do some something, then they…
Netanyahu: So let’s say they say something. So they said it! They said it! 80% of the Americans support us. It’s absurd. We have that kind of support and we say “what will we do with the…” look. That administration was extremely pro-Palestinian. I wasn’t afraid to maneuver there. I was not afraid to clash with Clinton. I was not afraid to clash with the United Nations. I was paying the price anyway, I preferred to receive the value. Value for the price.
fasteddie9318
@Ricardo Cabeza:
Bing-fucking-o. This isn’t the tail wagging the dog; Israel is the dog, and we’re the tail.
Hal
Is there any reasonably large amount of people in this country who want a war with Iran? I can’t believe anyone would think this would win any real support from the American public. Well, at least the portion that isn’t glued to Fox News 27/7.
matoko_chan
nah……hes bluffing ….at least not until we are clear of Iraq and Af-Pak.
(or if the defense of Israel bill passes.)
the american people aren’t going to willingly do three wars at the same time, and even congress isnt crazy enough to think we can afford that.
i suddenly understand why Obama is dragging his feet out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
quantum game theory FTW!
Bobby Thomson
On the bright side, they can give us pointers on how to fence off the former Americans who practice Islam after the Joe Lieberman amendments to the First and Fourteenth Amendments strip them of their citizenship.
Matt C.
@Urza:
Yes, because if Israel attacks Iran, Iran may well retaliate against U.S. troops and interests in the region.
gmf
“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs.”
So what, Netanyahu is saying “vote Democratic” ?
Chuck Butcher
It is pretty much a cliche to state that in foreign affairs governments act in their own interests and join when there’s congruency and conflict when there is disagreement. It is probably past time to reassess our interests in regard to Israel.
Frank
If Obama openly or quietly gives Israel the go ahead in bombing Iran, then he can count me out as supporter in 2012. And I have loyally supported him on everything else up to this point.
JMG
No one has ever satisfactorily explained to me just what interests of the U.S. ARE served by our relationship with Israel. Except for getting pols elected with money and votes, that is.
That’s not a national interest, and I’ll bet that those $6 a gallon signs for gasoline that would result from a war with Iran would convince most folks of that.
For the record, I think it’s bull. If Israel attacks Iran, it runs the risk the U.S. walks away. That’s a much bigger threat to them than an Iranian nuke. Risk-reward doesn’t add up.
The Moar You Know
OT: Paranoia will destroy ya
KXB
In the 1980’s, when India was worried about the pace of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, there was serious thought about launching air strikes against Pakistani nuclear facilities. Pakistan looked at their predicament, and told India, “You can strike our facilities, and we may not be able to protect them. But, we can still launch strikes on your own nuclear facilities.” Pakistan signaled that India would pay a high price for such action. India’s leadership, after weighing all the costs, decided against an air-strike. Many Indian nuclear installations are near civilian areas, and a Pakistani attack on any of them would release enough radiation to kill several hundred thousand people.
Iran is in the same boat that Pakistan was then. But, Israel is much further from Iran, and that distance may give the Israelis a sense of security that India lacked. The Scuds that Iraq launched against Israel during Gulf War I were ineffective. The Israelis may believe that can withstand any direct retaliation from Iran.
As for in-direct retaliation, such as an Iranian attack on American interests, I am guessing that if Iran did that, our wonderful Congress would put the blame squarely on Iran, for having the temerity to think that Israel’s actions could be anything but self-defense.
Dismayed Liberal
The US is clearly the the big dog on the block…it’s just not very good (actually terrible) at calculating its own self interest.
There is a massive industry in the United States that would rather see the Arab-Israeli conflict go on for an eternity than see it resolved either peacefully, or with decisive force on one side or the other.
This is the same industry that benefits massively from Iraq and Afghanistan, and every other conflict that America’s been in for almost a century. Its lobby dwarfs that of the Israel lobby in the US, and the latter is substantially funded by Christian fundamentalists with End-of-Days-itis.
“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex… The potential for the disastrious rise of misplaced power exists and will persist… Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” – Dwight D Eisenhower
Spaghetti Lee
I’m sure that at least a majority of Republican congressmen support a war with Iran, and they’re probably all deficit peacocks, too. The cost of a war with Iran should be added up, written on a piece of paper, and stapled to their heads.
Bill Arnold
I know it’s implied, but it reading Goldberg’s piece is essential. Clemons says he read it 3 times.
Benjamin Netanyahu was a commando (a commando commander even) in his younger days. He’s a man of action. The minister of defense, Ehud Barak, was also a commando (a commando commander even), and they participated in at least one mission together, the Sabena Flight 571 hostage rescue.
These parts of their lives must affect their views on military action.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Moar You Know: Don’t they say they are bipartisan? Why would they be upset if Dems run as teabaggers?
(said with a look of wide-eyed innocence)
Zifnab
@Chuck Butcher: You folks continue to fail to grasp the US / Israel relationship. Every year we hand Israel a check for $3 billion, and every year Israel buys $3 billion worth of military supplies from US contractors. As far as we’re concerned, Israel is nothing more than a multi-billion dollar money laundering operation for the military industrial complex.
We defend Israel for this reason almost exclusively. Why else do you think you’ve got Bible beating southerner baptists going to bat again and again for a nation full of Eastern European and Middle Eastern Jews? Raytheon and Boeing and GE and the rest of the bomb builders absolutely demand that the money continue to flow.
If Israel picks a fight with Iran, guess who benefits? The freak’n bomb builders.
The only question is exactly how deep in the pocket of the military industrial complex our newest administration has become. Because if Biden and Clinton and Gates and Reid and Pelosi pull hard enough, they’ll be more than able to lead Obama around by the nose.
Steve
I seem to remember Chirac reporting that President Bush contacted him and tried to convince France to get involved in the invasion of Iraq by citing Gog and Magog and the need to confront the End of Days…
I’m not sure why, but Netenyahu’s comments reminded me of that.
JWL
The administration certainly makes it easy to assume the worse about Israel, Iran, and war.
Why Obama has yet to weigh in on the NYC mosque ugliness is beyond me. It’s not as though it’s an isolated occurrence. Agents of intolerance are attacking the principle of freedom of worship across the country in protest against Islam. It’s a bully pulpit only if a president chooses to utilize it.
Even GW Bush rose to the occasion by condemning religious bigotry after 9/11. Indeed, along with his African AIDS initiative, it was his finest hour.
A public declaration is in order. The president should make perfectly clear that a unilateral Israeli attack upon Iran it will be condemned by his administration.
Alwhite
How about we make a pact with Russia ensuring “MAD” if a nuclear device is exploded in any country the US and Russia will nuke locations in the country responsible.
Israel is protected but so is Iran. QED
We really need to cut Israel loose, they can take care of themselves & our continued involvement only allows them to behave badly & drag us into no win situations.
trollhattan
Does it matter at all to the bomb squad that Iran’s nuke development facilities are scattered, undergrounded, reinforced and some of them even unknown to intelligence? This ain’t Osirak and it certainly ain’t 1981. Militarily, the best Israel could do is briefly delay Iran while getting whatever slice of the globe that’s still on their side, pissed off at them.
What could possibly go wrong?
matoko_chan
@JWL:
rawr. are you that dumb? that was lipservice.
the Bush Doctrine and COIN are pure-D proselytization of western judeoxian culture with mil-force.
but the dumbass didnt get that when muslims can vote, they vote for shariah.
Epic Fail.
All three religions evolved in the ME, right next to each other.
Christianity evolved proselytization to convert jews and pagans, and then islam evolved to be immune from proselytization.
Brachiator
The notion of a compliant client state is a useful fiction that both sides engage in if they are understand how international relations work.
On the other hand, Americans tend to be shocked, shocked, to find that their supposed clients actually pursue their own national interests and are not are lapdogs (see also, Pakistan, and our eternal friends, the Saudis).
There are Israeli government hardliners, including Netanyahu, who are like many of the tea baggers. They simply cannot comprehend the idea that Obama is not a stealth Muslim or a stealth Black Radical who gets “Hate Israel” phone calls from Jesse Jackson and the remnants of the Nation of Islam. Ever since Obama won the nomination they have been telling their contacts in the US that Obama “is not a friend to Israel.” It is taking a huge amount of back channel work to keep these idiots from initiating something truly stupid.
Dan
Goldberg has said on his blog about a hundred times that he is opposed to anyone trying to bomb the iranian facililties.
Time and again this site references his service as an Israeli prison guard. Have any of you taken the time to read his book about that experience? You might be surprised if you did.
georgia pig
It’s strange because it’s utter bullshit. No way that USAF lets the IDF overfly Iraq to bomb Iran. Iraq is instant shit if they do. No, this smells like a good cop/crazy cop bluff, a pretty transparent one at that. If Netanyahu is as crazy as this piece suggests, those IDF F-16s won’t make it to Iran. Otherwise, you got a bunch of dead US GIs, which will make most folks in the US quickly forget that they ever gave a shit about Israel.
celticdragonchick
I didn’t get the whole “(Goldberg) clearly favors bombing Iran” thing when I read the entire piece by Goldberg. He sounded rather cautionary about it.
Maybe we read entirely different articles.
DougJ
@Dan:
The article reads to me like an attempt to get the US to bomb Israel by saying that Israeli will do it anyway. And his pre-war Iraq reporting was awful.
burnspbesq
One simple change to our rules of engagement can make an Israeli airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities much more difficult.
We just have to say that we own Iraqi airspace and ANYTHING that comes into it will be shot down. And then tell Israel that we’re going to share all of our AWACS data with Turkey (which we’re probably doing already, since Turkey is part of NATO). If the Israelis can’t go over Iraq or Turkey to get to Iran, that comes awfully close to making a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities a one-way trip.
Svensker
@matoko_chan:
I think Dubya was a bit more complicated than he gets credit for. I don’t think he was a “muslim hater” like many of the people around him. He did love Israel and probably was thinking about how God was going to help him bring about the rapture, but he refused to attack Iran, and I think his attacking Iraq was (for him) less about Greater Israel and more about him getting his inner cowboy on. Reportedly early on in his administration he met a Palestinian leader — was it Arafat? — and he remarked afterward to one of his aides that “that guy” made more sense than the Israelis. Of course, that little bit of independent thought was quashed quickly. I’m not defending Dubya, per se, but I don’t think he was a bigot and I don’t think he was an Israel-firster. An idiot and a war-mongering sociopath, yes. But not a bigot.
cleek
who cares what Goldberg thinks ?
ignore the little pimple and he’ll dry up on his own.
celticdragonchick
@DougJ:
Uh…yeah…okay.
That sounds more like projection than a thoughtful assessment of what he actually said.
DougJ
@celticdragonchick:
Watch the fucking video, and tell me again it’s not a pro-bombing piece.
celticdragonchick
@burnspbesq:
Which does nothing to stop then from flying through Saudi Arabia or through Syria.
The Saudis are likely on board for a one shot over flight by the IAF any way, since they hate the Iranians.
Dave
@burnspbesq:
Unless, as Goldberg mentions, the IDF “threads the needle” and cuts through Syria and the Kurdish part of Iraq. Or if the Saudis really would allow one trip through without consequences.
Dan
DougJ: I’m just saying I don’t understand why you say Goldberg clearly favors bombing Iran when the article never says it, and goldberg has on numerous occasions stated very clearly that he is against it (look at posts on his blog).
Far different to argue that the article says Israel is going to bomb iran anyway. If that’s the indication the israelis are giving, would you prefer that he lied and said they aren’t planning such an attack? I found the article to be pretty sobering and pretty critical of israeli leadership. Just because he screwed up the iraq reporting don’t assume he’s in favor of an iranian strike.
Stillwater
I was working on a longer response to (I think it was) John’s post this morning on Goldberg’s bomb iran proposition, with quotes and whatnot (deleted it due to having to make a living). The upshot, to me, was as follows:
If Israel either successfully or unsuccessfully strikes Iran’s nuclear capabilities, then (paraphrase) the ME erupts, Israel will be demonized by the world, gas prices go through the roof, the US has a bigger problem than we currently do in Afghanistan, and we lose what remains of the Iranian moderates.
But, on the upside, Israel will have one less existential worry, and may receive some thanks from ME Arab moderates.
So in sum, he says that all hell breaks loose in the ME independently of whether the missile strikes are successful, yet – even if unsuccessful – his primary reason for striking Iran is to alleviate Israel’s existential worries. But by his own lights, wouldn’t striking Iran necessarily increase Israel’s anxiety? And wouldn’t an Iranian response to this sort of unprovoked aggression be serious, perhaps to the point of setting the ME ablaze? (I’m getting sort of shrill. I feel like John McEnroe: Goldberg, you cannot be serious!)
This is nuts. And that’s just wrt the internal coherence of his piece. There are other insanities as well. What he’s written, it seems to me, is a conclusive argument for not bombing Iran.
Zach
Curious whether anyone’s reassessing their opinions of the size/impact of the Green Movement this past year. It’s biggest proponents stateside were passing along poorly supported claims that still prove untenable; the loudest of them also happened to advocate more forceful intervention against Iran’s nuclear program; the majority of them supported invading Iraq based on similarly circumstantial evidence.
celticdragonchick
@DougJ:
I see you edited out the insults in your reply to me. Fair enough.
I read the entire piece at The Atlantic which Clemmons is writing about, and I did not reach the same conclusion as you at all.
Frank
@georgia pig:
I sure hope you are right. According to the article, the USAF would not stop Israel if it entered Iraqi air space.
DougJ
@celticdragonchick:
You lose.
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick: You don’t get to Iran directly from Syria. You would still have to fly over Turkish or Iraqi airspace. Saudi Arabia is doable assume Jordan of Egypt OK the fly-over. I have my doubts about that, and about the Saudis allowing Israelis to fly across their country as well.
JGabriel
DougJ:
Jeepers. You’d think Hitchens’ ongoing brush with mortality would make him a little less eager to urge death, destruction, and injury upon so many others.
.
celticdragonchick
@DougJ:
I have no idea what schoolyard game you think you are playing.
DougJ
@Dan:
Why is there an embedded video of Hitchens arguing in favor of overthrowing the Iranian regime then?
Dave
I think what this article does is paint a clear picture of how unhinged the current Israeli leadership actually is.
Bombing Iran would clearly create more problems than it would solve. But because it would only delay one problem…then it’s okay? That’s less rational than anything that has come out of Iran recently.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of the area can see than solving Israel/Palestine is THE key to solving a lot of problems in the area. And yet that is the one thing the Israeli leadership is refusing to do.
It’s madness.
celticdragonchick
@Omnes Omnibus:
Read the entire piece by Goldberg.
burnspbesq
@Stillwater:
Recall that McEnroe didn’t change the umpire’s mind.
The only way we can absolutely, positively prevent an Israeli air strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities for the foreseeable future is to destroy the entire Israeli air force on the ground. I’d bet we can do it (albeit with significant losses). I don’t think we have the stones to do it.
JWL
Matoko Chan: First off, no, I’m not (particularly) dumb. But thanks for asking.
I bow to no one on the face of the earth in my condemnation of the utter depravity of GW Bush.
But even if you’re correct, and however inadvertently, his comments transcended lip service. The same yahoos and bigots Obama has recently steered clear of confronting were primed to explode in the aftermath of 9/11. Bush poured a bucket of water on that fuse. It wasn’t extinguished, of course, but events might have taken an extreme turn for the worse had he not done so.
celticdragonchick
@burnspbesq:
Stop one mideast war by starting another?
WTF??
And you think the Israelis are unhinged?
celticdragonchick
@JWL:
I agree.
cat48
Gibbs has been asked about the mosque. He always answers the same way:
“We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with al Qaeda. We have freedom of religion in this country. The mosque is a local issue as far as zoning.”
So says the spokesman for the IndonesianKenyanBlacketyMuslim in the WH
sven
And in other news, jailed congressman Duke Cunningham has become a prison-reform advocate…
I don’t even know what to mock first…
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick: I will. Until then, I just have to hold on to my doubts that enough major countries in the ME are bent on regional conflagration such that an attack takes place. FWIW I have read The Guns of August and know that I sound like “sensible” people in 1914.
burnspbesq
@celticdragonchick:
Show me where on the doll I advocated that. I didn’t.
Svensker
Well, fuck Christopher Hitchens. I was feeling sorry for him. No more.
El Cid
I felt that the main reason Bush Jr. quashed moves to attack Iran is that he had already followed Cheney’s and the warhawk brigades’ promises that the Iraq war would be awesome and easy and everybody would love him for it.
And when it all turned to shit, Bush Jr. was like, “Fuck you assholes, this is a bunch of shit and I’ve had to do all kinds of work and shit I didn’t want to do. You assholes blew all kinds of hot air up my ass and it ended up being a big ass pain.”
So he just didn’t listen to these assholes any more about bombing Iran and surely didn’t want the extra work and danger and chaos and bullshit he’d have to deal with.
celticdragonchick
@burnspbesq:
I was about to reply to you and I saw you completely changed your statement.
Uh, the part where you heavily imply we should bomb the IAF into oblivion would usually be considered advocating for a state of war.
DougJ
@JWL:
I’m not sure the situation is quite the same. The anti-Islamic crowd was part of Bush’s base so what he said succeeded in calming them down. These same people hate Obama and wouldn’t care what Obama said about it.
That said, I wish Obama — along with Democrats in Congress — would get involved with the mosque debate.
Svensker
@El Cid:
yes.
trippin
@Ricardo Cabeza: Indeed I was going to make the same comment: the client relationship is backwards as written.
celticdragonchick
@Svensker:
I think it is possible to disagree with somebody about foreign policy and still have basic human empathy for a horrible and painful condition that is killing that person…or are we too morally pure for that now?
jwb
@El Cid: So you’re saying we were saved by Bush’s basic laziness?
JGabriel
burnspbesq:
We don’t attack nuclear powers. Or have you never noticed that?
.
Dan
DougJ: so you’re saying i should ignore goldberg’s own statements and the article itself, and focus on a video he posts along with the article with someone else saying the US/israel should bomb iran?
If posting videos counts as an endorsement, you guys at balloon juice have endorsed a lot of crazy shit.
Stillwater
@burnspbesq: Recall that McEnroe didn’t change the umpire’s mind.
He was in it for the long game.
The only way we can absolutely, positively prevent an Israeli air strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities for the foreseeable future is to destroy the entire Israeli air force on the ground.
Well, our nukes are bigger than their nukes, so there’s that.
But there is another way to prevent an Israeli air strike: do it ourselves.
I have to agree with DougJ re: his impression that the piece seems to be advocating for this when Goldberg suggests that Israel woulda donit anyway: eg. “They will tell their American colleagues that Israel was left with no choice. They will not be asking for permission, because it will be too late to ask for permission.” There has been some pushback on this interpretation from commenters, and I couldn’t find anything conclusive when I reviewed the piece to settle the issue either way, but it was certainly the impression I got on the initial reading.
wilfred
To his everlasting credit, Bush went to mosques and showed respect towards Islam and Muslims, actions exceedingly rare in the post 9/11 HOMELAND.
He most assuredly did not have a vice-president who is fond of saying “I am a Zionist” or a chief of staff who served his country during the Gulf War (that country being Israel) and whose father thinks of Arabs as niggers.
Stop with the ‘bomb Iran’ nonsense, as if that would be the end of it.
An attack on Iran is an attack against the entire Muslim world. You should take that fucking seriously.
Forever war.
DougJ
@Dan:
Do we have videos on this site where I interview saintly dying people and encourage them to say we should bomb Iran? If we do, I’ll take them down.
Also, I’m not saying ignore the article itself. I read the article too and I don’t see how it can be construed as anti-bombing. Cautionary, perhaps, though I would disagree.
EDIT: Without the video, I’d be willing to say I agree to disagree with you about the thrust of Golberg’s piece and even accept that perhaps I am putting words in his mouth. With it, I have to say that I think you’re wrong.
wilfred
Worth reading:
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/08/05/any-attack-on-iran-would-not-end-well.html?sid=101
Makewi
@wilfred:
Crazy talk. The Saudis would cut off their own legs to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
Tsulagi
Would put the odds of Obama ordering a strike against Iranian nuclear installations somewhere between slim to none. Guessing the Israelis likely think the same.
However, I’d put the odds of an Israeli strike well above 50-50. Probably the over/under shouldn’t be on if, but when. While we’re responsible for Iraqi airspace Israeli jets would almost certainly fly through to their targets and while we still have troops in Iraq, or after our full withdrawal planned by the end of 2011.
Hard to say on that one. It would be nice of Israel to wait giving us some plausible deniability and reducing risk to our troops. But, Israel knows Iran’s important installations are well underground hardened against strikes and damage to those would be minimal at best. During the Bush admin we were developing a nuclear bunker buster to go deep, but there were issues so the program was ended. At best Israeli strikes would delay Iran’s ambitions by a few years.
Now if the Israelis were assholes and thinking their own 11D chess, one play would be to strike relatively soon, hope we’re attacked in Iraq and then be drawn into a ground war in Iran, something Israel couldn’t do. But I don’t think the Iranians are that stupid. Early in OIF and later we would fly into Iranian airspace or send drones trying to get them to turn on their targeting radars and light up their military communications so we could map out their defenses. They didn’t bite. They’re not totally dumb.
wilfred
@Makewi:
The Saudi regime is a pig regime. The people of Saudi Arabia are the largest contributors to Palestinian causes – telethons are frequent events on Saudi television. Nearly all of Eastern Saudi Arabia is Shia.
Never confuse the autocratic regimes of the region with the people. Every country in the region, with the exception of one, suffers under dictators/monarchist/autocrats supported by the US.
The people think differently.
Anya
@JGabriel: That’s the reason I loath Christopher Hitchens. He is a warmongering asshole, who has little regard for brown lives. He wholeheartedly believes in the American hegemony as an extention of the British Empire.
celticdragonchick
@Dan:
This.
I read the article. Goldberg can speak for himself.
Makewi
@wilfred:
I think it’s sweet that you think it matters what the Saudi people think in this situation. Naive, but sweet.
DougJ
@Makewi:
Oh, who’s being naive now, Kay?
(I have no idea about Saudi politics, I just like saying that.)
El Cid
@jwb: I think so. Laziness, but more so pissiness. Pissed off by these bunch of people who sold him a bill of goods on Iraq, and pissed off by the notion that he’d want to deal with even more frustration about war and shit.
wilfred
@Makewi:
The point is that the amount of energy necessary in maintaining the illusion that ‘countries’ in the Arab/Muslim world support the US or, heaven help us, Israel, is completely unsustainable.
Believe me, an attack against Iran will be rightly perceived as an attack against Islam. The Israelis know and want that.
Americans need to ask themselves if that’s what they want.
Midnight Marauder
I was unaware that Jeffrey Goldberg had become such a credible journalist after his atrocious reporting leading up to war in Iraq.
Interesting development.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
They’d still have to fly across the Persian Gulf to get to Iran, and the Gulf is USN controlled airspace. The only way Israeli planes can get to Iran without flying through US controlled airspace is by way of Turkey- which seems unlikely given their recent bungling of the Gaza aid convoy.
Makewi
@DougJ:
The Saudi / Iran dynamic is an interesting one. There is a very real power struggle going on there over which is the true voice of Islam.
In any case, this ‘Israel is gonna bomb Iran’ story has been getting played since shortly after the start of the Iraq war. The only real thing to say about it is: 1) Duh. Of course Israel retains the right to bomb the country who is an enemy in more than just name and; 2) I have come to assume that these stories are planted as a means of reminding Iran that bombing remains a very real option.
wilfred
@Makewi:
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Ed Marshall
I’ve read enough Goldberg that he claims to be “ambivalent” about bombing Iran. I’m sure that has a great to deal with how he just got burned badly over the last time he wanted to blow up a country with four letters in it’s name that started with “Ira*” not seven years ago next door. I don’t know how you square his purple prose about how he believes Iran is Hitler about to kill all Jews with *meh* but that’s what he’s trying to put across. I don’t find that credible in the slightest.
I’ve read his book, and I listened to him on NPR and he seems like *such* a nice, reasonable guy….except he’s a crazy, Jewish, nationalist so soaked in Zionism he wants to bomb Iran but he want’s to play liberal at the same time.
Here is an idea if Jeffery Goldberg *was* what he pretends to be: Move on the Israeli-Palestinian front first. Israel could do this tomorrow. Evacuate the settlements, make way for a massive humanitarian package for the West Bank and Gaza, quit acting like villians, etc… Even make some noise about Israel entering the NPT and working toward some nebulous goal of dismantling it’s nuclear arsenal.
All of a sudden, Iran really would be silly to keep posturing in this manner. It would become about 100x more reasonable to do whatever you wanted to an intransigent Iranian regime.
He’s not gonna do that, is he?
burnspbesq
@celticdragonchick:
Looks like you and I don’t own the same thesaurus. Mine doesn’t list “can” and “should” as synonyms.
Makewi
@wilfred:
Believe what you want. The Saudis, that is the ones with the guns and the bombs and the airplanes and the control over all of the Islamic holiest of holies, will and have chosen the United States over Iran. More, the people will choose their government over Iran every day of the week and twice on Fridays.
I’m curious what you think of the two recent stories “leaked” in the past 2 months, one about the King saying that neither Iran or Israel had the right to exist and the other saying that the Israels would have permission to use Saudi airspace to bomb Iran nuke sites.
Makewi
@wilfred:
Then there is nothing for us to discuss.
Makewi
@wilfred:
I do want to point out the irony of someone telling me that I don’t know what I am talking about who includes Iran as part of the arab world. Cuz that’s some funny shit right there.
eemom
I think a better solution would be for everybody in the world except the owners of the subject property and the NY zoning authority responsible for the use of that property to shut the fuck up about the mosque debate.
wilfred
@Makewi:
What do I think?I think that he’s a dog and the son of a dog.
I just spent 2 years in Oman. I’m a Muslim, not a particularly enthusiastic one, but someone who sat through enough khutbahs to know that the support of the regimes in Gulf countries is from fear.
That never lasts. الله أحلام
wilfred
@Makewi:
Don’t make me embarass you. It’s Ramadan. You don’t believe, ask Cole.
DougJ
@Ed Marshall:
That is my take too, though I don’t think there’s any connection at all between being Zionist and being a war monger. I think that what Golberg wants is fairly close to suicide for Israel and there are plenty of strongly Zionist people who think it is too.
Makewi
@wilfred:
Happy Ramadan. The fear which keeps these regimes in charge is going to magically disappear, just like it did recently in Iran and before that in Iraq.
I get it, some of your best friends are Muslim. Good for you.
DougJ
@Makewi:
I worry that 2) is not true. I hope that you are right.
Turbulence
@Makewi: I think what you’re failing to get about Saudi Arabia is that it is not a terribly stable society. The problem with dictatorships is that you always have to worry about them coming crashing down. Even if the King of SA hates Iran with every fiber of his being, that doesn’t mean that he can actively support Israeli attacks against Iran. Doing so would exact an enormous political price.
Americans like to pretend that there are no internal politics in dictatorships but that’s not true. Helping the Israelis take out Iran would practically invite a coup. And for what? Everyone knows that an Israeli strike won’t change a damn thing anyway; at best they delay Iran by a few years. At best. From the SA King’s perspective, helping the Israelis is a lose-lose proposition: in the best case, you get nothing and in the worst case you get a coup or civil war.
georgia pig
@DougJ: Read the blog post in Slate about Goldberg’s bullshit, basically that he strings together a bunch of low probability events and relies on “probabilities” pulled out of someone’s ass. Sure, Rahm is letting him on the inner deliberations of the administration. Sure, the Air Force is telling them they won’t shoot down Israeli F-16s. My ass. Rahm is planting a story to reinforce a negotiating posture with Iran, and the Air Force is playing along.
Reality check: the combat radius of an F-16 is less than 500 miles. Even with drop tanks, Iran is just about at the ferry range limit for a round trip from Israel, and these guys would be flying low, making evasive maneuvers and carrying a bunch of ordnance, all of which burn fuel. They would probably need midair refueling. There is no way they “slip by” the USAF/USN doing that. The only country that pulls off a bombing of Iran’s facilities is the US. If it happens, it will be us, not the Israelis. This is just Goldberg lobbying for the same, i.e., we better do it before those crazy Israelis try it and fail, since we’ll be blamed for it anyway. No sale.
Turbulence
Regarding Goldberg and his intentions, let’s review the facts:
Goldberg argued hard for the Iraq War. He wrote pieces that were full of lies. Lies which any professional journalist, or small child, should have seen through. Goldberg’s little war ended up costing the lives of a million Iraqis.
One. Million. Dead. People.
If I had worked so hard to push a policy that ended up achieving 20% of the Holocaust, I hope that I’d the honorable thing and commit suicide. Goldberg? Not so much. He’s never apologized for the fact that his articles were full of lies. He’s proud of them.
I honestly don’t know whether Goldberg passed all those lies because he really is profoundly stupid or because he knew exactly what he was doing. I don’t really care. Either way, the man is not trustworthy. If he had actually apologized, then maybe you could argue that DougJ is wrong here. But he didn’t. And that has to mean something.
The last time we listened to Goldberg, we got a million dead people. This time around, maybe we can exercise a little bit of caution while scrutinizing the words of this warmongering sociopath?
THE
@wilfred:
That Gwynne Dyer article is pretty much the same way I’m seeing it, Wilfred.
Nice link.
Ed Marshall
@DougJ:
I started to qualify that with Revisionist Zionism, but Labour Zionist sings right off the same page of the hymnal on Iran.
I’ll try this: He’s so steeped in whatever bullshit makes people see Israel as a proxy for a mistreated, underdog, bullied Jew that he is willing to sign off on and apologize for any evil whatsover undertaken in the name of Israeli security, regardless of how ludicrous and ridiculous the reality of the world becomes. He’s in the section of the camp that will cry about it later and weep bitter tears and if it gets real ugly will throw up his hands and say “what a cruel world, everyone has a little mass murder in them, don’t they?”
THE
I would only add to this speculation about Saudi complicity in any hypothetical Israeli attack:
If it happened, that could result in Iran retaliating by launching missiles against Saudi oil installations.
In that case, the impact on global oil supplies would be that much more catastrophic.
wilfred
@THE:
I agree. So does Stephen Walt, who disassmembles Goldberg more effectively than I can:
I’ve said plenty already about the reasons why Iran is not a grave threat that justifies preemptive war, and why neither the United States nor Israel should be thinking about a military strike, so I don’t feel compelled to dismantle Goldberg’s restating of the hawks’ case yet again. And I don’t have to, because others have already done so quite ably.
This is the kind of thing that Americans should be reading.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/08/11/mainstreaming_war_with_iran
matoko_chan
@Svensker: wallah Bush was just a WEC retard. he was too stupid to get that when muslims can vote they will vote for shariah.
he thought muslims would vote for Our Fabulous Judeoxian Democracy.
wat a maroon.
you see….first judaism, then xianity, and last islam all evolved in the Cradle of Civilization. first xianity evolved proselytization to increase reps….then islam evolved immunity to christian proselytization as a defense strategy.
that is why interfaith discussion between xians and muslims is pretty much useless….the christians proselytize, but muslims are immunized to proselytization.
matoko_chan
@wilfred: ramadan mubarek!
:)
wilfred
@matoko_chan:
Insh’all-ah. May All-ah lighten your burden. Ramadan Kareem!
Svensker
@celticdragonchick:
Yes, it is. But the fact that he is AGAIN advocating bomb a country that has done NOTHING to us makes me lose less sleep over his horrible condition than before. You would think he would learn a little empathy himself.
I will pray that he recognize his fallen condition before he dies and that God is kinder to him than he has been to all those whose slaughter he has called for.
Svensker
@wilfred:
Bingo.
Svensker
@wilfred:
Yes, I saw that earlier. Antiwar.com maybe? Good article. Let’s hope some folks in the current admin are reading it.
matoko_chan
@wilfred: asalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh
since there ARE some muslim commenters here….praps Makewi would like to ax us about al-Islam?
i think amir khalid is a brother.
:)
JWL
“The anti-Islamic crowd was part of Bush’s base so what he said succeeded in calming them down. These same people hate Obama and wouldn’t care what Obama said about it”.
All the more reason for Obama to draw a line in the proverbial sand on behalf of the people he purports to represent.
Right vs. wrong is clearly delineated in this instance, where freedom of worship is the abiding issue.
burnspbesq
@matoko_chan:
I call. Name a country in which, after a free and fair election, the existing legal order has been dismantled and replaced by a new legal system based in whole or in significant part on Sharia. Hint. Indonesia is not a winning answer.
Facts trump bullshit, all day, every day. If you don’t have any, go home.
S. cerevisiae
@THE: Yup. Or they could sink a few tankers in the gulf. Hello $200 oil and global depression.
And it seems our only hope to avoid this is to pray that the Israelis are sane.
matoko_chan
@burnspbesq: Iraq.
my turn!
name a country where westernstyle occidentalist government has NOT been imposed by force in the ME.
hint– the answer is NOT Turkey.
Xanthippas
GregB
The down sides are endless. Especially for the US and Israel. These people better think long and hard.
Col. Lang said that an attack on Iran would end up looking a lot like a world war.
Mike G
We did for eight years, though he called them “nookyular weapons”.
Gary D
Much like the invasion of Iraq the neocons have been pushing this for years and this is just the latest round.
There is no upside to an attack on Iran except for our military/industrial/intelligence complex, which even Bush concluded after the military told him a few times. Chaney, Wolfowitz, Goldberg, Krauthammer, Kristol will always support the M/I/I complex over American interests.
burnspbesq
@matoko_chan:
“Iraq”
Ha.
The answer to your question is Lebanon.
matoko_chan
@burnspbesq: Wrong. Lebanon was a french colony.
And even now Lebanon has religious political parties. it is not a secular government.
Iraq has shariah law in the constitution and religious political parties, and the ayatollahs still call the shots.