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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
An almost top 10,000 blog!
Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.
“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
Innocent people do not delay justice.
Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
This really is a full service blog.
If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!
“But what about the lurkers?”
Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…
If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.
It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.
Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
Peak wingnut was a lie.
I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.
Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.
The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.
There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.
“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”
Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
ChrisS
Well, supposedly they’re drawing down troops in Iraq and pulling out equipment. Can’t just let that stuff rust stateside. A weapon unused is a useless weapon.
Kryptik
Well, the author of this piece is certainly no surprise. Then again, if it wasn’t in the Atlantic, I might have figured John Bolton could’ve been behind it.
Napoleon
I am so glad I canceled the Atlantic. Goldberg is pure neo-con propagandist.
arguingwithsignposts
Hey, just what I needed to go with my morning coffee, some new middle east apocalyptica!
mr.whipple
I think I’ll go hide under the bed.
Morbo
I think it’s going to be a good time to see if the 11th commandment at the Atlantic is ironclad.
bkny
most telling about mr goldberg, is that he doesn’t allow comments at his postings.
Jay in Oregon
Holy shit, has he looked at who his most ardent supporters are in the U.S.? A bunch of post-millenial dispensationists who are hoping for Israel to be wiped out as part of their “Rapture Ready” checklist.
Kryptik
@arguingwithsignposts:
The Best Part of Waking Up Is Goldberg Scaremongering Us?
Nah, I think I’ll stick with the Folgers.
anonymous
4 more wars, 4 more wars!
El Cid
Ahmedinajad said he would be preparing mass graves for the invading American troops.
My guess is that they won’t be necessary as the smart bombs and missiles will bury themselves.
Stav
Has it ever ended? I’ve been hearing variations on this theme since ’79
Kryptik
@Jay in Oregon:
Likud doesn’t brook any irony, you know.
Christ, where’s a Rabin when you need him?
taterstick
Thankfully enough, “W” is no longer in office, so I take comfort that assholes like Goldberg are no longer pulling strings on the President.
Kryptik
@taterstick:
Not like W’s office went away. They make at least half of the WaPo editorial board these days, and Bolton may as well be on staff, considering he’s gotten at least one op-ed every month in the paper to peddle his own brand of Iran apocalyptica.
John PM
I love this quote by Netanyahu: “You don’t want a messianic, apocalyptic cult controlling nuclear weapons.” Exactly; which is why I will never vote for the Republican Party.
God Damn these warmongers to Hell. If the Book of Revelation is to be believed, He will.
Hugin & Munin
Oooohhhh, free field-tests of US weapons sytems! What’s not to like?
geg6
@anonymous:
I’d laugh if it wasn’t so goddam sad. I have no doubt that a significant portion of this country will eat this up and want more for dessert.
Fuck me. I love America but I sure hate Americans. Too many of them, anyway.
Mark S.
Does Goldberg ever mention that Israel has nuclear weapons? Just curious; I’m not going to read it.
Redshirt
Maybe it’s time for some of that sweet-sweet re-alignment in the Middle East. Let Israel take out Iran, then support a new government in Iran against Israel. Win-Win. What could go wrong? Also, too.
4tehlulz
@Kryptik: Likud killed him.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Thankfully, Goldblurb may not have gotten this memo, and just can’t keep it in his pants.
Now there’s a dude who knows how to sell a war.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Oh, and I want me some Armageddon Jammies for Christmas this year. I been a good boy, mostly.
Dave
@Mark S.:
He mentions in passing that Israel has over 100 nuclear warheads (I’ve read elsewhere it’s 200+) and that some are sub-based.
This is what always bugs me. No one ever considers that Iran must be aware that Israel could wipe Iran off the earth if they ever launched a nuclear attack against Israel directly or through a proxy. Israel’s “throw weight” dwarfs anything Iran could do anytime soon.
Frank
How in the hell are we going to afford this? We can’t afford our police, our own firemen or our own teachers. What’s the point of attacking another country while our people are starving? Isn’t this one of the symptoms of a dying empire?
As with unemployment compensation, I expect Congress to demand that this upcoming war is PAID for.
cleek
what bad timing. we’re already in the middle of a surge of Afghan war boosterism; this Iran hawkery is just going to clutter the propagandascape.
Frank
@Dave:
Not to mention that the CIA was behind the coup in Iran in 1953 that helped install our puppet over there. With that history in mind, why would they trust us?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Half of the Republicans are screaming about deficits and out of control spending and the other half is agitating for The War With No End.
I think Jeffrey Goldberg’s family needs to die in a predator drone strike on the way home from a wedding.
Hugin & Munin
Cleek@26: There is always room for
JELL-O(TM)war.Anoniminous
Goldberg’s fictional skills are wasted at the Atlantic. He should write a war-porn novel a la Tom Clancy.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Bush opened Pandora’s Box with Iraq. An ineffective, due to shit being underground, air strike on Iran, would smash that sucker into a thousand devils and we will all be lucky to live through it. Though the oil will still be there for those who survive.
Then again, that could be the plan.
arguingwithsignposts
Interestingly, goldberg does mention that bush was set against bombing Iran, but nobody believed him.
The article is not all that bad in a palace- intrigue sort of way.
Crashman
I’d really like them to try to push for a draft this time. It’d be fun to see how quickly that lead balloon falls.
wilfred
The Israel First crowd desperately needs American participation since it will forever link Israeli interests with ours. All American soft power efforts in Muslim countries will be revealed as false fronts for yet another unprovoked war against a Muslim country.
Permanent, civilizational war between the United States and the Islamic world guarantees the long-term expansionist aims of the Israelis.
It will kill many, many thousands of Americans, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans, etc., but what the fuck.
Write a letter to one of the Israel First Senators/Congresspeople. You’ll need lots of stationary.
NobodySpecial
Iran’s nuclear capability is SOOOOOO SCARY.
No, really. Why, they may have a SINGLE BOMB in 10 years if things go well!
joe from Lowell
What do you mean, “begin?” Jeffrey Goldberg has been beating this drum for years.
That doesn’t mean anyone in the White House is paying attention. Heck, BUSH didn’t even bomb Iran.
chopper
nice one, bibi. way to make peace with the muslims. i’m sure shias everywhere are just peachy with that kind of talk.
tomvox1
Well, there’s no arguing with that now is there? And anyone who does is just another dirty fucking Chamberlain…
BTW, can anyone prove that Goldberg is not a paid practitioner of Hasbara and in Israeli gov’t employ?
dan
Yeah, we got the money for that.
daveNYC
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicy, dangerous animals and you know it.
Iran isn’t about the oil. The stuff they have is not the best and their supply is winding down. Natural gas OTOH is a possibility. My money is on this being about making sure that Israel is the biggest swinging dick in the entire ME. I’m glad to see that Goldberg is supporting the idea of Americans fighting and dying in order to maintian Israeli hegemony.
daveNYC
Yet another Hitler… What is this, The Boys From Brazil?
Bnut
According to my grandmother, it’s actually all of us Jews who would marry a Gentile.
Svensker
@daveNYC:
You’ve hit the nail on the nose, as my SIL is fond of saying.
Also, too, House Repubs introduce measure supporting Israel bombing Iran. Because that’s how you get the budget balanced — more war!
We are a seriously disturbed nation. Unfortunately, a lot of innocent folks get to pay for our madness. The only good thing, in a sad way, is that the piper is starting to demand payment from our own citizens for our imperial insanity. Maybe if we get to the point where it’s clear that we are choosing bombs over feeding our own children, we’ll start to get a clue.
Bullsmith
It seems clear that a nuclear-armed Israel is clearly an existential threat to Iran. Thus pre-emtive attacks on Israel would be more than justified. No? Ooops, I forgot, the right to self-defense doesn’t apply to Moooslims.
Violet
If the Democrats had half a brain between all of them, and some balls, they could use this ridiculous warmongering to their advantage. “Republicans want to invade yet another country that hasn’t attacked us instead of helping Americans at home.” That kind of thing. But they don’t have either and so it will never happen.
Montysano
The Persians have been playing power politics in the ME for a long, long time, and they are quite good at it. The notion that they are going to go off half-cocked and attack Israel is absurd. Instead, they trot out Ahmadinejad, their own useful idiot, who has a big mouth, crazy views, and …. no real power whatsoever. Ahmadinejad spouts the crazy and the Western world goes berserk. We’re being played…… again.
Svensker
@Violet:
The problem is some of the Dems like the idea of bombing Iran, like my own Sen. Lautenberg — who is very liberal except when it comes to Israel, and then he goes insane and joins hands with the neocons. Other Dems will not man-up against that.
joe from Lowell
@Montysano:
And, notably, they’ve been doing so without taking any offensive military actions.
Quick, name the last offensive war the Iranians fought.
Trick question! Iran, as Iran, has never fought an offensive war.
Persia, on the other hand, last fought one three centuries ago.
The Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work, no doubt, but they seem perfectly content to squat on their own little patch. This nonsense about Iran starting a war is absurd.
Paris
Would Israel give up its nuclear capability if Iran agreed to give up theirs?
daveNYC
They sure could, if they were running for office in Canada. The only reason that Americans are unhappy with Iraq and Afghanistan is because we’re not winning. Promise them a bunch of quick airstrikes against Iran (we still owe them for 1979) in order to save Israel from the evil Muslim nukes, and they’ll eat that shit up.
Shelton Lankford
@Svensker: Haven’t you noticed that most of the politicians of both stripes react like pod people when even the nuttiest proposition is floated calling for unprovoked aggression in support of Israel’s perceived (by deranged Likudniks) interests? Israel’s contribution will continue to be to posture as the baddest guy on the block with the big, bad, (exhausted, out of shape, broke, beholden to its enemies) U. S. of A backing them up.
Israel, with the support of the pod people politicians in Congress, has burned up every bit of residual sympathy, good will, whatever, I ever had for them. They, like we, continue to elect crazy people to guide their government. Sooner or later both their government and ours will bring the fruits of that practice down on the heads of their population.
I will start to sweat Iranian aggression when their record of unprovoked violence against their neighbors (or even their friends! [See USS Liberty, 1967] approaches, say, 10 percent of Israel’s.
Svensker
@Shelton Lankford:
Amen, brother.
burnspbesq
From the article:
The case for not voting Republican, expressed as concisely as possible.
Erik T
Worst. Client state. Ever.
cat48
I woke up at 4a.m. & saw this crap and I just totally lost it! I read about the article on another blog & had a hissy fit! I had to fucking take a Valium & I see it has worn off! HOW DO WE STOP THIS???
There is absolutely no reason to bomb Iran, absolutely NONE! Who the fuck is going to pay for our gas,etc?? Everything I’ve read on FP indicates it could spike 2 or 3 times what we pay per gallon now! Will Israel pay for my gas?? I’m not paying $10-$15 per gal so they can fucking feel safer!!!! I’ve truly have had it with this crap!
OH, they don’t trust Obama to bomb Iran so THEY have to fuck up the job & inevitably WE WILL HAVE TO FINISH IT!! Probably next Spring. NO!
I absolutely cannot figure out why this infuriates me so much other than idiots have been saying “We have to bomb Iran soon” since 2002 at least!
Time for another Valuim. Just furious!!!!
celticdragonchick
@Dave:
True, although the counter argument seems to be that with its’ own retaliatory weapon stockpile, Iran would be free to pursue terror and conventional campaigns against Israel through Hamas and Hezbollah whilst threatening nuclear revenge if Israel tries to respond against Iran directly.
Svensker
@celticdragonchick:
And the counter argument to that is, if Israel were forced to deal with MADD Iran, then it might have to put on its big boy pants and stop bullying its neighbors and ethnic cleansing the Pals. And maybe the US could stop being its enabling, co-dependant, sociopathic step-parent — which might keep US out of some wars and save some tax payer dollars!
celticdragonchick
@cat48:
Beats me. Israel is not the 51st state, and if they decide that their national interest demands sacrificing their standing with us, they will do it. We have no say in that.
I disagree. Iran has made no secret of her desire to see Israel bombed off the face of the earth, and routinely gives missiles to groups who use them to kill civilians. I think the question is better phrased as one of costs vs. benefits. The costs look real, real high to me for a very poor pay off in benefits. You and I are not the ones who had Iranian rockets fired at our population centers in 2006, so we will feel very differently about this.
Yep.
Not a chance. We subsidize theirs.
I don’t think they are listening to you or me. If they make a decision they they have avert another Shoah, then definitionally, every other consideration is rescinded.
Pretty much, since Iran will retaliate against us as well, and we will absolutely get dragged into it. Israel does not have the resources for an extended aerial campaign over Iran, and Saudi Arabia will allow only so many transgressions of her airspace before pulling the plug. That means we end up having to finish it after Iranian spec ops and rockets start targeting our troops in the ‘Stans and Iraq. Lovely.
Helplessness will do that. We know there will be hell to pay. We have no means of averting it.
Hugin & Munin
Svensker: While Mothers Against Drunk Driving does scare the piss outta me, I think you are referring to MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).
celticdragonchick
@Svensker:
That would be a desired outcome, but nobody seems willing to bet on reason where religious hatred on both sides is concerned. You usually won’t lose by betting on the dark side of human nature. In a Middle east with proliferating nukes, the trigger will be pulled eventually. Hands down, no doubt about it frakking Armageddon. We only avoided it by accident! Thank God Yeltsin wasn’t drunk on the day a rocket was launched from Norway and the Russians thought it was an attack. His officers were demanding that Yeltsin authorize a full nuclear response, and we are alive because he concluded it could not possibly be an attack.
The question is: Who will pull the trigger first?
I see nothing to suggest that AIPAC and the J street crowd have run out of influence, especially with the Evangelicals. Any suggestion that Israel is acting badly gets shut down real fucking quick when 5 or 6 national columnists call you a Jew hating Nazi sidekick who secretly publishes The Protocols of The Elders of Zion in your basement.
I have found from personal experience that rational debate about Israel is utterly impossible for many people, and I have been smeared as an anti Semite for trying to even discuss the bombing of the USS Liberty. Religious/emotional identity and grievance wins every time.
matoko_chan
meh.
the instant we manage to extricate ourselves from the Vile Morass of Iraq and the Graveyard of Empires, Our Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Israel will launch on Iran.
its the only way the american taliban can beat the demographic timer and put Palin into the white house…….endless war.
that is why all the build up on islamophobia.
hmm….praps that is why Obama is dragging his feet out of Iraq and Af-Pak. he has no control over netahyanu but im pretty sure the american people won’t do three wars while we are this broke and beaten up.
wallah….. goldberg is an evil bastard.
daveNYC
Sure we do. We’ve got forces in the gulf and in Iraq. If we really wanted to, we could stop an Israeli air strike.
There’s as much a chance of that happening as there is of me getting home and discovering the last twelve months worth of Playmates waiting for me.
Allison W.
Just read over at TPM that bush called Krauts and Kristol the “bomber boys” and vetoed Cheney’s desire to bomb Iran. That fucker didn’t have us in enough wars already?
celticdragonchick
@daveNYC:
If it is politically impossible, then I consider it de facto impossible. There is zero chance we will fire on Israeli military forces.
mnpundit
Meh. Anyone surprise that Jeff Goldberg cares more about Israel than the US after the last few years? Anyone?
Zach
@mnpundit: He did emigrate to Israel and served in the IDF after college. As much as I loathe his stance on Iran, he’s perfectly justified to prioritize Israeli security over American security since he thinks (correctly) that Israel is in a more precarious situation.
Zach
Everyone advocating airstrikes against Iran needs to account for airstrikes against Iraq in 1998. They were supposedly aimed at eradicating Iraq’s WMDs; sayeth Bill Clinton:
Unsurprisingly, the same people who proved to America that Saddam had active weapons programs in 1998 continued to do the exact same thing from 1998 through 2003. An airstrike against Iran will be no different. As long as Iran achieves regional security by bolstering militaristic opposition groups in neighboring countries, justifications (true and false) will be made to attack Iran until its leaders are deposed.
Alwhite
@Violet:
This seems so obvious – but, as you said it would requires a spine and balls neither of which modern Dems appear to list as standard equipment.
Alwhite
Why stop at Iran? Why not eliminate all the loose nukes in the hands of unstable governments? India, Pakistan, Israel? Bomb them all.
Yeah that’d fix everything
OH! Don’t forget about _Poland_ er North Korea
celticdragonchick
@Zach:
Saddam wasn’t really helping himself by having his forces fire on British and American aircraft enforcing the No Fly Zone in violation of the cease fire.
It was pretty much assumed by every intel service involved (including France and Germany) that he was holding out and had some NBC weapons hidden somewhere.
Svensker
@celticdragonchick:
When has Iran ever advocated that? Links, please.
Tony J
Biological and Chemical weapons, maybe (and “Maybe” was as far as any of them were willing to go until political pressure was exerted in 2002/3 to have their reports and evaluations “Sexed up” and stripped of qualifiers), but I don’t think there was any national intelligence agency seriously suggesting that Iraq had a secret nuclear capability. The best intelligence they had – from Saddam’s defector son-in-law – was pretty clear in saying that Iraq had secretly purged all of its stockpiles but didn’t want to admit it for reasons of asshole pride.
And it follows that France (supported by Germany) was willing to support a UN Resolution authorising inspections that would finally settle the matter one way or another. It was only – after – the inspections started seriously undercutting the White House’s claims by conclusively proving that Iraq was WMD-free that the US and UK jumped that particular shark and embarked upon Operation : Facts Be Damned.
mnpundit
@Zach: I assume he’s a duel citizen? All Jews are auto-citizens of Israel, IIRC?
wilfred
Your tax dollars at work:
Ramadan Kareem.
http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/08/israels-third-destruction-of-al-arakib/
Svensker
@wilfred:
You left out the fun part, about them digging up the olive trees and everything. I mean, you don’t want those people actually able to support themselves and stuff. Do you? Besides, the Bedu didn’t own the land. Damn squatters.
celticdragonchick
@Svensker:
I call bullshit. This is like asking proof that sandstone is different from granite. Incendiary remarks and calls for the destruction of Israel are so commonplace from Iranian leaders as to be utterly unremarkable.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080300629.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2140947
That last bit right there conforms that the destruction of Israel is a state objective of Iran that precedes Ahmadinejad. Some folks here have appealed to Juan Cole’s rather interesting translation of the speech given by Ahmadinejad where Cole said that “the occupation regime must end”
Let’s just say that his translation is disputed.
**********************************************************
There are two separate but related matters here. For a start, let us look at the now-famous speech that Ahmadinejad actually gave at the Interior Ministry on Oct. 26, 2005. (I am using the translation made by Nazila Fathi of the New York Times Tehran bureau, whose Persian is probably the equal of Professor Cole’s.) The relevant portions read:
Our dear Imam [Khomeini] said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. … Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. … For over fifty years the world oppressor tried to give legitimacy to the occupying regime, and it has taken measures in this direction to stabilize it.
Ahmadinejad then denounced the recent Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over Gaza as a sellout and added, “If we get through this brief period successfully, the path of eliminating the occupying regime will be easy and down-hill.”
Not even Professor Cole will dispute that, in the above passages, the term “occupying regime” means Israel and the term “world oppressor” stands for the United States. (The title of the conference, incidentally, was The World Without Zionism.) In fact, Khomeini’s injunctions are referred to twice. Quite possibly, “wiped off the map” is slightly too free a translation of what he originally said, and what it is mandatory for his followers to repeat. So, I give it below, in Persian and in English, and let you be the judge:
Esrail ghiyam-e mossalahaane bar zed-e mamaalek-e eslami nemoodeh ast va bar doval va mamaalek-eeslami ghal-o-gham aan lazem ast.
My source here is none other than a volume published by the Institute for Imam Khomeini. Here is the translation:
Israel has declared armed struggle against Islamic countries and its destruction is a must for all governments and nations of Islam.
This is especially important, and is also the reason for the wide currency given to the statement: It is making something into a matter of religious duty. The term “ghal-o-gham” is an extremely strong and unambivalent one, of which a close equivalent rendering would be “annihilate.”
Professor Cole has completely missed or omitted the first reference in last October’s speech, skipped to the second one, and flatly misunderstood the third. (The fourth one, about “eliminating the occupying regime,” I would say speaks for itself.) He evidently thinks that by “occupation,” Khomeini and Ahmadinejad were referring to the Israeli seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. But if this were true, it would not have been going on for “more than fifty years” now, would it? The 50th anniversary of 1967 falls in 2017, which is a while off. What could be clearer than that “occupation regime” is a direct reference to Israel itself?
D-Chance.
Like watching a gambling addict pulling off his jewelry and throwing it on the stack after a run of several losses. The US can’t or won’t admit when they’ve lost and will continue to double down time after time until we tap out (and we’re closer to that point than anyone cares to admit).
celticdragonchick
@Tony J:
That didn’t work out too well, did it.
It still doesn’t excuse tampering with intelligence on our part, in any event.
celticdragonchick
@D-Chance.:
Huh?
We are not going to be the ones to open up a war with Iran. Maybe you got confused here.
Svensker
@celticdragonchick:
“Better off without the existence of the Zionist regime” is not the same as “kill all the Jews”. The Iranians are calling for regime change, just as the Americans and Israelis have called for regime change in Iran. Is it because our intentions (and past history) are so bloody that we assume that means “bomb them till they’re all dead”? Of course, the Iranians don’t want Israel to be what it is now. If you were Iranian (or Syrian or Lebanese) would you? If I were Israeli, I might not be too happy about the rhetoric, but then I might try to lean on my own government to dial back their own bloodthirsty “let’s poke that hornets nest and see what happens” ways.
If we’re going to go by overheated rhetoric, I think “our side” still wins. And if you go by actions, we get all the big prizes. Do you really believe any Iranian leaders are crazy enough to bomb Israel, unless attacked first?
Tony J
No it didn’t, but everyone in a position to know that fact also knew, from the same source, that Iraq actually – had – complied with the postwar demand for disarmament. You should recall that Iraq did eventually come clean about it when pressure was applied. The UN inspections of 2003 proved that Iraq really was no immediate threat to anyone, and so didn’t need to be invaded. Full stop, underline.
No it doesn’t. But the fact that Saddam Hussain wanted people to think that he might have an ace up his sleeve shouldn’t be confused with “He asked for it” anymore than “Everyone thought he was a threat” or “It was for a good cause”. None of the others are actually true.
Anymore than Iranian statements about wanting Israel to go the fuck away should be confused with threats to actually do anything about it.
Zach
@mnpundit: Yeah he definitely has birthright citizenship; I’m saying he also resided there for some time and has a perfectly legitimate personal interest in defending it aside from whatever one thinks about Israel. I don’t think bombing or invading Iran advances that interest, but fair enough.
celticdragonchick
@Svensker:
I’m interested in how far you can go with that distinction in Israel. I doubt that 1 out of 10 would but it…and since their elected government will be the one doing the bombing, their opinion counts a bit more than yours.
Again, I think it would be a mistake, but it don’t try to pretend that Iranian rhetoric hasn’t been pouring gasoline on the fire.
The statements about wanting Israel destroyed were pretty unequivocal. Our history has nothing to do with that. Nice red herring, though.
Considering they are also denying that the Holocaust ever happened to begin with (also in the Salon story), I find it rather more likely that they don’t want any Israel at all.
Maybe, but considering the wars of extermination that Israel’s neighbors fought against her in 1948, 1967 and 1973, I understand (if not condone) how Israelis are not terribly interested in dialing back provocative actions. Israel tried the land for peace thing 10 years ago and it thrown back in their faces and it brought down the government. Palestine will never get that offer again. What this has to do with Iran is something of a mystery, except for the whole “Jews are ritually impure” thing that some Shias seem to believe.
I can’t really believe I’m having to defend Israel here. I’m still pissed about the Gaza blockade.
Utterly irrelevant (unless Palin becomes the next President).
Again, irrelevant. Our actions in one war that you find fault with do not excuse another country in starting another.
My opinions do not count. I don’t vote in Israel.
As it is, I really don’t know. I think it is possible, but not certain.
celticdragonchick
@Tony J:
Considering that Israel has been attacked by neighbors in the past who said just that, they may take it more seriously than you or I do.
Batocchio
You mean the latest, most high-profile “liberal” PR campaign begins. The neocons have been pushing this non-stop for over a decade. For conservatives, just like every domestic economic event means we should cut taxes on the wealthy, every foreign policy event means we should bomb Iran.