Today will probably be a Lazy Sunday, and I don't know that I shall be writing much. So let me just point to a good commentary in the N.J. Star Ledger by Thomas Lippman of WAPO and Juan Cole re. any possible conflict between Iran and Israel (which they view as being very unlikely, even if Iran gets Da Bomb). Here is the money passage:
But what if, five or ten years from now, Iran has nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them against Israel?
Even if we assume that some people in Iran would then truly plan and intend to fire those warheads at Israel, are we also to as sume that the entire Iranian leadership -- military, political and clerical -- would acquiesce in such a plan? And are we to assume that these people in the leadership, whoever they may be five years or a decade from now, are collectively insane and suicidal, in ways that Stalin and Khrushchev never were? Are we to believe that they would initiate a nuclear catastrophe, a step no other nation has taken in the 60 years of the nuclear era? Do we think Iran is unaware that Israel has nuclear weapons and multiple means of delivering them? Do we believe the Iranians are prepared to shrug that off and plunge ahead to their own doom? Do we think the people and leaders of Iran are willing to give this whole new meaning to the term "suicide bomber"?
It is true that Iran menaces Israel, mostly through its support of terrorism. But the reason Iran re sorts to terrorism is that it has no other way of inflicting real harm on the Jewish state, which is capable of defending itself and has the full support of the United States.
Nuff said.
Yo, Einsten...
ReplyDelete"..are we to assume that these people in the leadership, whoever they may be five years or a decade from now, are collectively insane and suicidal..."
It only takes one whack job to do the job.
I mean, in your fantasy world, it was a small cabal of neo-cons that instigated the Iraq war.
I suppose the terror funded by Iran against Israel is acceptable to you.
Actually, the point is it takes many whackjobs to do the job, and they have to be working in concert which, as the article points out, is unlikely.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was indeed a small cabal of neo cons that instigated the Iraq war, but they got alot of help from various people who were not neo-cons (for example, a press made overly compliant by 9-11, a population of rural white Republicans who were willing to be suckered into a quasi religous war). The list goes on.
This is why Tony Blair will find a particular nasty place in hell reserved for him alone. He is the one guy the Yanks couldn't have done the job without, the one guy who single-handedly could have stopped the war.