235 Dangerous Provocations
The Lebanese defense minister is right to conclude that the cease-fire in Lebanon must hold at all costs, despite Israel’s commando raid near Baalbek yesterday. Defense Minister Elias Murr warned this morning that anyone retaliating for Israel’s breach of the cease-fire would be tried for treason before a military tribunal. It would be nice to see the Israelis issue similar warnings about breaking the cease-fire. It might help repair the impression that Security Council Resolution 1701 is toothless. True, Israel’s leaders have their own problems now. But it would still be satisfying to see those who approved the raid in Baalbek put on trial for aiding Hizballah.
Meanwhile, the Middle East’s other superpower, Iran, is posturing again. I don’t think that Iran’s aggressive behavior can be explained wholly as a response to the Bush administration’s bellicose rhetoric on (and real-world encirclement of) Iran. But the Iranians listen to the debate in Washington. They hear otherwise intelligent and arguably influential people arguing such insane courses of action as nuclear strikes against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, which in turn must influence their decisions.
It works both ways. Events in Iran influence the debate in Washington. Every new Iranian missile test undermines efforts to argue for a sane Iran policy in the United States (apologies for the wacky link—it’s hard to find the full-text of that letter) and strengthens the hands of the Strangelovian psychos.
Washington’s chickenhawks are wrong on Iran. I fail to understand how they can think Iran would simply surrender after a U.S. “pre-emptive strike” and everyone would live happily ever after. I’m amazed that they fail to see the violence this would spark in the region or the terrible blow it would deal to the pro-democracy movement in Iran. The appeasers, those who say Iran must be offered incentives to give up their nukes, are also wrong. Iran’s leaders are playing with dangerous emotions (and instruments of torture) at home and are playing a desperate, high-stakes game with their country’s future abroad. International rewards for this behavior will only strengthen their hand and will not persuade them to give up their nuclear ambitions.
An international push for a regional treaty for a nuclear-free Middle East, on the other hand, would leave Iran’s nuclear hawks prisoners of their own rhetoric and would make the world safer. Those who argue for U.S. military action in Iran say it is “the least-bad option,” that they’re more afraid an Iranian nuke would touch off a regional nuclear arms race than they are of a wave of Iranian-sponsored attacks in the region and abroad, an oil shock, or outright war. They imagine, for example, that Egypt would want a nuke to balance Iran’s and posit that this would be worse for the world than anything an Iran attacked could muster. They willfully ignore the fact that the arms race is already on, that Iran claims it needs a deterrent to match that of its enemies, Israel and the United States.
I’ll grant that there’s a slim possibility Egypt might say “me too” if Iran got the bomb. But I don’t see why Egypt should suddenly want the bomb in response to an Iranian nuke when the nukes on its border—nukes held by a country that recently occupied Egyptian territory and even more recently showed it was perfectly happy to bomb the stuffing out of a neighbor— haven’t yet inspired it to pursue a nuclear program.
Any successful attempt to avert a nuclear arms race in the Middle East must address the Middle East, not just Iran. This would be more difficult than offering bribes or dropping a few bombs, but the results would be better.
Lastly, and also in the category of dangerous provocations: the murder of 15 Iraqi Shia pilgrims, and the injury of 200 more, in Baghdad today. What can anyone say about Iraq anymore? After three years, the daily Iraq carnage reports blend together. Two hundred pilgrims were injured in Baghdad today, and in Cincinnati, Bristol, or Buenos Aires, a dog bit a man.
[tags]Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Iraq[/tags]
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Huh?!? The primary threat of a nuclear Iran is that it gives a nuclear umbrella to the Shiit death squads in Iraq, Iran funded terrorists in the Palestinian territories and the death worshiping populist militia known as Hezbollah. Also, the argument that Iran’s leadership will not commit national suicide is premised on the theory that Ahmadinejad does not succeed in further buying control of the revolutionary guard and that the clerics do not mean what they say.
The invasion claim is a straw man. No one is arguing that. However, to rule out the prospect of identifying and attacking the production centers for nuclear fuel right now is just huffandpuff. There are bad options. But please don’t pretend diplomacy has not been tried for some time with these scumwads. They are playing us in the diplomatic game. And if sanctions end up looking like sanctions against the country instead of sanctions against Iran’s leaders, well then this is false threat as well.
the letter you link to suffers from this premise that there has been no diplomacy to date. Not only has America supported the european talks, but American envoys have explored all kinds of agreements with Iran since Bush came into power–from inviting them to the bonn conference for afghanistan, to coordinating Iraqi opposition policy and including their proxies.
If you think that Iran cannot just be offered incentives, then explain how the diplomacy will work. I am all for velvet revolution in Iran. But Jesus get on with it already Ganji. This is ridiculous at this point. The free world cannot tolerate an Iranian nuke. And yes, they would still want one if Dimona did not exist. Do you really think Israel would launch a first strike on anyone? Ofcourse not. The reason is that Israel is run by rational human beings. Iran is run by millenerian mafia thugs.
Comment by The zionist — August 20, 2006 #
Of course no one’s talking about invasion. It’s not an option. The United States is having enough trouble finding enough soldiers for Iraq. But air strikes alone won’t solve this problem for the United States. They’ll just inflame the country and the region.
I don’t suggest that no one’s tried, or is trying, diplomacy. I’m sure there’s all kinds of track-two diplomacy on as I write this. But Iran has suggested that what’s needed is a plan for a nuclear-free Middle East (Syria has too), secure in the knowledge that the United States will reject or ignore the suggestion. I say call their bluff. Who knows what could come out of a regional summit to rid the Middle East of nukes?
I’m not suggesting that Israel will nuke anyone first. After the war in Lebanon, I have doubts as to Israel’s leaders’ rationality. But charitably, the war at least shows that rational people can make mistakes with disastrous consequences.
I agree that an Iranian nuke would be bad for the region and the world. I think nukes are bad for the world. And I think they’re particularly bad for the world in the Middle East…all of the Middle East.
But I don’t fully understand your fear about Iran providing a nuclear umbrella for Hizballa or the Shia militias in Iraq. This seems bizarre, especially since Iran habitually denies these groups are its proxies. What are they going to do, say “Mess with Hizballa or the Badr Brigades and we’ll nuke you?”
Comment by Administrator — August 21, 2006 #
I suppose that the correct geopolitical analysis is that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Shebaa Farms so enflames Hezbollah that it decided to launch its cross border raid of July 12 out of boiling rage. Perhaps we could measure the amount of perceived occupation and establish markers when a line is passed that will produce terror. As every serious student of liberation movements knows, these entities are only driven to violence in response to the violence of the oppressor. Thus counterterrorism itself the cause of terrorism. So we might as well just talk.
Some people reject this view and see Hezbollah as effectively an arm of Iran. Iran provides Hezbollah with its weapons, training, officers for guidance and technical expertise and so forth. After all the date of their abductions coincided with the closing of the incentives window for Iran’s nuke program. The Iranian chief nuclear negotiator and Syrian defense minister seemed to know before anyone else what the price Hezbollah was asking for the abducted reservists. More important, the missiles Nasrallah threated to rain on Tel Aviv were made in Iran.
Now Iran’s nuclear umbrella does not mean that any response to Hezbollah will be countered with a threat of nuclear annihiliation, but rather the kind of decisive blow that Israel must take, not to mention more rational responses on Hezbollah’s sponsors, would be out of the question. Such insurance will not embolden Nasrallah’s band of death worshippers, and in turn inspire other copy-cat terrorists who seek to emulate and link up with Iran’s ascendant model of Islamic revolution. The nuclear umbrella would guarantee more of these kinds of wars, not to mention more–not less–state terror from the Iranian coordinated Iraqi militias.
And also, I think you don’t consider how your proposal–which sounds like a reasonable endorsement of diplomacy–is really asking Israel for concessions in the face of not only terrorism, but also terrorism in the service of the Jewish State’s elimination. These fascists are not George Habash. They are not fighting for the end of occupation. Israel left Lebanon in 2000. They are fighting to destroy the Jewish state. Incidentally, they make this perfectly clear in their public statements and propaganda.
A point, I have made to you before in personal conversations, but it is worth returning to. Why infantalize these scumbags? I assume they all mean what they say. Why treat them as rational actors, worthy of diplomatic consideration.
Comment by The zionist — August 21, 2006 #
“I suppose that the correct geopolitical analysis is… etc etc”
I never said any of that.
“Hizballah [is] effectively an arm of Iran…”
Wayll, I think that’s stretching it, but certainly I think Iran has influence with HA. And?
Now Iran?s nuclear umbrella does not mean that any response to Hezbollah will be countered with a threat of nuclear annihiliation, but rather the kind of decisive blow that Israel must take, not to mention more rational responses on Hezbollah?s sponsors, would be out of the question. Such insurance will not embolden Nasrallah?s band of death worshippers, and in turn inspire other copy-cat terrorists who seek to emulate and link up with Iran?s ascendant model of Islamic revolution. The nuclear umbrella would guarantee more of these kinds of wars, not to mention more?not less?state terror from the Iranian coordinated Iraqi militias.
OK, now you’re on to something. Yes, Iran’s possession of a nuclear bomb would deter Olmert from doing to Iran what he did to Lebanon. But Olmert, you assert, is reasonable. Certainly he’s reasonable enough to conclude that it would be a bad idea for him to raze outlying neighborhoods of Tehran, particularly after his Lebanon fiasco.
Hizballah isn’t pulling its punches because it’s afraid Israel will destroy Iran. Neither are the Iraqi Shia militias. If anything, there’s an argument to be made (I don’t really buy it) that the isolation of Iran may have inspired HA’s attack.
Sure. A Muslim Bomb in the Middle East might stir up nationalist sentiments elsewhere in the region. Pres. A’s plain talk and open defiance have already made him popular with a lot of friends in Cairo. But that’s the least of my worries about an Iranian nuke.
In the disagreements about how each of us came to the conclusion, let’s not lose track of the fact that we agree: “Iranian nuke bad.”
I think you also agree that military strikes against Iran would be a bad idea. No? I do think diplomacy is the only option that stands any chance of producing a good outcome, but I think that diplomacy predicated on bribes a) will probably not work, and b) is morally wrong given the nasty way the Iranian government treats its people.
Here’s where we disagree: I say Nukes have no place in the Middle East, full stop. You say nobody in the Middle East should have a nuke but Israel. That’s not surprising. You are, after all, a Zionist. There are probably people in Iran who would like to see no one in the Middle East have a nuke but Iran. Of course the Israelis and the Iranians, who both feel besieged by enemies (granted, with some justification), don’t want to give up the idea of a nuclear deterrent. The world should tell them both to lump it.
Negotiating for a nuclear-free Middle East doesn’t seem like asking Israel or Iran to make concessions in the face of anything but common sense and a shared concern for the survival of the human race. The ability to herald Armageddon in 15 minutes is not an acceptable deterrent.
Comment by Administrator — August 21, 2006 #
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