Every column that Roger Cohen writes now on Iran in the Times must be celebrated. They're so important, the tone is chastened and reasoned and olive-branch. They're historic, in that they're changing the American discussion. And Cohen has staked an enormous amount of personal and journalistic capital on these columns. Here's his latest. A tremendous interview with Mohamed ElBaradei reminiscent of Tom Friedman's important column interviewing the Saudi Prince some years ago, promoting the Arab peace initiative.
“Israel would be utterly crazy to attack Iran,” ElBaradei said. “I worry about it. If you bomb, you will turn the region into a ball of fire and put Iran on a crash course for nuclear weapons with the support of the whole Muslim world.”
To avoid that nightmare Obama will have to get tougher with Israel than any U.S. president in recent years. It’s time.
In his previous column, Cohen quoted Trita Parsi. This is the new
left-realist-center of the American debate; and this site plays a role
here. At Easter lunch yesterday I sat next to a transplanted Iranian
who hates the revolution but who says what Cohen is saying: that attacking Iran will only set it back a couple of years; that a shift of our horrifying Israel/Palestine policy is
the crux of our dealings here; that Iran must be engaged if the greatest threat to global peace is to be addressed: Pakistan falling apart, full of nukes.
Update: The AJC recognizes Cohen's potency and is attacking him in a new email from Eran Lerman of their Israeli office, titled, "Should Roger Cohen Have a Conversation with my Daughter?
Or Why Belittling the Iranian Threat Is a Clever Sort of Folly". More later…
