I read here in Haaretz that Obama’s team in discussions with Israel about what to do about Iran included Gary Seymour, the White House honcho on arms proliferation, described as a "close friend" of Uzi Arad (above), Netanyahu’s national security advisor. Arad, you remember, is supposedly not allowed even to enter the United States because of his role in the Franklin spy case, besides being an uber-hawk. Perhaps someone can explain how is that his "close friend" has a top White House position–one that will be crucial to be determining whether or not we go to war with Iran. I don’t like to overstate the influence of "The Lobby"– but how is that Israel gets to have a "close friend" of Arad in the White House?
[Weiss adds: Is Seymour "partner, lover or donor"? Here is Arad on limited nuclear war feasibility, and why Israel is always pretty-much alone:
Herman Kahn [late, of Hudson Institute] is the original Dr. Strangelove. He was a Jewish-American genius who was a salient nuclear hawk and dealt with the planning and feasibility of nuclear wars. Kahn was a towering figure. He was a beacon of intelligence, knowledge and pioneering thought. He combined conceptual productivity, humor and informality. He attracted a group of devotees of whom I was one in the 1970s. But he also had bitter rivals who criticized him for even conceiving of the idea of a nuclear war. In the Cold War it was precisely those who talked about defense and survival who were considered nuclear hawks. The doves talked about "mutual assured destruction," which blocks any possibility of thinking about nuclear weapons. Like Kahn, I was one of the hawks. One of my projects was a paper for the Pentagon on planning a limited nuclear war in Central Europe…
We are always alone. Sometimes we have partners and lovers and donors of money, but no one is in our shoes.
I still remember Roosevelt and all the wise and enlightened types of the American security hierarchy in the period of Auschwitz, and I have retained the lesson. In Jewish history and fate there is a dimension of unfairness toward us. We have already been alone once, and even the good and the enlightened did not protect us. Accordingly, we must not be militant, but we must entrench our defense and security prowess and act with wisdom and restraint and caution and sangfroid. Never again.]
