Last week the New Yorker ran a piece on Israel’s attack on a Syrian facility in 2007, written by the cherubic Israel lobbyist David Makovsky, that some of us interpreted as a justification for an attack on Iran.
Ali Gharib at the Daily Beast jumped all over it on September 10: “The One Where Israel Bombed Syria.” Gharib faulted Makovsky for being too gungho on war plans:
Makovsky tries to draw lessons for Iran from the Syria raid. But it doesn’t pan out the way he might hope…
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose government launched the Syria attack, hinted at this to Makovsky. “Each case must be examined separately,” Olmert told him. “The Iraqi case was different from the Syrian case, and the Syrian case is different from the Iranian case.” Like most of Israel’s security chiefs, Olmert opposes an Israeli attack. Makovsky should definitely have listened more closely to him.
I jumped in the next day. Angered that the New Yorker was describing Iranian nuclear activities as a threat to Israel’s “existence” and “a considerable risk to American interests….” and something that would “undermine American credibility” in the world, I wrote:
Why is the New Yorker running this stuff– at a time when Bill Keller of the Times, who was also fooled on Iraq, is saying we can contain Iran.
Well, New Yorker editor David Remnick has defended the piece. On September 12, he wrote an otherwise-excellent article slamming Netanyahu for using American neocons (“lobbyists, who are never willing to disagree with Israel at all”) to push a campaign war agenda with Obama. But in the middle of that piece, he detoured to defend Makovsky’s article:
In a reporting piece published this week in the magazine, David Makovsky adds to what we know about Israel’s solo strike in 2007 on Al Kibar, a facility near the Euphrates that both Israeli and American intelligence agreed was a nuclear installation. Israeli politicians rarely talk openly about the strike, but, when they do, nearly all of them say that what happened in Al Kibar is not at all analogous to the situation now with Iran, which is immeasurably more dangerous. Ehud Olmert, who was Prime Minister at the time and directed the strike on Al Kibar, is among those Israeli politicians who strongly oppose a strike on Iran and who emphasized to Makovsky the essential differences between the situation in 2007 and now.
I don’t know about this; go to the piece and judge for yourself. I read it as a justification for war. The skeptical Olmert quote that Remnick makes so much of is the second to last paragraph of the piece; Makovsky says that Olmert and three other former Israeli officials
are openly opposed to unilateral Israeli action against Iran; he [Olmert] has publicly urged Netanyahu not to pursue that course.
But the next and last paragraph belongs to the hawk Ehud Barak:
“I am well aware of the depth and complexities of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, I am convinced beyond any doubt that dealing with that challenge [Iran having nuclear weapons] from the hour of its emergence– if it emerges — will be far more complicated, far more dangerous, and far more costly in human lives and resources.”
I think that Barak quote can fairly be described as the thrust of the piece. In fact, Olmert is quoted earlier on in hawkish terms: “Israel cannot tolerate an enemy with nuclear power. We did not tolerate it in the past, whether that was Iraq or Syria, and we cannot tolerate it in Iran.” But check it out for yourself…
The embarrassment was that it was too blatant. Don’t forget the good old days when Likud was opposed by Labor for being too aggressive in their ethnic cleansing, not that Labor opposed ethnic cleansing but complained that its too rapid pace by Likud was so obvious it put the policy itself at risk.
Exactly! I’m convinced this is why a lot of ‘liberal’ Zionists can’t stand Bibi — he lacks subtlety. Belligerent and loutish, he’s the personification of an IDF armored Caterpillar D-9 ‘dozer, and he threatens to bring the whole Greater Israel scheme crashing down on all of them.
This is also why I think he’s the best PM Obama could hope for. His arrogance and anger make him easy to manipulate. Obama should have his people constantly leaking embarrassing dirt from CIA files — or just make stuff up that impugns his ‘manhood.’ Wind him up and watch him self-destruct on Americans’ TV screens…
remnick writes:
i am prevented from reading the whole Makovsky article but the linked page says:
i am also not certain American intelligence determined it was a nuclear installation. i know that’s what they alleged after the attack, but the slides the presented to congress are a farce.
“a facility near the Euphrates that both Israeli and American intelligence agreed was a nuclear installation”
Are these the same intelligence geniuses who convinced Colin Powell that some Iraqi’s 1998 Winnebago Vista was a mobile weapons lab??
Don’t be too hard on American intelligence officials – if they want to keep their jobs (who can blame them in the current economic situation), they have to keep their political masters as happy as possible and given the way that both Democratic and Republican politicians kiss Tel Aviv’s arse, that means that those officials have to accept whatever bullshit Mossad dreams up as having certain similarities to the truth.
Nobody has yet made a convincing case that the Israelis blew up anything in the Syrian desert and nobody has made a convincing case that the structure alleged to have been blown was a nuclear reactor.
Assuming that the Makovsky/NYer piece should be read as support for war (or for a strike, this isn’t Chicago anyway), some questions are: [1] is this a New Yorker recommendation or just Makovsky’s, and [2] is it a promotion of USA action (despite what Obama says), and [3] is it a promotion of anything to happen before the USA’s election?
I think New Yorker just got suckered (and now pretends it didn’t get suckered): a piece in the pipeline no-one noticed, a piece supported by the usual neocons, a piece that no USA media could refuse in the present (and past) climate of kowtowing to pro-hard-line Israeli opinion.
Keep giving ‘em hell.
Dan Senor, Jane Harman, Wolf Blitzer on CNN now discussing in primetime “2 State Solution Or Not?”
A beautiful young shiksa is sitting at the table too, an employee of CNN. She just nods her head at what the others say. It’s about to fall off.
The three Zionist jews agree Obama seems not sufficiently concerned of how Israel is threatened by Iran and the Arab Spring, and has not visited Israel. And Obama is blind to the “fact” Israel wants to negotiate peace, but can’t do so while Obama has not declared a red line re Iran’s conduct. Wolf plays Mr Objective, says Reagan never visited Israel once in 8 years. Shiksa points at poll results re candidates, on foreign policy, Senor says Americans are concerned about the unraveling in the ME.
Senor says we should look at the factors that caused this unraveling. Harman says democracy is messy. Wolf brings up Maureen Dowd’s blasting Senor as “necon puppet master;” Harman says name calling does not help, and we need to say what’s in America’s interest. Next issue: Why does Iran want to separate itself from the world wide web?
The Three Jews, and nary a Palestinian in sight. Sigh.
I’m also wondering: just when did Israel acquire the right to bomb foreign countries at will?
I mean, if the criteria is that one can bomb the nuclear facilities of mad-dog states that ignore international law — wouldn’t anybody who cared to be perfectly within their rights to bomb Diamona? Who could possibly object?
From the article “The pressing question today is whether the lessons of that success can be applied to Iran” He describes the two Israeli attacks on Syria and Iraq’s sites. And then ask if it would work in Iran. As my mother always says it if was a snake it would have bit you. Talk about in your face
Dr. Steve Pieczenik, former Assistant Deputy Secretary of State, on Alex Jones Show: claims WWIII could start on Yom Kippur because Netanyahu is nutz. Dr. Pieczenik is Jewish, has an impressive background, current member of Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
link to youtube.com
Don’t bother ragging on me for bringing up Alex Jones (his voice drives me around the bend; I rarely listen to him, but this was highlighted on StockMarketWatch). Listen to these 30 minutes. Jones doesn’t know how to handle Pieczenick’s assertion at end that Netanyahu is Hitler for 21st C, and will bring about Israel’s destruction and pogroms if allowed to go forward with his plans.
Phil, you looking for a break in the community conversation? Don’t miss this. Identifies the Arabists in the foreign service, calls Chas Freeman a scholar and a ‘great man’, discusses how the Wahhabis in cahoots with Israelis and American Zionists. Best tidbit I didn’t know is how Jimmy Carter fired 4,000 CIA agents, and they wound up working with Saudi Arabia, Mossad, and the Pakistani ISI as a rogue operation, whom he blames for 9/11. Don’t miss it.
The Pakistanis caused NORAD to shut down, instead of shooting down the jets? Wow.
@manfromatlan,
I’m still stuck on how the towers came down. Who did it is way beyond my ken.
i don’t have the stomach to listen to that lunatic Jones, but if there is a transcript, will read it. i had earlier posted a bit of analysis by an iranian dissident who believed that carter’s purge at CIA (his ‘october surprise’) which you refer to, ensured his defeat in 1980, a defeat engineered with the help of the purged elements (their subsequent october countercoup).
@marc b,
I missed your post on that purge. Will check the archives. Thanks for that. I remember writing a couple of years ago here about the CIA training the Ayatollah in the south of France to take over Iran in January 1979, a story I heard about at a dissolute state dept cocktail party in Morocco the summer of 1979. Carter didn’t order it and was furious. But I never knew he purged 4,000 CIA agents in retaliation. Or, if I did know at the time, I’ve long forgotten it.
Actually, Jones doesn’t talk much, which is why I continued to listen to the segment and it was only 30 minutes.
i think the carter ‘night of the long knives’ was in ’77, one of the last gasps of the reformist inclinations that came out of the 60s, the church committee, etc. the ayatollah phenomenon certainly looks different when viewed through the lens of ZBig’s bragging about afghanistan.
RE: “In a reporting piece published this week in the magazine, David Makovsky adds to what we know about Israel’s solo strike in 2007 on Al Kibar, a facility near the Euphrates that both Israeli and American intelligence agreed was a nuclear installation.” ~ Remick
MY COMMENT: Says who? And even if “both Israeli and American intelligence agreed [it] was a nuclear installation”, that does not make it so.
FOR AN OPPOSING VIEW, SEE: “Lies About the Past, Clamoring for War in the Future; New Yorker Magazine Concocts Case for Bombing Syria”, By John W. Farley, Counterpunch, 9/12/12
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to counterpunch.org