In the wake of the Iranian opening — see photos tweeted by Rouhani account of the president’s arrival in NY, travels with his Foreign Minister, after historic phone conversation with Obama– many Israelis are completely beside themselves, but no one is taking them very seriously. The boy has cried wolf too many times. They simply cannot bring themselves to see any kind of opportunity in peace.
Here’s a blast from the past. As the American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka stated, it’s the prospect that Iran will be considered normal–and accepted– that is the most dangerous to the neoconservatives and other friends of Israel.
The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you that Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately…we told you Iran wasn’t seeking regional influence or regional hegemony..” And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem.
I wish I could be optimistic on this, but since the US has had sanctions on Iran since 1979, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear energy is not the real reason for US intransigence, AIPAC’s bottom line is NO enrichment full stop, I’m with MJ Rosenberg on this, he say’s AIPAC can get the names of 74 Senators on a table mat within 24 hours [only 74] http://mjayrosenberg.com/2013/09/25/aipac-sets-out-to-defeat-obama-on-iran/ can Obama take on the Lobby and win? I doubt it, but things will certainly be interesting over the next 6 months.
this is not a shift in power, and Israel’s interest is the rate of ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
IMHO, we will see a shift from the radical Zionists to a “long game”.
There are two critical areas: financing and control of the Congress both for the next midterms and the next White House; retrenching AIPAC while trying to find some kind of base-line alliance with J Street.
Israeli backed black ops in Syria, Lebanon and Iran will increase, not lessen, as will the persecution and cleansing of all “foreign elements” in Israel.
Fundamentally, the conflict was always a conflict in power.
A simple power struggle.
I believe Iran will have the capability to have nukes and they will make sure to get some of their own, and of course they won’t use them.
They will get nukes simply because then Israel won’t be able to push them around in the same manner as before.
But I also think they understand going the North Korea route isn’t really beneficial.
They want to get nukes but in a way that doesn’t alienate them from the rest of the world. It’d be the best of both worlds for them.
I don’t think we should romanticize this opening; Iran is a pretty horrible state for gays, women and ethnic minorities to begin with. But the point is that Israel is hardly a beacon of light and if there’s a parity of power, then that might actually make the middle east more peaceful as no side feels it can decivesively win in a war.
Israel is so far the only nuclear power which gives them confidence in an attack. If all else fails they can just rattle with their (nuclear) saber, they have nuclear submarines, thanks to Germany, as well as nuclear F-16s.
With Iran going nuclear, you’ll get a standoff between the two major powers.
The danger is that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and so on will also try to go nuclear.
It’s not hard to see a Western interest in seeing Iran not going nuclear in this scenario, the problem is any military solution would crash the world economy and just delay, not eradicate, the program.
The I lobby has stood in the way of real negotiations with Iran for decades. A real breath of fresh air.
Annie, Phil …on All Things Considered last night Robert Siegel interviewed one of the top guns in the Egyptian government about what has taken place there the last year. Some twisted hooey about Obama’s speech at the UN including comments about Egypt demonstrate that the American people get it that millions of Egyptian people wanted Morsi gone (hell millions of us (marched, protested, lobbied) wanted Bush gone but the U.S. military did not conduct a coup even when the Supreme Court selected Bush and team) Spiegel actually put Mubarak and Morsi in the same boat by saying both had been removed…but failed to whisper that Morsi was elected. Failed to ask or mention that the Egyptian military gunned down protesters protesting the military coup. Recommend listening to that interview. Robert Siegel played softball