Dennis Ross and two former aides to George Bush take a hard line on negotiations with Iran in the LA Times. Reading this piece, it is astounding to consider that Ross was once the nerve center inside Democratic administrations, including Obama’s, for making American policy on the Middle East. Ross couldn’t be a more fervent advocate for the Israeli position. He says that Iran can’t be trusted and that preventing a nuclear-capable Iran is “the most pressing national security threat facing the United States;” he repeatedly calls for threats of military action and overlooks Israel’s own nuclear arsenal while criticizing Iran for threatening the international “nonproliferation” regime.
These American threats will serve a purpose, in Ross’s view: to “reassure Israel so it does not feel compelled to act alone.” And the U.S. will support “Israeli military action if conducted.” If conducted? I.e., we can’t tell Israel what to do. No wonder that as a negotiator Ross was called Israel’s lawyer.
Co-authors Michael Makovsky and Eric Edelman served in the Bush administration. Some of their argument:
In the few instances [Iran] has compromised, it has been because of the threat of force. The success of these talks will hinge on Iran understanding that there will be very real and damaging consequences if negotiations fail.
This will require at least these U.S. actions: Intensify sanctions and incentivize other countries to do the same, issue more forceful and credible statements that all options are on the table, initiate new military deployments and make clear the support for Israeli military action if conducted.
Ross again legitimizes the idea of Israeli military strike in this argument:
A deal struck for its own sake would still allow for a nuclear Iran; undermine the legitimacy of any subsequent U.S. attempts or, much more likely, Israeli attempts to arrest Iran’s progress by military action; discredit and compromise U.S. credibility; and weaken, if not destroy, the decades-old international nonproliferation regime.
Yes and what about calls on Israel to get rid of its nukes?
Israel’s status depends on 24/7 belligerence .
The original Jewish kingdom came into being when the local empires all collapsed during a century long drought. The latest incarnation also requires continuing local weakness. Warmongering is no slam dunk, however. It breeds enemies. No state in the region that ran on war and had nothing to offer its captured peoples made it more than a few centuries.
Judaism’s statecraft ur problem is the definition of who can be a Jew. Maybe a larger population base would have avoided the need for Uncle Sam to keep the show on the road. Or maybe a less paranoid Israel would have drawn more American Jews to Shangri La.
I wonder how much of the Jewish vote the GOP would get in a national election if they took on a more moderate/Rockefeller Republican foreign policy approach? How many Jews vote for the GOP purely because of foreign policy? I’m sure quite a few do it because it helps their pocketbook, too. Still. If they went to the left of the Democratic party(which itself is fanatically right-wing on Israel thanks to donor pressure), what would their vote share be? 10%? Less?
It’s also very instructure to notice that Dennis Ross wrote it with two neocons from the GOP.
This is the old Zionist alliance we’ve been talking about, how “liberals” like Alterman, Goldberg, Dana Milbank, Chait and others all coalesce with right-wing neocons on matters Israel. Alterman has basically said the same thing that Dennis Ross does now: if need be, America “must” take a bullet for Israel(and sacrifice blood and treasure to fight the nation’s wars, too).
I hope Mearsheimer and Walt make a second book, detailing how on earth we allowed these fanatics to run our foreign policy in the Middle East and get away with it because every critic got attacked as an anti-Semite/self-hating Jew. They should just call the book what it is: How Israel Firsters Took Over U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East.
They should write it so as to make sure it (hopefully) never happens again.
And this is the creep that conspired with Clinton to blame Arafat for the breakdown of the peace talks at Camp David.
He is a war monger , a verifiable liar and basically a sleeze.
The perfect Zionist.
ross is a schmuck and a shill, but also a symptom of big-dumb policy. big-dumb resorts to military force, ubiquitous snooping and threats of widespread deprivation through economic blockade to get an ‘edge’ on the competition. if americans want to know ‘why they hate us’, it’s not because of jealousy or our freedom, it’s because of the likes of Ross, Cheney, Albright, etc. who conceive of themselves as clever states crafters, but are really just the coincidental beneficiaries of an unprecedented military hyper-power. the likes of ross and makovsky have good reason to be concerned about ‘negotiations’ with the Iranians, the reason being that the Iranians are more clever than they are, ross and his ilk being mentally incapable of constructive dialog. it’s not what he’s evolved into. iran can’t compete with the US-Israeli military axis, but they can run circles around them diplomatically.
soundgarden has a song, ‘big dumb sex’. ross has a political ideology, big dumb diplomacy. rock on d-bag.
“Dennis Ross says US must undertake ‘new military deployments’ against Iran and support Israel if it strikes”
And, no doubt, Julius Rosenberg and Kim Phiby would have counseled the US and UK, retrospectively, to pursue pro-Soviet policies…