Just days after the New York Times Magazine's lurid cover story, "Israel vs. Iran," the Washington Post struck back with a two-fisted effort to win the "most dire prediction" contest. The Post's foreign policy pundit David Ignatius wrote a widely-circulated column claiming inside information: U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta "believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June." The next day the Post's front page headline warned ominously, "Israel: Iran Must Be Stopped Soon."
Both stories reported that the Obama administration opposes any Israeli action, just like the Bush administration before it. The risks to U.S. interests are incalculable, as the Pentagon and State Department have been telling us for years.
Yet both stories added a new note: Israel might strike without U.S. support or permission. "The administration appears to favor staying out of the conflict unless Iran hits U.S. assets," Ignatius wrote.
Of course the U.S. is already in the conflict, as the Iranians know perfectly well. Israel's ability to strike depends largely on its high-tech weaponry, paid for by the $3 billion a year coming from Washington. With that kind of money flowing -- plus U.S. diplomatic support, which many in Israel see as their last barrier against international isolation -- the Obama administration has powerful leverage to stop any Israeli action that threatens U.S. interests.
When the administration tells the Washington Post that the U.S. is unhappy but helpless, it's obviously looking for deniability if the attack occurs. But it's also a clear signal to the Israelis: Though we could stop you, so far we have not decided that we will. This is a major shift in the message coming from Washington.
Why now? Ignatius put it delicately: "Complicating matters is the 2012 presidential campaign, which has Republicans candidates clamoring for stronger U.S. support of Israel." Obama, the Republicans, and the mass media all assume that a red light from the White House to the Israelis would hurt the president on Election Day.
Why should the voters punish a president for insisting that U.S. interests must come first and for preventing an attack that would probably cause a spike in gas prices?
The two WaPo articles offered an important clue. One mentioned Israeli warnings about "an existential threat to Israel." The other called this "a time when their security is undermined by the Arab Spring."
For decades, American voters have been inundated with news stories reporting supposed threats to Israel's security as if they were objective fact. Rarely do our mass media allow any questions about, much less objections to, the myth of Israel's insecurity. At least two questions are urgent now:
Even if the Iranians did manage to make a handful of nuclear weapons, why should we believe they would ever use them against Israel? They know that Israel already has 100 to 200 nukes of its own, enough to destroy every major city in Iran, and is perfectly prepared to use them. Iranian leaders have not given any evidence that they're interested in committing national suicide.
And why should we believe Israel was better off before the Arab Spring, when its neighbors were all dictatorships, breeding grounds for popular anger that could easily turn (or be manipulated) against outside enemies? Governments that better reflect public sentiment are more stable and reliable for their neighbors to deal with. In fact, the Arab Spring movement is having a moderating effect on Islamist politics, as both the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are now demonstrating.
Read the references to Israel's insecurity in the two WaPo articles more closely, and a third question arises: Do Israelis leaders seriously believe that their national existence is threatened?
The front-pager says:
Israeli officials warn that beyond posing an existential threat to Israel, Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon could trigger a regional nuclear arms race in the volatile Middle East and alter Israel's strategic position in the region.
Since Israel brought nukes into the Middle East decades ago, its concern about a "regional nuclear arms race" is code for other Mideast nations getting nuclear capability. "Strategic position" is code for Israel's current absolute military domination of the greater Middle East, symbolized by its sole possession of nukes. It's that symbolic as well as very real domination, not its national existence, that Israel is at risk of losing.
"Symbolic" is the right word when it comes to nuclear weapons because Israel's nukes don't have any practical value. Israel doesn't need to use its nukes; it has shown itself more than capable of winning any conventional war against its neighbors. And the U.S. has guaranteed that Israel will stay far ahead in the high-tech conventional arms race.
If Israel did use even one nuke against a conventional attack it would probably lose the last shred of its dwindling support around the world, including most of its support in the U.S., and end up isolated, a pariah in the international community. That's the greatest nightmare for most Israelis.
The Israelis are considering an attack on Iran, fraught with immense dangers, so the Jewish state can keep its symbolic status as the region's only superpower.
David Ignatius confirms this view in his reference to Israel's supposed insecurity: "Israeli leaders are said to accept, and even welcome, the prospect of going it alone and demonstrating their resolve at a time when their security is undermined by the Arab Spring."
Resolve to do what? To do whatever it takes to maintain military superiority. But superiority is useful only if it's publicly demonstrated from time to time. Symbolism is the key to a sense of national power.
If these WaPo journalists are right -- and my forty years of studying the issue tells me they are -- what really makes Israeli leaders feel insecure is their fear of not having their power respected. To gain that respect, they'll talk endlessly about their planning to attack Iran. Perhaps one day they'll do it, as long as Obama doesn't raise the red light.
The main thing holding him back is election-year anxiety of his own, fueled by the millions of voters who honestly believe that Israel's existence is constantly in peril. Why shouldn't they believe it, when the journalists they depend on for their information repeat that myth endlessly, while they hint at the full truth only in rare sentences that get lost amid the flood of words that evoke fear.
But how tragic that a president has to worry about voters punishing him if he puts U.S. interests above Israel's desire to symbolize its military strength and resolve.
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more of his writing on Israel, Palestine, and the U.S. on his blog.
Apparently the Bible talked about such war against Israel in the book of Daniel and Ezekiel 38 and Zechariah 12:3 and cont’d in Zackaria 14:12, However, the deception of Satan is clear here, in order to get millions and millions killed especially Muslims, he had Islam switch the victor with the looser. He had Muslims believe that they will be the victors and they will wipe out the Jews. The fact is that the Bible declares that that is not going to happen, in the process many will die by an atomic weapon, yes the Bible says atomic weapon, I will list Zackaria 14:12 for you:
“12 And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem:
Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet,
Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets,
And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.”
I am an Egyptian who now believe the truth of the Bible.
Regards,
However, the iranian clerical leadership hates israel due to their fundamentalist resistance to zionism (they feel that jerusalem should be controlled by muslims), and traditional shite islamic anti-semitism.
This is why israel is scared. This isn't the palestinians or a neighboring arab state, which israel has legitimate grievances with threatening their existence. This is a religious fundamentalist state which hates them against all logic and strategic self-interest. There is no arguing or negotiating with such hatred. When a government which has religiously based genocidal aims against you and regularly threatens your destruction desires the means to bring this about, then anybody with an ounce of self-preservation would take them seriously. It is only wishful thinking and bare anti-zionism that could lead anybody to think a nuclear iran is no threat to israel.
For his statement that, "Iranian leaders have not given any evidence that they're interested in committing national suicide", maybe he should pay more attention. Just a few weeks ago, an iranian religious establishment website with close ties to the supreme leader published an article discussing the most efficient ways to kill the jews of israel with nuclear weapons. A few years ago, a former iranian president stated that nuclear weapons could be used to destroy the zionist project.
And a nuclear arms race in the middle east is not only a danger to israel. I don't see how anybody with an ounce of self preservation isn't terrified by the prospect of, say, saudi arabia becoming a nuclear power, with their radicalized population that could have an arab spring of its own at any time.
We have been Israel’s lap dog for 60 years and where has it gotten us. America needs to stop giving them cover to repress a Palestine nation.
Israel is still pushing for us to bomb Iran and fight its wars while they sit on the beach of Tel Aviv and collect $3 BILLION DOLLARS in Aid from us.
They must laugh at how stupid Americans are. We have a National Debt $15 Trillion!, Israel has a booming economy. Our troops are worn out from fighting two wars over the last decade, Iraq being the failed war Paul Wolfowitz defraud us into fighting for Israel. Let’s stop pandering to Israel.
2) If you find Iranian websites credible, would you mind awfully if other people quote from them as well, for example from presstv.ir ?
Oh, not only it's been quoted but pasted in its entirety. I see that all the time - just Google the most notorious anti-Israel posts and you'll hit it.
Fortunately, the jews have learned the tough lesson that, when facing elimination, nobody else can protect you. Which leads to our present situation. The only thing differentiating the israelis from, say, the tutsi of early 90's rwanda is the IDF.
There is even a small risk that he could face the sort of coup that stopped Zelaya when he ignored the political situation to try and move the government of Honduras out of the hands of the 1%ers and into the hands of ordinary Hondurans.
(Oh, forgot, having sufficient backing allows for the shotgun approach, throwing everything out at once so that those who find one thing believable but not the other will push in the same direction as those who find that one thing unbelievable but do believe the other is happening)
At the very least, men of military age wearing uniforms with identification written in farsi.
Maybe because the Iranian regime repeatedly states that they are committed to the destruction of Israel and all its people?
February 3, 2012 :
Iran’s Supreme Leader offered stern warnings to its enemies today, suggesting it would help any country or group eliminate the “cancer” that is Israel.
During weekly prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered assistance in attacks against Israel, giving public voice to a long unspoken policy.
“The Zionist regime is really the cancerous tumor of this region and it needs to be removed and will be removed,” Khamenei said...
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/120203/irans-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-israel-cancer-iran-news
When someone repeatedly says they will kill you...you really should take them at their word.
Of course if Israel preached removal of the Iranian regime from the planet...you would be screaming about how Israel threatens Iran with annihilation.
In so far as the Iranians go, they are absolutely 100% correct. They want Israel to cease existing, but that absolutely does not mean exterminating Jews.
As for Iranian nukes, I am opposed to them, not because of the threat to Israel, but because I fear Iran will leverage such a military asset to intimidate its Sunni Arab neighbors. Such a development could trigge a nuclear arms race in the region, which no one needs!
But I also agree with your friend Richard Pearce's idea of setting up a No WMD zone in the region whereby EVERYBODY would agree to the nonpossession of WMDs, including nukes. Such an initiative would have to be accompanied by strong on-site inspections and other controls by international agencies.
However, you and I both know that Israel will never give up its nuclear weapons because it is the only power that has used them to threaten its rivals!!
How about Ahmadinejad chanting "Death to Israel", over and over again?
He's a reliable Iranian source. He even had it filmed, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FckLO8HcNyo
He definitely made a point of saying "Death to ISRAEL", not the Zionist regime.
ISRAEL IS BUSY WITH THEIR OWN COUNTRY AND NOT INTERESTED IN ANY CONFLICTS WITH ANY COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
Second, stop playing the victim, you silly girl. Israel is the one who has been emitting threatening noises against Iran, not anyone else!!
"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs,"
"While the Iranian president denies the Holocaust he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."
"No one cared then and no one seems to care now,"
"Noone will defend the Jews if the Jews don't defend themselves,"
"The Israeli government has the right, duty and capability to prevent the elimination of the Jewish people"
http://www.haaretz.com/news/netanyahu-it-s-1938-and-iran-is-germany-ahmadinejad-is-preparing-another-holocaust-1.205137
Nobody abuses the Holocaust more than Bibi, and by making these comparisons, he is actuallyactively and knowingly diminishing the true extent of the systematic murder on 6 million Jews. That in fact makes him a Holocaust denier just as much as anybody he accuses.
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/netanyahu-must-stop-misusing-the-holocaust-1.409191
Oh...wait...nevermind.
Just think this through (and I'm sure the Israelis have). A military attack on Iran leads to closure of, or at least insecurity at, the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices go through the roof. The economy takes a huge hit. Obama is not re-elected in a year when the economy is foremost on voters' minds.
Whether or not that outcome is in Netanyahu's interest depends largely on who the Republican candidate is...
Mr Chernus, since at least 2005, Iranian leaders have saying that Iran will "wipe Israel off the map" - that is the official Iranian regime's translation of Ahmadinejad's speech.
See http://www.meforum.org/2167/iran-genocidal-incitement-israel#_ftnref2 etc.
Mr Chernus, please watch at least the first minutes of Ahmadinejad referring to Israel as a "cancerous tumor" which must be destroyed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybt2ilv_rhg
Then watch Ahmadinejad chanting "Death to Israel": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FckLO8HcNyo
"Even if the Iranians did manage to make a handful of nuclear weapons ...."
Yes, what harm could a "mere handful" of nuclear bombs possibly do to a country the size of New Jersey, with a vast 3 major centers of population?