Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is convinced that Iran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. He believes that the Iranians cannot be deterred through diplomacy, and he views the Iranian threat as one that may bring about a second Jewish Holocaust.
His generals disagree.
In one of the most astounding public breaks by the Israeli national security establishment with a sitting prime minister, Netanyahu's own military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz has stated that Iran's leadership is rational. Gantz is not alone.
In the past several months, as Netanyahu has ramped up his rhetoric on Iran, senior Israeli national security leaders from the military and intelligence communities have pushed back. In addition to Gantz, the current head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency Tamir Pardo has stated that Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel. And many more retired military and intelligence leaders echo the same sentiment.
Gantz and Pardo are not an aberration. They are the consensus. Their professional views mirror those of their counterparts in the United States -- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. And their views reflect the position of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which assesses that Iran has not yet decided to build a bomb.
Their views also reflect the majority sentiment of the Israeli population, which views Iran as a threat -- as do these security leaders -- but does not support taking military action to deal with its nuclear program. Perhaps that's because the Israeli people, like their national security leaders, do not want to live in a world of hysteria when this serious moment merits cool heads.
In 2006, American generals similarly spoke out against a war in the Middle East that had gone terribly wrong. They spoke out because, as professional soldiers, they saw the costs -- strategic, financial, and human - of an ill-thought-out war conceived under false pretenses. They rebelled against then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's mismanagement of the war, bringing clarity to the confusion about why we invaded Iraq and helping us determine a more effective way forward. Our country is indebted to their courage.
Now it is the Israeli generals' turn. They have had enough of the fear-inducing rhetoric from their prime minister. They want a rational debate in Israel about how best to handle the challenge posed by Iran.
Their rebellious courage may have just helped to create that conversation.
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You were saying....?
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/former-mossad-chief-israeli-minister-trade-accusations-at-new-york-conference-1.427174
NO!! If Iran was an easy target they would all be for it. This is the clearest indication that we still live in a world that muscle matters. Faced with a punishing retaliation, the Israeli people and their generals are in open revolt. That is the truth that we, as humans, don't want to accept. NO PEACE ACTIVISM HAS EVER STOPPED A WAR. Ultimately is the muscle of the opponent that gets the "anitwar" sentiment popular and powerful. Sad but true.
At least neither side have to worry about casualties this way. Deterrence works for both sides.
It was precisely that which stopped the vietnam debacle. We would still be poisoning their forests today and "destroying villages to save them" if it wasnt for the widespread support for the peace movement amongst the GI's and the public at large.
After the Vietcong made it impossible to win, 53000 US dead, mounting costs, that's when your peace movement got momentum. The war stopped in Vietnam when it became clear it was not winnable. Remember 3 million Vietnamese died by the time your precious peace movement brought it all to an end. I am sorry to be so negative. But that is the nature of humanity. If Vietnam was won over 6 months with still 3 million Vietnamese dead, there would not be a peep from anyone in America. We don't give a rat's ass about their lives. Look at Iraq (1 million) and not a single tear from us, Afganistan and Pakistan (God only knows how many-ofcourse they are all terrorists). Now everyone wants out of Afganistan only because of war fatigue. We don't even know how many Afgans have died. Where is your peace movement?