This is an interesting argument that’s been floating around for quite some time. The world says to Israel that it exaggerates the danger of Iran. Israel says she will take action in self-defense if necessary, even if that means striking Iranian reactors. Then the world says, “Well, if you bomb Iran, that will just prove to them that they need to have nukes to prevent you from bombing their nukes.”
I’m used to hearing it from the EU and, well, from idiots. I’m not used to hearing it from the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Amid increasing suggestions that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned this week that such a strike would have dangerous consequences, and asserted that Tehran’s acquisition of a bomb can be prevented only if “Iranians themselves decide it’s too costly.”
Using his strongest language on the subject to date, Gates told a group of Marine Corps students that a strike would probably delay Tehran’s nuclear program from one to three years. A strike, however, would unify Iran, “cement their determination to have a nuclear program, and also build into the whole country an undying hatred of whoever hits them,” he said.
Um. The whole country already hates Israel, or puts on a pretty good show of it. Their anti-Semitic president regularly scoffs at the Holocaust and calls for Israel’s destruction, phrase-parsing aside as to whether he means the end of Zionism or the end of the Jewish State (and how there is a difference between the end of both is beyond me, but then, I’m rather in favor of both).
So what’s Gates’ solution? Why, more sanctions. Because the current ones are working so well.
Gates told students at Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va., that while President Obama “needs the full range of options,” in his view “we need to look at every way we can to increase the cost of that program to them, whether it’s through economic sanctions or other things.”
The Defense secretary said other nations need to put more emphasis on arguments that a bomb would diminish rather than improve Iran’s security, “particularly if it launches an arms race in the Middle East.”
“Never again” has a very different meaning to Jews than it does to the rest of the world. Many of you think it means that never again will we stand still for genocide. You’re partly right. It means never again will we trust our defense to anyone else, thus preventing our genocide. I don’t think that Gates, or the Obama Administration, get that. The Bush Administration used to early on.
In the meantime, on the anniversary of Hitler’s birth, the UN starts the Durban II anti-racism conference, and Ahmadinejad is attending. Watch for a repeat of his speech to the UN last year, in which he sounded exactly like the last man who advocated the mass murder of the Jews.
And who will the UN sanction? Israel.
Oh, yes, Meryl, don’t you see–what is needed to prevent apocalyptic mullahs from getting a nuclear device is reason, enticements, and moral suasion. Certainly that has worked so well with them for the last thirty years. I wish I’d been there to ask Gates precisely what he thinks Israel could do to make the Iranians hate them less and swear off Israel’s destruction.
Meanwhile, as to “never again.” Yes, it does mean Jews will never again rely on other people to protect them–we have a couple of thousand years to consider how well that worked–but I also think it means, “Never again. But if again–not just us this time.”
“Any treatment of the Iranian nuclear problem will be contingent upon progress in the negotiations and an Israeli withdrawal from West Bank territory.” Thus spake Rahm Emanuel, according to Yediot Aharonot.
Oh yes, Israel withdraws from the West Bank and I can just hear the ayatollahs saying, “Well, OK, we’re satisfied. Call the guys and tell them to cancel the nuclear weapons program.”
I hope Emmanuel was misquoted.