Dying for War

A campaign for war with Iran begins

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Dying for War
by Trita Parsi
14-Aug-2010
 

Obama administration officials, as well as U.S. lawmakers and European diplomats passionately made the argument this spring that tough sanctions on Iran were necessary to avoid war. But contrary to their predictions, the drumbeat for war -- particularly from Israel – has only increased since the UN Security Council adopted a new resolution against Tehran in June.
 
The latest in this crescendo of voices is Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in The Atlantic, "Point of No Return. " As the title suggests, it essentially makes the case (though in an uncharacteristically subtle manner by neoconservative standards) that there are no choices left -- war is a fait accompli, and the only question is whether it will be initiated by Israel or by the United States.
 
"If the Israelis reach the firm conclusion that Obama will not, under any circumstances, launch a strike on Iran, then the countdown will begin for a unilateral Israeli attack," Goldberg writes.
 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Goldberg’s description, is a man whose back is against the wall. He cannot accommodate the Obama administration on the Palestinian issue because that would upset his 100-year old father, and he cannot afford to have faith in Obama’s strategy to prevent a nuclear Iran through peaceful means because the threat from Iran is "existential."
 
Goldberg interviewed roughly 40 former and current Israeli officials for his piece. Although his access to Israeli officials certainly doesn't seem to be lacking, the same cannot be said about his treatment of the assumptions behind the Israeli talking points.  

The most critical assumption that Israeli officials have presented publicly for the past 18 years -- long before the firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stepped on the scene -- is that the Iranian government is irrational and that Iran constitutes an existential threat to Israel.

These departing points in the Israeli analysis eliminate all options on Iran with the exception of preventive military action. An adversary who isn’t rational cannot be deterred nor contained, because such an actor -- by definition -- does not make decisions based on a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, if the foe is presented as an existential threat, then preventive action is the sole rational response. These Israeli assumptions short-cut the entire policy process and skip all the steps that normally are taken before a state determines that force is necessary.
 
Judging by Israel’s rhetoric, it is easy to conclude that these beliefs are genuinely held as undisputable truths by the Israeli security apparatus.
 
But if judged by its actions rather than its rhetoric, a very different image emerges -- one that shows an astute Israeli appreciation for the complexity of Iran’s security calculations and decision-making processes, and a recognition that conventional arguments are insufficient to convince Washington to view Iran from an Israeli lens.
 
Goldberg mentions in his article that the Jewish people and the Iranians have a long and common history. It is a history that has been overwhelmingly positive until recently. Iran is still home to the largest population of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel itself, and the Jewish community’s impact on Iranian culture, politics and society runs deep.
 
In modern times, a strong security relationship developed between these two non-Arab states due to their sense of common threats -- primarily strong Arab nationalist states such as Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, as well as the Soviet Union (which, besides its own designs on the region, was the military backer of these Arab powers).
 
From the Israeli perspective, this relationship was strategic. The periphery doctrine put in place by David Ben Gurion dictated that Israel’s security was best achieved by creating alliances with the non-Arab states in the region’s periphery to balance the Arab states in Israel’s vicinity. Iran was the most important periphery power, due to its strength and its coveted energy resources.
 
For the Shah of Iran, however, the relationship was at best a marriage of convenience. An alliance with Israel was needed to balance the Arabs, but only until Iran was strong enough to befriend the Arabs from a position of strength. "If Iran becomes strong enough to be able to deal with the situation [in the region] all by itself, and its relationship with the United States becomes so solidified so that you won’t need [Israel], then strategically the direction was to gravitate to the Arabs," Gholam-Reza Afkhami, a former advisor to the Shah, told me in 2004.
 
In spite of the different value that Iran and Israel ascribed to their relationship, geopolitical factors ensured that it was kept in tact -- even after the Islamic fundamentalists took power in Iran through the 1979 revolution.
 
Goldberg’s lengthy essay fails to recognize that throughout the 1980s, in spite of the Iranian government’s venomous rhetoric against Israel and its anti-Israeli ideology, the Jewish state sought to retain relations with Iran and actively aided Iran in the Iraq-Iran war. Only three days after Iraqi troops entered Iranian territory, Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan interrupted a private visit to Vienna to hold a press conference to urge the United States -- in the middle of the hostage crisis -- to forget the past and help Iran keep up its defenses.
 
From Israel’s perspective, an Iraqi victory would have been disastrous due to the boost it would give the Arab bloc against Israel. By aiding Iran, Israel hoped to prove to the new rulers in Iran the strategic utility of continuing the Iranian-Israeli security collaboration.
 
Key to this was convincing Washington to engage with Iran. This desire eventually climaxed in the Iran-Contra scandal -- an Israeli initiative led by Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin aimed at bringing the U.S. and Israel into a "broader strategic relationship with Iran." American neoconservatives at the time aided the Israeli effort to lobby the U.S. to talk to Iran, to sell arms to Iran, and to ignore Iran’s venomous rhetoric against the Jewish state.
 
In 1982, Ariel Sharon (then Israel’s defense minister) proudly announced on NBC that Israel would continue to sell arms to Iran -- in spite of an American ban on such sales. This occurred while Iran routinely introduced resolutions to expel Israel from the United Nations -- to which the Israelis responded by selling more arms to the Khomeini regime.
 
With the end of the Cold War came the end of Israeli overtures to Iran. The defeat of Iraq in 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union eliminated the two common threats that had formed the basis for any Israeli-Iranian collaboration. Though this improved the security environments of both Iran and Israel, it also left both states unchecked. Without Iraq balancing Iran, Tehran could now become a threat, Israeli strategists began to argue. Combined with efforts to define a new order for the region, Iran and Israel were thrown into a strategic rivalry that has continued and intensified till today.
 
It was at this time, in late 1992, that Israeli Labor Party officials began to publicly depict Iran as an existential threat. Rhetoric reflected intentions and, having been freed from the chains of Iraq, Iran was acquiring the capacity to turn intentions into policy, they argued. The charge was led, incidentally, by Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, who only five years earlier had advised Washington to disregard the rhetoric of the mullahs and view Iran as an opportunity rather than a threat. "Death is at our doorstep," Rabin concluded in 1993 of the Iranian threat, though only five years earlier he had maintained that Iran was a strategic ally.
 
But it wasn’t new Iranian capabilities or a sudden discovery of Iran’s anti-Israeli rhetoric that prompted the depiction of Iran as an existential threat. Rather, it was the fear that in the new post-Cold War environment in which Israel had lost much of its strategic significance to Washington, improved relations between the US and Iran could come at the expense of Israeli security interests. Iran would become emboldened and the U.S. would no longer seek to contain its growth. The balance of power would shift from Israel towards Iran and the Jewish state would no longer be able rely on Washington to control Tehran. "The Great Satan will make up with Iran and forget about Israel," Gerald Steinberg of Bar Ilan University in Israel told me during a visit to Jerusalem.
 
While this Israeli fear of abandonment was poorly understood in Washington at the time and believed to be exaggerated, the rationale for Israel’s concerns has grown significantly over the years due to disagreements with the U.S. on what the ultimate American red line on Iran’s nuclear program should be.
 
During the Bush administration, no daylight could be detected between Washington and Tel Aviv’s positions -- enrichment in Iran was not acceptable, period. The Obama administration has been much more ambiguous on this point, however, fueling fears in Israel that America would ultimately -- within a larger settlement with Tehran -- accept enrichment on Iranian soil under strict international inspections.
 
This has, understandably, fueled more Israeli wariness of Obama’s engagement policy with Iran, leaving the Jewish state fearing the success of diplomacy more than its failure, since success by American standards would not qualify as success by Israeli standards.
 
Two days after President Obama’s election victory in November 2008, then-Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni expressed her categorical opposition to U.S. engagement with Iran.  "We live in a neighborhood in which sometimes dialogue -- in a situation where you have brought sanctions, and you then shift to dialogue -- is liable to be interpreted as weakness," Livni told Israel Radio. Asked if she supported any U.S. dialogue with Iran, Livni replied in no uncertain terms: "The answer is no."
 
A year later, on the eve of sensitive negotiations with the Iranians in Geneva on a fuel swap aimed at removing 1,200 kilograms of low enriched uranium from Iran, Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed his fears that anything less than a total halt to uranium enrichment would still leave the possibility of Iran making bomb material. "Not only should enriched material be removed, but enrichment must be stopped in Iran," Barak said. He added that diplomacy must be given only a "short and defined" time before "serious and immediate" sanctions are imposed on Iran.
 
The Obama administration was angered by Barak’s statement, according to Israeli papers, but it also revealed the real fear of the Israelis -- that successful diplomacy would lead to an agreement between the U.S. and Iran that would limit but not end Iran’s nuclear program while leaving Israel alone in facing the Iranian challenge. Iran’s strengthened position in the region would be recognized by Washington, legitimizing the shift in the balance of power in Iran’s favor and ending American efforts to reverse that shift.
 
Even an Iran that doesn't have nuclear weapons but that can build them would damage Israel's ability to deter militant Palestinian and Lebanese organizations. It would damage the image of Israel as the sole nuclear-armed state in the region and undercut the myth of its invincibility. Gone would be the days when Israel's military supremacy would enable it to dictate the parameters of peace and pursue unilateral peace plans.
 
This could force Israel to accept territorial compromises with its neighbors in order to deprive Iran of points of hostility that it could use against the Jewish state. Israel simply would not be able to afford a nuclear rivalry with Iran and continued territorial disputes with the Arabs at the same time.
 
However problematic this scenario would be for Israel, it does not constitute an existential threat. Presenting it as such may have the benefit of pressuring the U.S. not to engage with Iran in the first place, or at a minimum create hurdles to ensure that diplomacy doesn’t lead to any U.S.-Iran agreement. But that is not the same as declaring that the Israelis truly believe Iran to be an existential threat, as Goldberg argues.
 
In fact, several senior Israeli officials have rejected that claim and pointed out the risks it puts Israel under. For instance, Barak told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth in September 2009 that "I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel."  A few years earlier, Haaretz revealed that in internal discussions, then-Foreign Minister Livni argued against the idea that a nuclear Iran would constitute an existential threat to Israel. This past summer in Israel, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevi told me the same thing and pointed out that speaking of Iran as an existential threat exaggerates Iran’s power and leaves the false -- and dangerous -- impression that Israel is helpless and vulnerable.
 
This echoed what Halevi told the Washington Post’s David Ignatius in 2007. "[Iran] is not an existential threat. It is not within the power of Iran to destroy the state of Israel -- at best it can cause Israel grievous damage. Israel is indestructible," he said.
 
Rather than a factual, critical presentation of where Israel currently stands on Iran and why, Goldberg’s article is perhaps better understood as the starting salvo in a long-term campaign to create the necessary conditions for a future war with Iran.
 
Whether characterizing it as "mainstreaming war with Iran" or "making aggression respectable," Goldberg’s article serves to create a false narrative that claims that the two failed meetings held between the U.S. and Iran last October constitute an exhaustion of diplomacy, that deems the Obama administration’s crippling, indiscriminate sanctions on Iran a failure only weeks after they've been imposed, and that then leaves only one option remaining on the table: an American or Israeli military strike. And on top of that, if President Obama doesn’t green light a bombing campaign, Israel will have no choice but to bomb itself, even though it isn’t well-equipped to do so, according to Goldberg.
 
It is important to note that the aim of this unfolding campaign may not be to pressure Obama into military action. It could just as much serve to portray Obama as weak and indecisive on national security issues that are of grave concern to the U.S. and that are of existential nature to Israel. This portrayal will give the Republicans valuable ammunition for the November congressional elections as well as for the 2012 presidential race.
 
Indeed, the likely political motivation for this unfolding campaign should not be underestimated. Just as much that the building blocks of the Iraq war were put into place under the Clinton years -- most importantly with the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 -- serious preparation for selling an Iran war to the American public under a Republican president (Palin?) in 2013 must be undertaken now, both to establish the narrative for that sell and to use the narrative to remove any obstacles in the White House along the way.
 
What is lost in this shadow discussion that only pays lip service to the repercussions of war is the impact any military campaign -- or the mere constant speculation of military strikes -- will have for the Iranian people’s struggle for democracy and human rights.
 
Iranian activists have warned that even raising the specter of war undercuts the opposition in Iran. In the words of the prominent Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji , "Since Iranians, in particular opposition groups, do not want to see a repeat of Afghanistan or Iraq in Iran, they've actually had to scale back their opposition to the government [during the Bush administration] in order not to encourage an invasion [by the U.S.]"
 
The Obama administration's less bellicose approach to Iran provided space to the pro-democracy movement that Iranian activists were quick to seize upon in 2009. "The mere fact that Obama didn't make military threats made the Green Movement possible," Ganji said. "A military attack would destroy all of that."
 
If Goldberg’s article is the starting salvo of a campaign that does not take into consideration the existential threat this constitutes to the Iranian pro-democracy movement, and that aims to push out Obama and push in a Republican president amenable to a U.S. war against Iran for the sake of avoiding an Israeli war against Iran, then the risk of war in the short term may not be as great as Goldberg claims.
 
But the long-term risk of a war that is boldly framed as a test of an American president’s commitment to Israel should not be easily dismissed.

First published in salon.com.
 
AUTHOR
Dr. Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and author of "Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States".

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more from Trita Parsi
 
Demo

'Harsh Animosity' with Israel???

by Demo on

It has always been nothing but 'close relationship.' Who could have otherwise served Israel better by fighing with its #1 enemy for eight years??

"The 'ultimate truth' is what an agnostic can not stand with"


yousef

for 31 years you shouted "death to Israel". Your "president"...

by yousef on

threthened to wipe the israel off the map of the world and funded every single islamist terrorist group to attack Israel and it's civilians. Now you complain from the safety and comfort of your hiding places in the west paid for courtesy of Islamist regime, why Israel is showing hostility towards Iran?

Shame on you! The ultimate price for your khalifa khamenei's thirst for power and money will be paid by us, the ordinary Iranians. We will be sanctioned or even bombed by US or Israel whilst you are still here on Iranian.com spewing hatred towards jews and westerners from your hiding holes in the west.


comrade

How to get out of this point?

by comrade on

There is no chance for neutral coexistence between Iran(under any regime), and Israel. It'll always be either a very close relationship, or a harsh animosity. 

 

“There's nothing an agnostic can't do if he doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not”

 


Demo

“Trita” as “Evita” of Persia !!!

by Demo on

Don’t cry for me Eye-run-tina!!!


Reality-Bites

How did Iran get to this point?

by Reality-Bites on

How is that Iran finds itself on the verge of a potentially devastating conflict with Israel and/or the US?

 Let me first be clear about my views towards Israel's polices. Israel's policies and actions towards the Palestinians are shameful. It has systemically ethnically cleansed the Palestinians and colonized their land. Equally shameful is Israel’s disregard for UN resolutions, the international law and double standards in having nukes while insisting Iran should not be allowed to have them too. So, while I think the Israeli people (like everyone else) have a right to live in peace and security, this should not be so only at the expense of the Palestinians. So I hope it’s clear that I’m no defender of Israel

  Now to the point that Israel is “dying for a war with Iran”. I agree with the condemnation of the belligerent and threatening language of the Israeli government towards Iran. But what you have omitted from your from your posts here is the context and the history prior to the Israeli threats and provocation. In short, what else did we expect?  

Previously Israel had no problems with and no hostile intentions towards Iran. But was until all the way through the past 30 years, the IRI has very openly declared its “marg bar Israel” stance, time and again. More than that, the IRI has effectively been running a proxy war against Israel by funding and arming Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah in their intermittent conflicts with the state of Israel. The current president of the IRI constantly declares his wish to see Israeli regime “removed from history”. Only a year ago or so Mr. Ahmadinejad branded Israel’s regime a “stinking corpse” and “on its way to annihilation”. (see here //afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ix-viVGAnfS1RH... ).

Is Ahmadinejad not supposed to be the President of Iran? So who the hell made him the saviour of Palestinians and the Shia Lebanese and judge and jury on Israel’s actions? What the hell was he doing holding conferences questioning and casting doubt on the Holocaust, when he should be dealing with numerous problems inside Iran and doing something to improve the life of the people there, most of whom live in dire circumstances?  

My point is, any reasonable person should see the threat from Israel towards Iran is entirely of IRI’s making. It is IRI that has brought about this increasingly dangerous potential confrontation.  As distasteful as I find Israel’s foreign policy, I can see why they are making noises about attacking Iran. What would we say and how would we react if Israel had continually interfered in Iran’s internal situation by funding and supporting suicide bombings and rocket attacks on civilian areas, while their leaders had openly declared their wish to see Iran wiped out?

 We don't have to be friends with Israel, but equally there was absolutely no reason why Iran and Israel had to be enemies and why Iran should’ve become the subject of threats and a potential target. To conclude, maybe if IRI had not acted in the way and openly declared itself the enemy of Israel and its wish to see the end of Israel, as I explained earlier, maybe, just maybe we would not have Israel provoking an attack on Iran".


Darius Kadivar

Oh But I believe you have ... ;0)

by Darius Kadivar on

For the past 30 years now ...

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4d-7y4Xq9o

Starting with Your Arab Sickled Flag ...

You Want Peace ? Start with a National Reconciliation with your fellow Mohareb compatriots:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1bx3JHPZX0&feature=related

and then we can consider your genuine brother loving peaceful intentions ...

 


Midwesty

Can we just forget there is ...

by Midwesty on

A country called Iran?

Have we speculated the options other than war and sanctions, something like normalizing relationships, influencing decisions rather than enforcing them, finding the common grounds rather than assembling difference discovery teams, and letting logic and pragmatism prevail rather than letting testosterone enrages us.

If the other party doesn't know how to behave can we set an example for them rather than teaching them a lesson.

I tell you what the majority of us wants, a more peaceful future for our children!


cyrous moradi

Invasion to Iran : not so easy

by cyrous moradi on

There is little precedence in the recent history of Middle East that makes difficult (even impossible) to think about ant attach against Iran:1-   Any attach to Iran either by Israel or a joint venture by Israel and United States will bring unpredictable outcomes. No body has B plan to mange the after attach consequences.2-   Still after 57 years United States and U.K suffers the outcomes on August 19, 1953 CIA engineered coup d'états against nationalist Mossadegh government. United States paid huge amount for that mistake.3-   Actually there is historic friendship between Iranian and Jews. There are strong amicable sentiments between the people of two nations. Any attack against Iran by Israel will destroy all these. 4-   Any attack to Iran like any similar events in the last thirty year will strengthen the Islamic republic. President Carter attempt to release the American hostages in Tehran in the spring of 1980 and Saddam invasion to Tehran by green light of Washington all empowered IRI.5-   Sanctions are strong tolls to surrender Tehran to the international determination and consensus.

 


Mola Nasredeen

Another take on the Israel's plan to push US to war with Iran

by Mola Nasredeen on

This is written by  Stephen Walts (Foreign Policy) in response to Goldberg's article:

"Instead, I'd just like to highlight what's really going on here. Although Goldberg does not explicitly call for the United States to attack Iran and is careful to acknowledge the potential downsides of this option, the tone and thrust of the article is clearly intended to nudge the Obama administration toward an attack. He emphasizes that attacking Iran's nuclear facilities would be very difficult for Israel (some analysts think it is it is essentially impossible), but says it would be easy for the United States. He reminds us that Obama has repeatedly said that Iran with nuclear weapons would be "unacceptable," and suggests that both Israel and various Arab states have real doubts about Obama's toughness.  

The implication is clear: "If you meant what you said, Mr. President, and you don't want people to think you're a wimp, you'd better get serious about military force."

And he concludes:

"You'll recall that a similar process of "mainstreaming" occurred over Iraq: What at first seemed like the far-fetched dream of a handful of out-of-power neoconservatives in 1998 had become a serious option by 2001. By 2003, aided in no small part by the efforts of journalists such as Goldberg, the idea had been embraced by liberals and others who should have known better. "

Stephen Walts on Foreign Policy website: //walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/08/11/mainstreaming_war_with_iran


vildemose

Just read some of the

by vildemose on

Just read some of the comments to the same exact article on Huffington post:

//www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/13/iran-war-campaign-begins_n_681462.html#comments


default

Zoosk (or is it Soosk) to the rescue

by Doctor X on

Well, thank god. Praise da lord!  that there finally is something to get the minds of those accusing others of being on AIPAC's payroll without even a shred of evidence to susbstantiate their claim, off this topic and let them live their normal lives.

Hale Luja... Haaaale Luja...

Trita will make a good Idol without the Bozi No?:))

 


default

Immortal

by Doctor X on

MOST???THE  MOST paranoid??? Are you kidding me?

I am sorry but just on what basis should we expect the nations around us to not have "the lowest threshold" of tolerance? We should start dictating their Internal and foreign policy from now on right? ...


default

Midwesty Yo dawg, Listen man

by Doctor X on

True. Iranians have both wings! So why not let them use it the way they see fit? You have constantly twist and turned the point, kinda like looking for something, to pin on Benross in this case! Why would he be worried about your opinion?
You are just giving way too much weight to the "other group" here. So there are plenty iranians inside and outside who are this way and that is all good and mighty, So what? We need to listen to the majority, besyar khob, we have been doing it for three decades, now what? We even listen more just recently and then some. Ok. what is gonna happen now? Where are we now? Still the same @#@! same

Where is the strategic significance of creating all these hostility for our nation? We have been going by what the Maj. wants so...How far do we still need to go? Until when? When are we going to realize that in order to Survive and preserve our nation's security and may be to some extent our prosperity, it is not enough to only respect the majority's voice, but it is time to think a little more practically and get on with the game. Change the game plan and just get with it!!!


Mola Nasredeen

By the way.. dear editors of IC

by Mola Nasredeen on

Mrs Cheney's ad is gone and instead the beauties from the Zoosk are featured. We proudly take Zooks ads over AIPAC ads anytime. We may even click on it.

PS: Ta Jon dar Tane Mast, Trita Rahbar Mast!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQgZ3oLp_WY


Immortal Guard

HELLO;

by Immortal Guard on

You are dealing with the most paranoid and insecure people on the face of the planet who have the lowest tolerance threshold for any kind of threat. It is enough for them just to imagine a threat to justify a pre-emptive strike. Can someone explain what a pre-emptive counterattack really means then?


Midwesty

Well Ben

by Midwesty on

We are all entitled to our opinions. Iranian.com is a fair game.


benross

On the contrary, I take it

by benross on

On the contrary, I take it on you because you voice your opinion. As a sample of what is out there. btw, what is your opinion?


Midwesty

Ben

by Midwesty on

Iranians have the both wings. It's not just me. I am just the vocal one. So you are worried why I voice my opinion?


benross

Absolutely

by benross on

It is about you (in the context of this open forum) and your like-minded readers. There is nothing 'out there'. It's not about Israeli government. Never has been. The Israeli government protects and governs its country. That's its job. It's about you, me all of us. We always use the 'outside' hoopla for maintenance of twisted mind. Of-course it's about you.

If Trita Parsi article had any substance, the comments were not going this way! He is just another ignorant American.


Midwesty

Sorry did I miss something?

by Midwesty on

Is this about me?


benross

Okay Midwesty that was

by benross on

Okay Midwesty that was Mossadegh excuse. What is yours?


Midwesty

Ben,

by Midwesty on

You know that Mosaddegh was a nationalist with some inclination towards religion. At the beginning he was representing two powerful Iranian political sectors. One was from a massive religious base and the other one was comprised from a considerably smaller but equally powerful and elite nationalist front. Two wings that could let him fly.

He couldn't simply afford losing one of those wings especially at the  beginning of his movement. We all know what happened after, even much later, he lost his religious base.

Now I know the nationalists like to portray his fall as a malicious deed that a few religious leaders did to jeopardize his movement but that's the topic of another discussion.

So I think his decision to reconsider Israel's recognition was greatly influenced but the other sector. I said greatly not completely since he was an activists and a freedom fighter so to some degree it might have been the decision of the nationalist front too.


sparrowlake

"The mere fact that Obama

by sparrowlake on

"The mere fact that Obama didn't make military threats made the Green
Movement possible," Ganji said. "A military attack would destroy all of
that."

unfortunately the green movement has accomplished nothing except death to innocent people with nothing gained. Iran is a totalitarian military state that has imprisoned its people. 
IT is highly unlikely that raising fingers and painting yourselve green
is going to get anyone freedom.  The way to freedomm from tyranny is to destroy the tyrannt. History is fairly clear with respect to this.

Israel attacking, ? it will only occur with approval of other Arab states that fear Iran's nuclear program more then Israel.  Wouldn't it be ironic though... for Israel to topple the regime so Iranians could be free.

 

 


Midwesty

Ben

by Midwesty on

Only if Israeli politicians are like you too. I'm shopping now can't text.


default

Midwesty Jerr nazan Agha:))

by Doctor X on

Agha jan.

Not that it is any of my buisness, but why are you trying to derail the discussion by bringing up chagookeshi?:)

Changing the subject ain't gonna help things for the better, It will prolong the non-conclusivity (is that even a word?) of the disussion.

 


benross

Now you are the civilized

by benross on

Now you are the civilized one! Okay, carry on. I said what I had to say.


Midwesty

Ben

by Midwesty on

I was wondering if for once we could carry a civilized conversation about israel without getting into chagookeshi.


benross

You got me there. I wasn't

by benross on

You got me there. I wasn't writing to you. I was using you to make my point and I did.


MOOSIRvaPIAZ

benross

by MOOSIRvaPIAZ on

"a non consequential comment of a one liner made you react"

maybe I reacted because of the giant orange font (MoosirvaPiaaz) above your post, ever considered that?


benross

Now you give a historic

by benross on

Now you give a historic justification for Israel bashing, although there IS a historic justification to end the hostilities, a hostility that as far as Iranians are concerned, is completely baseless. Mossadegh took back the recognition of Israel although another politician, within the same society, has initiated it. This is not simply a 'political' decision. A true and honest politician stands by his principals. And the same applies to you. Israel was not a threat to Iran back then, so there was no base for hostility whatsoever. What else prompted it? Israel is not a threat to Iran even now. But if it is so, look who called for it and what did you do about it?

This is what YOU have to face and make up your mind. You have no right, nor legitimacy asking Israelis not to be concerned about their survival, which is undoubtedly threatened by a nuclear IRI. Not by an actual nuclear war, but by making regional reconciliation impossible. It's not about oil. It's about their survival and they have every right to be concerned about it. What Israel has ever done to Iranians to deserve such hostility? If you had the guts to show your flag, you could come up with better answer... but you don't.