Dying for War

A campaign for war with Iran begins

Balatarin
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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".

Balatarin
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MOOSIRvaPIAZ

Fair

by MOOSIRvaPIAZ on Sun Aug 15, 2010 06:56 PM PDT

you many very fair points, but let me ask you this simple question. How exactly are you going to achieve said points?

We need this, we need that... yes we need alot of things. It's easy to day dream about it or write about it on iranian.com. The sad truth such proposals are entirely unrealistic and naive at best. We need to be practical for once.


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Fair

country and war

by Fair on Sun Aug 15, 2010 06:50 PM PDT

Which Iranian supports war on Iran?  Of course nobody.

I not only don't think war on Iran is wise, I have and will do my duty to defend Iran.  Unlike some American backers of stateless terrorist IRGC here.

It is precisely because I never want to see one act of foreign aggression against Iran and not one Iranian victim of a foreign bomb ever again that I say:

We need a government in Iran whose loyalty is Iran first and not Palestine or Lebanon or some stupid bankrupt political religious ideology from 14 centuries ago.

If the man at the top in our country was not a bivatan like Khomeini, we would have NEVER had an 8 year war- the longest war of the 20th century, in which all superpowers helped both sides and profited handsomely while our citizens paid the price dearly for this bivatan's treason.

In other words, throw out the BIVATANS who followed a man who said " I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world"

and their gutless BIVATAN mercenaries.

Because if we don't, there very well may be large parts of our country that do go up in smoke as the great traitor wished. 


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Mammad

Read Goldberg first and then an old article

by Mammad on Sun Aug 15, 2010 05:15 PM PDT

It seems like most of those who support Israel's view that Iran's nuclear perogram is a threat did not actually read Goldberg's article.

What he says is that the threat that Barak and others feel is NOT physical threat. Tzipi Livi said the same in 2008. She said a supposed Iran nuclear warhead poses no major security threat to Israel.

The threat that they supposedly feel is that, an Iran with nuclear warheads - and there is absolutely no evidence that Iran has one, or is making one, or even if it wanted to, will have one in the foreseeable future - will reverse immigration to Israel and Israel will lose its elite people.

The Leveretts, in their article posted on Foreign Policy a couple of days ago and their site, say exactly the same the same.

But, long before Goldberg and Leveretts said it, the following article said (read, in particular, the last paragraph):

//original.antiwar.com/sahimi/2009/05/19/what...

All the supposed threats by a non-existent threat have NOTHING to do with nuclear warheads, nuclear bombs, etc. It has to do with keeping the elite Jewish population in Israel.

In a conference on the subject in Seattle last fall, exactly the same was expressed by the author of the article, and his statements were actually supported by two ME experts, both Jewish.

And, by the way, Goldberg served in Israel's army; was a prison camp guard in 1990 where the Palestinians who had been arrested during the first intifada had been jailed, and published a 17 page article in New Yorker in 2002 that was nothing but sheer lies about Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, which was used by Cheney and Bush to justify their illegal and criminal invasion of Iraq.

 

Mammad


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benross

a true Iranian based on what

by benross on Sun Aug 15, 2010 04:49 PM PDT

a true Iranian based on what happen just recently before our very own eyes to Iraq and Afghanistan, would not advocate a war against Iran?

A true Iranian shows his flag first. Coward.


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Midwesty

Doctor x jan...

by Midwesty on Sun Aug 15, 2010 04:38 PM PDT

You assume too much. This article is nothing but to point out to the facts that would concern a "true Iranian". (I especially hyphenated them for you, couldn't use more hyphenations, was afraid to break IC's server)

This I believe is the minimum common denominator amongst all "true Iranians". (Please note the hyphenations) I know, it sounds very cheesy but in the era of "either you are with us or against us" the flashlight is handed to the wrong person so we have no choice but to follow the same light. Unfortunately as she was running too fast she slipped into a pool of cheese so were we.

Chakereem


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Bavafa

Just an observation...

by Bavafa on Sun Aug 15, 2010 04:24 PM PDT

It seems some of our contributors here state their opinion mostly in response to those who have commented and not what the comment was. Does it serve us any good to attack each other or should we focus on the subject and what is at stake here.

For sake of clarity, I am very much against any attack on Iran and Iranians just as I am very much against the current regime in Iran. But I firmly believe the regime change is a responsibility of Iranians and only they should do that.  I also believe IRI and the Zioist regime are the two side of the same coin, criminal regime.

For this view, if you want to call me IRI supporter or Zionist supporter I am fine with it but it is not going to help rid ourselves from IRI, nor will prevent an attack on our home land.

Mehrdad


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default

Midwesty jan

by Doctor X on Sun Aug 15, 2010 04:07 PM PDT

And what motivates you to believe that , that is not the case with every single one of us here?

Seems like you are letting all these Pro-Isreali, Pro-Aipac buisness, go to your head.

we are all true iranians, Hyphenated or not!


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vildemose

Breaking News

by vildemose on Sun Aug 15, 2010 03:53 PM PDT

Barack Obama 'may be prepared to meet Iranian president’ Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Gen James Jones, has indicated the President may be prepared to meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if the regime resumed negotiations over its nuclear programme.

//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7940061/Barack-Obama-may-be-prepared-to-meet-Iranian-president.html


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Midwesty

Is it safe to say...

by Midwesty on Sun Aug 15, 2010 03:42 PM PDT

a true Iranian based on what happen just recently before our very own eyes to Iraq and Afghanistan, would not advocate a war against Iran?

Raise you hands if you disagree.


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Mola Nasredeen

The opposition inside Iran is against attacking Iran too

by Mola Nasredeen on Sun Aug 15, 2010 03:23 PM PDT

The ones who've been paying with their property, personal freedom and at times their lives. They are %100 against any attacks by anybody.

This is what Akbar Ganji (the prominent Iranian dissident who lives in exil now) says:

 "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, A military attack would destroy all of that."


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AMIR1973

Yes, actions do speak louder than words

by AMIR1973 on Sun Aug 15, 2010 03:22 PM PDT

Iran should not be used as a launching pad for waging a conflict with Israel, a nation that Iran did not have a conflict with prior to 1979, has not killed any Iranian civilians, and has not occupied one inch of Iranian land--and especially not in support of the Arabs, a people who have killed many Iranians and have occupied Iranian land in our own lifetimes. Let the Arabs wage their own Jihad against Israel and may Allah help them achieve victory some day....The Arabs are not our people, and there is no good reason why their conflict should be our conflict too. Since 1979, the IRI has made Iran a target by its efforts to "export the revolution" to Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and elsewhere and its support for terrorists that attack the Western nations and Israel. These are the IRI's actions that speak very loudly. Regards.


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default

How Disturbingly Pathetic

by Doctor X on Sun Aug 15, 2010 02:46 PM PDT

Look at this, Will ya? The intolerant Bunch, enjoying their moment of pride, their 15 second of fame. They have got nothing better , no effective tool than labeling others up in their "I love iran more than you " tool box.

A bunch of, crooks coming out here rediculing and insulting others, abusing their freedom of speech, a gift that should be taken away from then INSHALAH soon, for not having a country and simply adopting a land!

How Low can they go? How ignorant can they be? What a duplicitous gesture. That is the ultimate display of one individual or at times a group's Intellectual disfunctionality. Go on and scream even louder about this site's accepting ads from sources you happen to dislike, Scream as loud as you want.

You think you have a country? Get your damn one way ticket and get the hell on outta here, ASAP.


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Fair

If I didn't have a country

by Fair on Sun Aug 15, 2010 01:28 PM PDT

I would be like you, the stateless terrorist just advocating my agenda and empty ideology at the expense of the Iranian people badbakhte bivatan.  To aslan zabane farsi balad neesti cheh bereseh harfeh vatan bezani dorooe khaen.

Toye adamkoshe be cheirat az sazmani hemayat meekonee keh alanan meegeh Iran hat dar esme ma neest, cheh bereseh dar amaleman.  Sazmani keh nezami khodesh ra meedanad vali sartipe jenayatkarash meeyayad mardome beegonah ra tahdid meekonad va baraye dolat va mardom taklif roshan meekonad.  Ham een janiha khaen va doshmane Iran hastand va ham viroos haee mesle to keh ennja faghat meelooland va meekhorand khoone mardom -e Iran ra.  Man beh keshvaram khedmat kardam, to nah meedani khedmat cheeye, na vatan cheeye, na vazifeh cheeye, na sharaf, va na sarbaz boodan.  To joz yek jenayatkare beehaya va najavanmard keh dar Amrika neshastee as yek mosht terrorist khoobee meegee heechee neesti ay zahhak.

That is what is obvious for all at iranian.com- your anti Iran stance, and worse- your moral bankruptcy.

You will never know what Iran and Iranian means Mark Pyruz.  You are an advocate of military dictatorship by an un Iranian murderous system over innocent Iranians. Shame on you and all the anti Iran forces that you have supported, and for betraying the Iranian people, and siding with their rapists and oppressors.


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Mola Nasredeen

Actions speak louder than words

by Mola Nasredeen on Sun Aug 15, 2010 01:04 PM PDT

Every nations actions are there to be seen and be judged. Iranians have not invaded any nations for the last 100 years or so.

Question:

Which nation in the Middle East is occupying other people's land? That nation is responsible for a state of war in the Middle East. And that same nation is trying to start another war with Iran by puhing the Americans to do it for her. 


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Sargord Pirouz

No Fair, it is you that is

by Sargord Pirouz on Sun Aug 15, 2010 12:40 PM PDT

No Fair, it is you that is without a country. You've an adopted land, but no country.

That's the ultimate source of your humiliation, misery and vindictiveness, constantly on display here for all to see at Iranian.com.

The sad truth of it all. 


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Sargord Pirouz

I basically agree with

by Sargord Pirouz on Sun Aug 15, 2010 12:35 PM PDT

I basically agree with Trita, the anti-war advocate. Where I disagree with him is where he knowingly contributes to the demonization of Iran effort, which plays right into the hands of the hawks advocating war.

I'm sorry, but in this case you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Besides, that cake has its rightful owners...


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Fair

Yes, war would suck.

by Fair on Sun Aug 15, 2010 12:35 PM PDT

And we Iranians know it first hand more than anyone else.  Which other country has our chemical victims for example.

Now, perhaps, JUST PERHAPS, a very constructive step towards avoiding war, is to have our president and our leader renounce the policy of 

"DEATH TO AMERICA"

"DEATH TO ISRAEL"

"The Holocaust never happened and was a myth"

"Israel should be wiped off the map of the earth"

and also, be in compliance with the IAEA.

It seems that these steps would strongly indicate a desire for peace and coexistence and the advancement of the interests of the Iranian people, as well as not giving up one bit of Iranian interests.

But I guess that would be asking for too much, i.e.. something TOO ORIGINAL. 

Instead, let us expect more of the same- mullahs and camels calling those who call for the interests of Iran to be upheld as "zionist groupies", while they rob and rape Iranians and steal from them and give to Palestinians and Lebanese shiites.

Don't expect such actions from a regime whose founder set "Let this land burn, we are not patriots"! Neither this regime nor its founders nor its supporters nor its guards have a country.

 

 


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Mola Nasredeen

A little originality would've helped but then, there's nothing

by Mola Nasredeen on Sun Aug 15, 2010 12:28 PM PDT

original about the Zionist groupies on this website.

The idea is 'War is in nobody's interest, be it Iran, USA or Israel'.

Why is it so hard to understand? This is from Paul Piller from 'National Interest' magazine. Here he shows why a war between Israel/US and Iran is bad for all three nations. That's what's being discussed here:

"Another obvious reason is the strong influence on U.S. discourse and U.S. policy of interests associated with Israel and more specifically the Israeli political right. The added twist regarding an attack on Iran is that such attack—taking a long-term, well-reasoned view—would hurt Israeli interests as well as U.S. ones. Goldberg notes this, saying that an Israeli attack, whether successful or not in setting back the Iranian nuclear program, would stand a good chance of

“sparking lethal reprisals, and even a full-blown regional war that could lead to the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Iranians, and possibly Arabs and Americans as well; of creating a crisis for Barack Obama that will dwarf Afghanistan in significance and complexity; of rupturing relations between Jerusalem and Washington, which is Israel’s only meaningful ally; of inadvertently solidifying the somewhat tenuous rule of the mullahs in Tehran; of causing the price of oil to spike to cataclysmic highs, launching the world economy into a period of turbulence not experienced since the autumn of 2008, or possibly since the oil shock of 1973; of placing communities across the Jewish diaspora in mortal danger, by making them targets of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks, as they have been in the past, in a limited though already lethal way; and of accelerating Israel’s conversion from a once-admired refuge for a persecuted people into a leper among nations.”

//nationalinterest.org/blog/making-aggression-respectable-3856


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Fair

well said benross

by Fair on Sun Aug 15, 2010 11:01 AM PDT

"We Iranians" don't need advice from a camel.

If we Iranians don't want war (and we don't, we know the price all too well), our best bet LONG TERM is to put in a government in Iran whose agenda is actually IRAN and IRAN FIRST and sets policy accordingly.  Not a bivatan system whose founder blatantly says "let this country burn".

As long as we have ideologues who care more about political islam, hezbollah, and hamas more than Iranians, we will be in a perpetual state of conflict and ucertainty.


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Midwesty

DK jan

by Midwesty on Sun Aug 15, 2010 10:57 AM PDT

If it wasn't for our supersize ego we would have seen that Iran has moved towards national reconciliation. The most recent evidence was the great Iranian diaspora gathering in Iran. Didn't they invite you?


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benross

We as Iranians are sick and

by benross on Sun Aug 15, 2010 10:45 AM PDT

We as Iranians are sick and tired of you Mola. Shut up.


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Mola Nasredeen

What's this article about you may ask?

by Mola Nasredeen on Sun Aug 15, 2010 10:27 AM PDT

1. We as Iranians are against War with Iran

2. We as Iranian Americans are against War with Iran for any reason or pretext

3. We as human beings are sick and tired of the Israel Lobby in United States and Europe for starting new wars in the Middle East.

4. And we will be heard by exposing those who are pushing for a war against Iranian nation. Those who are blinded by hatred, the ignorant ones and those who are paid agents of AIPAC.


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Fair

This is not a coincidence

by Fair on Sun Aug 15, 2010 09:58 AM PDT

For those who are shocked by the possibility of attacks and devastation on Iran, paid for fully by the people of Iran, you need to look no further for an explanation than the founder of the Islamic republic's profound statement 30 years ago when he founded this anti Iranian regime:

"We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another
name for paganism. I say let this land burn. I say let this land go up
in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world." 

-Ayatollah Khomeini

The biggest anti Iran cheerelader and bivatan of all time.

If you get on the train to Milwaukee, don't get surprised when you get to Milwaukee.

 


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Darius Kadivar

Midwesty Jaan You Should Indeed feel sorry ...

by Darius Kadivar on Sun Aug 15, 2010 09:43 AM PDT

After all words such as "National Reconciliation" have always ringed "insane", "absurd" and "Illogical" to IRI Apologists and Supporters from Day One ...

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6HdNBjnJ6A

But Apologies are always welcome :

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7mIy97_rlo

 

 


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shushtari

israel cannot and will not attack iran.....

by shushtari on Sun Aug 15, 2010 09:34 AM PDT

but how about 20K special forces to take out the only the akhoonds, and their paid goons?

 that's the fastest way to have a free iran


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Onlyiran

As I have said many times before

by Onlyiran on Sun Aug 15, 2010 08:43 AM PDT

Israel will not attack because it lacks two things:

1) the balls (the consequences will be too much for it to handle especially in its current weakened position in the international arena);

2)  the military capability to conduct such a massive and complicated operation.

It's all hype trying to pressure and get the U.S. to its bidding, which the U.S. will not due because of its own problems / interests.  Trust me, if they could have attacked, they would have done so a long time ago, not now when the Bushehr plant is about to launch. 


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vildemose

 An Israeli Attack on Iran

by vildemose on Sun Aug 15, 2010 08:41 AM PDT

 An Israeli Attack on Iran would reduce Barack Obama to a One-Term President

(snip)

Goldberg knows that Obama is not actually going to war against Iran. Despite what he says, Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, is for all his bluster far too personally indecisive to take such a major step (and certainly not without an American green light; Bibi thinks Clinton had him undermined and moved out of office for obstructing the Oslo accords, and does not want to risk the same fate for causing trouble for Obama in Iraq and Afghanistan). How Goldberg could miss this truism in Israeli politics is beyond me.

Goldberg is trying to make an Iran war seem highly likely if not inevitable, if not now then in the near future (say, within 5 years?).

But contrary to Goldberg’s conclusions, Gareth Porter finds that high Israeli intelligence and military figures entertain the severest doubts about a war on Iran. Could Goldberg really not find these voices that Porter dug up so effortlessly?

The Iran war hawks also almost certainly underestimate Iran’s conventional weapons capability of foiling any Israeli air strike.

There is no room for ‘ambivalence’ here, especially of the Pollack sort that actually leads straight to war. The stupidity of an air raid on Iran is easy for the clear-eyed to see. There is no evidence Iran has a nuclear weapons program as opposed to a civilian nuclear energy program. The centrifuge technology being used can be dispersed and an air strike is likely to be only a minor setback in the program. And, Iran is a major country of 70 million with extensive petroleum and gas resources. It has means of replying to any attack that can be subtle and effective. Mahan Abedin showed here recently how there can be no ‘limited war’ against Iran.

A Netanyahu attack on Iran would reduce Barack Obama to a one-term president, which may be what Goldberg and his fellow conspirators are really aiming for. That success would after all allow them to keep to the 5-year timetable for another Asian land war.

//www.juancole.com/2010/08/an-israeli-attack-on-iran-would-reduce-barack-obama-to-a-one-term-president.html#respond


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benross

Russia's Loading of Nuke

by benross on Sun Aug 15, 2010 08:30 AM PDT

Russia's Loading of Nuke Fuel Into Iran Plant Means Aug. 21 Deadline for Israeli Attack

It doesn't take much to make a fool of yourself. But did he? Or did he just said something that rich extremist Jewish groups wanted to hear, cashed the cheque and went home packing for a fishing trip?!


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Midwesty

Sorry DK

by Midwesty on Sun Aug 15, 2010 07:55 AM PDT

I think I am asking the sane world too much of logic so let's just we all get insane. How does that sound.


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vildemose

Psycho Mustache Bolton

by vildemose on Sun Aug 15, 2010 07:58 AM PDT

John Bolton: Russia's Loading of Nuke Fuel Into Iran Plant Means Aug. 21 Deadline for Israeli Attack

//www.newsmax.com/Headline/John--Bolton--Iran...


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