Yes, it is indeed a shame that you addressed none of my points—most prominently, Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, in brazen violation of international law. I don’t recall making any “personal attacks,” as you put it, unless you consider pointing out Israel’s violation of international law to be a slur against your person. And, of course, “extraneous taunts” can sometimes illuminate larger issues, such as the exact value of Israel to the U.S., although the lack of specificity in this regard renders your complaint mysterious, at least to me.

The great problem in “dialogues” of this sort is that, all too often, the “dialoguers” wind up talking past, or at, one another. This is unfortunate, but also, perhaps, unavoidable. I will, however, try to bridge the gap, and hopefully we can at least be talking about the same subject, even if we aren’t agreeing in any measure.

As with the case of Iraq’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” the “evidence” of Iran’s vaunted nuclear weapons program doesn’t really exist. Nor was there anything “illicit” about the “secrecy” in which you insist the Iranians cloaked their nuclear research. Unlike Israel, which refuses to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran has acted in full compliance with guidelines set down by the IAEA. The IAEA didn’t require disclosure of the facilities you mention until its rules were amended (after the disclosures). As for not allowing a more stringent inspection policy by the IAEA, this news article points out that “diplomats in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said Iran had the right to reject any inspector it wanted and such a step was not prohibited by its accord with the agency.”

Former IAEA Deputy Director-General for safeguards Bruno Pellaud, when asked if Iran was bent on building a nuclear bomb, replied: “My impression is not. My view is based on the fact that Iran took a major gamble in December 2003 by allowing a much more intrusive capability to the IAEA. If Iran had had a military program they would not have allowed the IAEA to come under this Additional Protocol. They did not have to.” Former British Foreign Minister Jack Straw has said: “There is no smoking gun and therefore no justification for a military attack.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded, contra Freund, that Iran is a decade away from developing usable nuclear weapons. As for their “racing to develop intercontinental missiles” that could supposedly hit New York and Washington, here is what one Iran expert has to say:

Iran’s medium-range Shahab-3 missiles are modeled after the North Korean Nodong missiles, which are, in turn, based on an early Soviet model. Most experts agree that the Iranian missile system has reached its maximum potential and cannot be stretched into developing longer-range missiles. Iran would need to master the extremely complex “multistage” missile technology in order to build them. So far, only a few countries have been able to reach this advanced stage of missile development and some of them, i.e., India and Israel, reportedly have had significant difficulty manufacturing reliable long-range missiles.

Experts note the technical difficulty of manufacturing such missiles, which is why only the United States, Russia, and China have developed them. In the event the Iranians do develop such long-range missiles, it would be hard to conceal that fact from the international community—and, then again, there is the question of tipping them with nuclear warheads, a technology way beyond present Iranian capabilities.

It may be that Israel cannot afford to take the risk, however small, of leaving Iran alone. The United States, however, being on the other side of the globe, could well afford to wait before acting precipitously—and recklessly. Last time we did that, we landed ourselves in a quagmire. As Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt put it in their Harvard University study of the Israel lobby: “Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose a direct threat to the U.S. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China, or even a nuclear North Korea, it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the [Israel] Lobby must keep up constant pressure on politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the U.S. would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but U.S. policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option.”

You point to Iranian support for “Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, and the Iraqi insurgency” as evidence that Tehran is the enemy of the U.S. as well as Israel. But this conflation of widely disparate groups with various goals and ideologies into a single, monolithic anti-U.S.-Israel conspiracy is really not in accord with the facts. Hizbullah’s enemy is Israel, not the U.S., and, as for Hamas and Islamic Jihad—these guys, too, are Israel’s problem, not ours.

The Iraqi insurgency is a problem that could be easily solved by an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, which is precisely what ought to be done. In any case, evidence for Iranian “aid” to the “Iraqi insurgency” is extremely dubious, and seems to be of the same tenor and character as the pre-invasion “evidence” of Iraqi WMD, i.e., cherry-picked “raw” intelligence that is unverified and based on supposition, speculation, and outright disinformation.

I am glad to see that you have mastered the art of linking. But let me give you some advice: When putting in a link, make sure it has something to do with what you are trying to prove. For example, if you are trying to prove that Iran is a threat both to Israel and the United States, then the links you provide should contain some significant mention of the United States as well as Israel. Unfortunately for you, the articles you link to—essentially a collection of bad-boy quotes from the Iranian president compiled by the Anti-Defamation League—do not mention the U.S. as a target of Iran’s wrath, except for the rather cryptic comment that “there is no significant need for the United States”—whatever that means.

You intone that this issue is a matter of “grave international significance,” and yet one wonders if you realize just how grave. Do you understand what you are advocating? An attack on Iran would plunge the entire region into a maelstrom of violence from which it would not soon emerge. It would mean a land war, and not just antiseptic bombing raids, with Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Shiites arrayed against U.S. forces: It would mean many thousands of Iranians killed in bombing raids, and, finally, it would give Al Qaeda a huge propaganda victory. Osama bin Laden’s contention that the U.S. is allied with Israel in a genocidal war against Muslims would gain new credibility. And the U.S. itself would be in increased danger of a terrorist attack.

Ah, but Israel would be safe from the almost purely imaginary “threat” of annihilation from Iranian blustering. Another enemy of the Israelis would be humbled, and the Americans would be doing all the dirty work. How convenient—and grossly exploitative. But, then again, that’s always been the essence of the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.”

The post A “Special Relationship,” Indeed appeared first on Jewcy.

You purport to speak not only for the entire nation of Israel as well as the United States, but now also “the rest of mankind.” And this from someone who entitles his last email: “Facts, Not Fantasy”! You give new meaning to the word chutzpah. I also have a very hard time reading comments like “you appear to inhabit…a…fantasy world.” Especially when they are written by someone who has totally ignored my arguments, and appears to be involved in a “dialogue” with himself. I am having trouble figuring out if this is an ethno-cultural trope, or a political statement: Perhaps it is a little of both.

Okay, okay, on with the “discussion.” To begin with, Michael, you don’t seem to know where you are, and this strange disorientation is immediately apparent in the following:

“You see, Justin, out here in the real world, there are people such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who want to kill you and your family and destroy our collective way of life.”

What is this “collective way of life” that we share? You, my friend, are sitting over there in Israel. I, on the other hand, am hanging around Pacific Heights in the City by the Bay. If you get on a bus, the journey may end in a blast from a suicide bomber; if I get on a bus, the worst thing that can happen is for one of San Francisco’s many homeless individuals to emit the organic equivalent of a stink-bomb, clearing the area around him in minutes. I am living on land that was stolen from the Indians many moons ago, so many moons that there are few of the original inhabitants left to claim it; you, on the other hand, are living on stolen land that has the original owners glaring though the fence that separates you from their wrath, hating you and plotting revenge.

Our “collective way of life”? We couldn’t live in more different worlds. You live the life of a settler colonist: dangerous, and even a little brutal. You live in constant fear. I have no reason to live in such a condition, and I refuse to make your enemies my own—which seems to be the entire thrust of your last note. Try that “assessment of reality” on for size.

You don’t give any references for your quotations from Iranian leaders, or provide links with which to back up your screed. This is typical of the War Party, which throws out assertions and expects we'll blindly accept them, just as we’re supposed to accept the “intelligence” provided by our leaders to rationalize a policy of relentless aggression. I would point out, however, that the alleged Ahmadinejad-Khamenei plot to blow up America—and, one assumes, the rest of the West—is contradicted by this comment from CNN State Department correspondent Zain Verjee:

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is usually praised for his defiance of the West. Now it seems he’s gone too far and his country has had enough. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei handed Ahmadinejad a stinging slap over the country’s nuclear policy in a newspaper he owns.

The paper says…Iran’s nuclear policy needed toughness, sometimes flexibility. Now 150 Iranian lawmakers, some from Ahmadinejad’s own party, are publicly blasting his nuclear and economic policies.

In the black-and-white world of the Likudnik ideologues, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are cut from the same cloth, and both are poised to destroy the West. In the real world—as opposed to the Bizarro World universe inhabited by you, Michael, and your American and Israeli co-thinkers—the situation is a bit more complicated than that.

So what if Iranian missiles can reach Europe? The Europeans lived with the threat posed by Soviet missiles for the entire length of the Cold War, and lived to tell the tale. Israeli missiles, too, can reach Europe: Should NATO order air strikes on Israeli nuclear facilities on account of this?

Speaking of Israel’s nukes: Everything you have said about the Iranian nuclear program applies to the Israeli nuclear program. Israeli nukes were developed in secret: The Israelis refuse to allow inspections. And, unlike the Iranians, they refuse to allow “snap” inspections—or, indeed, any sort of inspections.

Iranians may not like the “international community,” and may ignore its pleas to stop pursuing the nuclear path. Yet is their contempt any deeper than the Israelis’, who have regularly flouted international opinion, not only in actually creating a formidable nuclear arsenal, but also in treating the Palestinians like dirt, killing them, occupying their land, and bulldozing their homes?

Israel may be threatened by Iran, but this threat can be diminished and perhaps even permanently ended if Israel dismantles its nukes in exchange for similar actions on the part of the Iranians. The proposal for a nuclear-free Middle East has long been a central demand of Israel’s Arab neighbors. Tel Aviv has steadfastly ignored this eminently reasonable request. You don’t even address it, although it was a central point in my previous email to you.

In trying to convince us that Israel’s fight is America’s fight, you assume that Israel and the U.S. are such tight allies that their interests are virtually one and the same. If that is true, how does he explain this, and this—not to mention this?

Israel is popularly viewed as our special ally, but it often acts like our adversary—and it is, increasingly, a problem rather than an asset. Many Americans are beginning to question the “special relationship,” and for good reason.

Justin

NEXT: Your taunts and mudslinging illuminate nothing

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I'd argue that Iran is no threat to Israel, and that there is no danger of Iran dropping nukes on Tel Aviv. Such an attack would poison the entire region with radioactivity, and boomerang right back in the mullahs’ faces in more ways than one. Also keep in mind that the U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities says we have ten years before the mullahs go nuclear.

However, if you—as an Israeli citizen who lives in Israel—want to advocate an Israel-led preemptive strike against the Iranians, far be it from me to interfere. But I don’t think it would be very wise—the Iranians would surely strike back, via Lebanon, and Israel might suffer in other ways (perhaps the thousands of Iranian civilians who would surely die in such an attack would present a public relations problem, if not a moral conundrum, for the Jewish state). But if the Iranian threat makes you so nervous that you can’t sleep at night—and you don’t have any compunction about throwing the entire region into chaos—then perhaps you shouldn't take any chances.

But why drag the United States into it? There are those who treat Israel like the 51st state, but I am not among them. If Israel perceives a threat from Iran, and its military leaders decide to take out the mullahs, then so be it. But there is no reason for the United States to get involved, except, perhaps, to persuade the Israelis that negotiations are the only way to deal with the threat, real or imagined.

Iran, with or without nuclear weapons, represents no threat to America. Those Shihab-3 missiles you mention couldn’t reach the continental
United States. After arguing the threat to Israel, you say “the West is next.” But is it? There is absolutely no chance the Iranians would launch a nuclear attack on the United States. In any case, the Soviets had nuclear weapons for half a century and more, as did the Chinese Communists. Both were genocidal regimes, and yet neither ever used nukes (America is the only nation on earth with that dubious distinction).

I would remind you that the Iranians, being signatories to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), are perfectly entitled to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. They allow unhampered inspections and cooperate with the IAEA. This is more than one can say for the other nuclear power in the region. And, no, I don’t mean Pakistan—I’m talking about Israel.

Everybody knows the Israelis have nuclear weapons, and yet Tel Aviv refuses to acknowledge this, or to sign the NPT. When it comes to nukes, Israel is more a rogue nation than even North Korea, which at least has come out of the nuclear closet, so to speak. The Israelis, however, still won’t fess up (although the continuing harassment of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear technician who first disclosed the existence of Israel’s nukes and was imprisoned for 18 years, speaks volumes about Israel’s lack of scruples in this regard).

No, negotiations have not “run their course”—they haven’t even begun. In 2003, the Iranians made an overture to the United States that would have put nukes, and all other outstanding issues—including the recognition of Israel—on the table: Tehran was ready to talk, but the U.S. wasn’t interested.

If I were Israeli, I would ask my leaders the following: Why the heck do we need nuclear weapons, anyway? It isn’t as though we'll ever use them. So why not trade them away, in return for an Iranian guarantee to refrain from developing such weapons? And, while we’re on the subject, how about creating a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East? The Syrians have been proposing it for years.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sure is a character—albeit no more so than, say, Avigdor Lieberman—but I wouldn’t overestimate his power and influence: Señor Ahmadinejad doesn’t make
the decisions, Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei does. And it looks like the Iranian hardliners are in retreat just now—although Israeli and American actions, as per usual, could always restore him to the good graces of the Iranian people through sheer stupidity.

For many years Israel tried to hide its nuclear weapons from the international community, and it was only due to the bravery of Mr. Vanunu that we discovered the truth. Israel has not allowed inspections, and it has defied the world on this issue. If Iran is developing nukes, too, then who can blame them? Or is Israel the only nation in the region entitled to self-defense?

Sincerely,

Justin Raimondo

NEXT: Wake Up and Smell the Uranium

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