We need a new word to describe Charles Krauthammer’s cynicism. No one with any responsibility for America’s national security interests thinks a war or bombing campaign against iran is in our interests. The president has mobilized the world community to put pressure on Iran both to open themselves up for inspections and to discontinue activities that seem designed to give them ability to build a nuclear weapon in the future. Iran now faces tough sanctions and has agreed to new inspections and a new round of negotiations. They are not presently working on an actual weapon. In other words, Obama is successfully preventing them from building a nuclear weapon, and he’s making progress on changing Iran’s behavior. He’s also taking steps that would add legitimacy to any military action in the future, rather than short-circuiting the process and moving to war before all other alternatives have been explored.
Israel has a different calculation. They want to strike Iran now, before they can put all their facilities so far underground that they are invulnerable to attack. But that’s Israel’s calculus, not ours. Why should the president put Israel’s interests above America’s interests? And hasn’t Krauthammer considered the possibility that Israel is blustering for political advantage but would not be better off if they attacked Iran unilaterally and without America’s support and superior firepower?
If Krauthammer is trying to win some political points, he’s certainly too willing to politicize national security issues. But if he’s serious, he’s nothing more than a bloodthirsty idiot.
Iran now faces tough sanctions and has agreed to new inspections and a new round of negotiations.
Basically, we’re in the same spot as we were with Iraq in 2002, but the President isn’t lying about all of that and shoving us to war. This is an improvement!
I think you are closer to being in the same spot that you think. The only real diffence is that the President is not shoving you to war, and that is no small thing. However, all the talk of Iran as a threat, and specifically its putative (thanks to the article for that great word) nuclear weapons program is not all that far from Saddam’s WMD’s and the threat that he could and would mobilize them within 20 minutes, or whatever that claim was.
What we are seeing now is the Israeli and U.S. governments, the media, and other “interested parties” utilizing that well-known technique of repeating a piece of nonsense enough times and with enough conviction that it becomes received truth.
The reality is that with or without a nuclear weapon Iran is not a threat to world peace and security, or to Israel. In fact, worldwide polls have shown that the greatest perceived threats to world peace and security is the United States with Israel not far behind. Evidence strongly suggests that this perception is accurate.
1+1=17? Those sentences don’t belong next to each other. I wasn’t mauled by a siberian tiger yesterday, should I thank President Obama? Of course, I don’t live in Asia. Or in a zoo. Or hang out with Siegfried and Roy (didn’t one of them die?).
Empirically speaking, you can say all sorts of things about Iran and sanctions. They’re enriching uranium at a faster rate than ever. They’ve lost 20% of their daily oil exports due to sanctions. P5+1 negotiations have been officially opened for the first time in a year. But I don’t know what “not presently working” means. Or how far back that timeframe extends. Or how one “prevents” someone that isn’t “presently working.”
Oh, and Carl Levin is apparently up for blockading Iran, if push comes to shove. As an “alternative” to war. Good to see that the chairman of the senate arms services committee is so on the ball with what is and isn’t war these days…
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-senator-calls-for-naval-blockade-of-iran-1.417611
Thanks for introducing a note of logic into the discussion.
So far as anyone can tell Iran is not doing and shows no signs of doing anything it is not entitled to do as a signatory of the NPT. To crow that Obama is responsible for this is hubristic and absurd.
PS Both Siegfried and Roy are alive, but Roy suffered disabling injuries in the attack, which apparently Obama was unable or unavailable to prevent.
Are you really just now discovering that the neocon agenda is not about what’s good for America, even allowing for differences in judgment as to what that might be?
Is this honestly the first moment you have realized Krauthammer in particular and the whole Jewish-American bund who line up with him really are Israel Firsters, according to a firmly Likudnik definition of what’s in Israel’s interests?
You’re just pretending shock and outrage, right?
“Obama is successfully preventing them from building a nuclear weapon…“
What a self-serving, typically American self-congratulatory, completely unwarranted, and dangerous assumption.
There is absolutely no evidence that Obama or anyone else outside Iran is preventing the Iranians from building a nuclear weapon. There is no evidence whatsoever that they would be building a nuclear weapon, or even ramping up to build a nuclear weapon, or even intending to build a nuclear weapon under any circumstances with or without action from Obama or anyone else in the world.
Everything that I’ve read to date states that Israel can’t stage an air raid on Iran without US involvement due to refueling needs. If that’s the case, then without the President’s support, Israel is left with no strategy but bluster. Both parties (US and Israel) have to be on board for any attacks to occur.
Israeli plans have only two ways of getting to Iran. Through Iraqi airspace, or through Saudi Arabian airspace.
Iraq would be compelled by its national sovereignty to try to shoot them down. Going through Iraq would require violation of Jordanian, Syrian, or Saudi airspace.
The Saudi reaction would be the interesting one.
It is possible in principle to fly around the Arabian Peninsula so as to not violate anyone’s airspace.
It is also possible in principle to fly through Turkish airspace.
That might be why the IDF is so jittery about the idea of being ordered to strike Iran.
“Iraq would be compelled by its national sovereignty to try to shoot them down.“
That, of course, suggests an assumption that Iraq HAS national sovereignty. As long as the United States maintains that imperial citadel on the Tigris it risibly calls an embassy the existence of Iraq’s national sovereignty is open to question. 🙂
Maliki would be in a bit of a bind, would he?
Yep!
The strategy would be to attack and assume that the US then has no choice but to get involved. Not that unlikely a calculation, unfortunately.
he’s not happy unless he’s sending other people’s children into war.
I’ll stick with the cooler heads at the International Crisis Group. The Turkey option they talk about is a sound premise.
That is an excellent article. Thanks for the link.
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Excellent articles and opinion pieces in Haaretz, sets an example for journalists in US media!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I think it is now clear what is going on with this saber-rattling about Iran.
Guess which of these realities Krauthammer is interested in seeing go forward. All you need to know.
Seems to me a likely adjunct to your point #1 is that the GOP also would do just about anything to prevent in general the normalization of US/Iran relations as outlined in point #5–or, barring that outcome, to at least ensure that Barack Obama not get the credit for such normalization.
A new word for Krauthammer’s cynicism?
My good fellow, Mr. Kubrick finished the job while Krauthammer was an undergrad. The word is “Strangelovian.”