‘It’s Your Fault’: U.S. Gets the Israel Treatment Over Iran
“We’ve added a military dimension to our policy… and to efforts to ratchet up the pressure… which didn’t exist before,” opined Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This is the most scared I have been about the potential for military action between the U.S. and Iran since I started following country,” added the Atlantic Council’s Barbara Slavin.
No, it’s not all America’s fault; the Iranians are partly responsible.
Riedel denounced “saber rattling from Tehran to South Carolina,” but the Republican presidential candidates concerned him perhaps more than Mr. Velyati. “If you’ve watched the debates so far this year, you’ve seen a lot of saber rattling,” he said. Rejecting the possibility that a military strike against Iran might have its intended effect, Riedel predicted that the U.S. and Israel would be called aggressors, and didn’t disagree with the characterization. “We will have initiated a military action and we will have started a war. We have drifted so easily into war twice in the last decade. Let’s not make that mistake again.”
Israel was a dog on a short leash for Eisenstadt: “2012 is likely the year of decision for Israel on this issue. … From their point of view, they look at this and say that time may no longer be working in their favor, and they may be reaching a point in which deferring military action means forgoing military action altogether.”
After years of haggling and struggling, the United States, Western Europe, and their allies including Japan and others have finally come close to organizing serious sanctions against the regime in Tehran. It may be “too little, too late,” but if the Iranians would just abandon their secret nuclear programs and stop threatening Israel and the rest of the world, the sanctions backed by “all options” wouldn’t be necessary.
If they won’t, they — not we — are responsible for any ensuing “ratcheting.”
The major problem is that there is so much anti-semitism in Europe these days. You know that the “Arab Street” would never, ever, give Israel the benefit of the doubt on anything. In fact, they want Israel destroyed. But it’s in Europe where you see the least support for Israel these days. More and more you see a pro-Muslim stand on just about everything, from anti-Israel statements coming from their governments to prosecuting anybody who has anything bad to say about Islam in Europe. The Europeans are probably doing this because of their large and growing Muslim populations, so they feel they can certainly throw Israel, as well as the Jews, under the bus. After all, Jews are not suicide bombers, Muslims are. So the media in Europe will not say anything to support Israel let alone demand that any military moves be taken against Iran. Remember, these are the same people who wasted YEARS negotiating with Iran over their nuclear program and came away with nothing. The Iranians clearly used that time to continue working on their nuclear program.
I sometimes think that if Iran even exploded a nuclear bomb test somewhere, even then the Europeans wouldn’t care. They would simply say that, “Well, Pakistan has a nuclear bomb, why not Iran?” They would simply ignore the dangers this would create not only for Israel, but for many of Iran’s neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia. The Europeans are not about to do anything about this and we had better come to grips with that fact. Sanctions are useless and they know it. Saddam Hussein had sanctions on his country for years and he did just fine, until we attacked him.
Personally, I’m beginning to think that we shouldn’t do much of anything, EXCEPT support covert operations and popular rebellions within Iran in hopes that it will get us regime change. Other than that, I doubt bambi in the White House is going to do much of anything in an election year. So let the mainstream media say we’re rattling sabers all day long. This president isn’t going to do anything before election day, and the Iranians know it.
“I sometimes think that if Iran even exploded a nuclear bomb test somewhere, even then the Europeans wouldn’t care.”
Libertyship46, I fully agree with your sentiment, but I think you are still hedging a bit. Of course the Europeans wouldn’t care if Iran exploded a bomb. They don’t see themselves as being directly threatened by Iran and know that they can always opt for appeasement if the situation gets prickly. Some day in the future when the Iranian nuclear program is fully revealed I expect that the involvement of European companies, especially German ones, will figure prominently as suppliers and contractors.
A war is a handy little thing. It gets people’s minds off of other things like a bad economy, failed policies and all sorts of other things. If Obambi gets it in his head that he might be able to win reelection by starting a war, I doubt he will hesitate. The more it looks like he will lose the more chance he will use that option.
That might backfire. Of all the things Obama is not qualified for, CINC is the most obvious. If he gets us in a war, do you really think the old, “go with the horse we started with” meme would work for him? (Except for the Left, former anti-war types,of course.)
But isn’t that the basic way of Islam, both ancient and modern? Anyone they wish to attack is told that it is their fault they need to be attacked. It seems to me that the only way to oppose Obama, and by extension, Islam, is to make no concessions. Want us to give up land? No. We will take more land. Want us to give up nuclear weapons? No. We will build twice as many. Want us to accept Hamas as part of the Palestinian leadership? No. We will deport them wherever we find them and oppose them publicly in any way we can. Want to lob weapons onto our soil? We will obliterate you. The only answer to warlords is to answer force with twice as much force, and lies with twice as much truth.
I don’t think one can compare the situation Israel is in to the situation the US is in. If the US was reduced to the state of Ohio alone, and all the surrounding 49 states were united and trying to destroy it, then you can say the situation is similar.