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STEPHEN WALT: MAINSTREAMING WAR WITH IRAN
If the United States does launch an attack, it will be doing so in part on Israel’s behalf, and the lobby will bear significant responsibility for having pushed this dangerous policy – Mearsheimer and Walt
By Stephen Walt via My Catbird Seat
If you are worried that the United States might be foolish enough to attack Iran, then you might take comfort from Jeffrey Goldberg’s lengthy and alarmist Atlantic article on the subject. Based on a flock of mostly anonymous interviews, Goldberg has concluded that odds are better than 50-50 that Israel will attack Iran sometime next spring. Given his track record as a Middle East analyst — particularly when it comes to the wisdom of using force — you might be justified in viewing that prediction as a sign that war was in fact quite unlikely.
I’ve said plenty already about the reasons why Iran is not a grave threat that justifies preemptive war, and why neither the United States nor Israel should be thinking about a military strike, so I don’t feel compelled to dismantle Goldberg’s restating of the hawks’ case yet again. And I don’t have to, because others have already done so quite ably.
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.”
In short, a central purpose of this article is to mainstream the idea that an attack on Iran is likely to happen and savvy people-in-the-know should start getting accustomed to the idea. In other words, a preemptive strike on Iran should be seen not as a remote or far-fetched possibility, but rather as something that is just “business-as-usual” in the Middle East strategic environment. If you talk about going to war often enough and for long enough, people get used to the idea and some will even begin to think if it is bound to happen sooner or later, than “’twere better to be done quickly.” In an inside-the-Beltway culture where being “tough” is especially prized, it is easy for those who oppose “decisive” action to get worn down and marginalized. If war with Iran comes to be seen as a “default” condition, then it will be increasingly difficult for cooler heads (including President Obama himself) to say no.
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.
Thus, articles like this one (and some other recent allies), are intended to box Obama in, and create a win-win situation for the war party. If Obama eventually caves, they get the attack on Iran that they (wrongly) believe is necessary to ensure Israel’s survival. If Obama doesn’t take the bait, they can beat him up for being spineless. And by portraying him as soft on Iran, they make it even more difficult for Obama to exert the kind of pressure on both sides that is necessary to bring about a genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
In our 2007 book on the Israel lobby, John Mearsheimer and I wrote (emphasis added):
Although there is still some chance that President Bush will decide to attack Iran before he leaves office, it is impossible to know for sure. There is also some possibility, given the inflexible rhetoric of the presidential candidates, that his successor will do so, particularly if Iran gets closer to developing weapons and if hard-liners there continue to predominate. If the United States does launch an attack, it will be doing so in part on Israel’s behalf, and the lobby will bear significant responsibility for having pushed this dangerous policy.”
As one would expect, Goldberg wrote a rather hysterical negative review of the book when it came out, and he enjoys calling us names and leveling unfounded accusations. It is therefore somewhat surprising that he is now doing his best to demonstrate how right we were.
Source: – Foreign Policy
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he served as Academic Dean from 2002 to 2006. He previously taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago, where he was Master of the Social Science Collegiate Division and Deputy Dean of Social Sciences.
Related article:
Bill Kristol’s ‘Emergency Committee?’ Give me a break
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=49653
Posted by Debbie Menon on Sep 17 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Israel, Palestine, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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[...] post: STEPHEN WALT: MAINSTREAMING WAR WITH IRAN : Veterans Today Share and [...]
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have been courageously (and patriotically) warning US about the pro-Israel lobby’s (AIPAC and similar along with the neocons) push for war with Iran going back to their ‘Israel Lobby’ article for the London Review of Books:
U.S. Middle East policy motivated by pro-Israel lobby:
http://tinyurl.com/mearsheimer
James, Walt’s writing is very important. Goldberg’s piece in the Atlantic shows how pro-Zionists pushing the Israeli line are able to occupy positions in the mainstream, not simply in neocon outlets such as Fox News.
For another good piece on Goldberg’s essay you might look at Trita Parsi’s
work. “A campaign for war with Iran begins: If neocons can’t get Obama to
attack Iran, they are creating a narrative so the next Republican president
will”
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/13/trita_parsi_jeffrey_g
oldberg/
http://tinyurl.com/parsigoldberg
Friday, Aug 13, 2010 09:30 ET
Parsi wrote a book on the Israeli-Iranian relationship and provides some of
this information in his article. His view of Israel’s motives is somewhat
similar to Stephen Sniegoski’s (Transparent Cabal). Israeli leaders are not terrified about any Iranian nuclear attack (which would be suicidal since Israel has an overwhelming advantage here), but rather are very much concerned about Iran’s support for the Palestinian resistance. Israel essentially believes that such outside support keeps the resistance going and without it the Palestinians would likely cave in to Israeli “peace” offers. As Israel sees it, the
Palestinians pose the existential threat to the Jewish state–and it is a
demographic threat not a military or terrorist one. To be a Jewish state,
it is essential to remove most non-Jews from the area. (The harder line
positions here are taken by the Israeli Right.) The Palestinians are
dangerous even because they use resources such as water, which Israeli
leaders believe is necessary for Israel’s (the Israeli Jews) First World
standard of living. (Israeli control of the West Bank aquifer.)
Some say that Pakistan is the foil which stops Israel from attacking Iran.Pakistan has an estimate of 80-100 nukes and the capacity to produce 40-50 per yr.Pakistan’s missiles have a range of 2500 Kms while the distance to Israel to Pakistan is over 3000kms.
Now Israel is screaming bloody murder over Iran’s first possible nuke when Pakistan a far more unstable country could have as many as Israel.Iran is no possible threat to Israel even if it gets a nuke.So the real agenda is Zionist imperialism.
Now we find that Afghanistan has $ trillions of minerals and on a good oil transport route from Turkmenistan to the Capsian Sea.
Could it be that Israel is stirring trouble in India to heighten tensions with Pakistan?
Thanks Stephen, Maybe this article will help de-densify some brains hardened by sixty years of jewish mind programming through the jewish owned mass media in America.
Mike
I certainly agree that mainstreaming of objectionable ideas is something that the neocons seem very good at. But I accord them no special power in this arena. All of this supposed ‘grass roots’ support is bought and paid for. The great thing about this age we live in is that the ‘mainstream media’ is declining in popularity. Individuals are relatively free to communicate their ideas to a broad audience without the need to own a newspaper or TV station. If the neo-cons really wanted to make a splash with their poisonous ideas, they would be trying to make inroads on the internet instead of writing articles for ‘mainstream’ publications. My grown children do not get any of their news from mainstream sources (they did this on their own without any prompting from me) and so I don’t worry too much about the corrosive effects of mainstream propaganda. The neo-cons are only preaching to the choir and are not significantly expanding their message base. A generation from now, ‘mainstream’ will have no meaning as I believe we will live in a multiverse of opinion.
Great credits are given to you’n Prof. Mearsheimer f. breaking the tabou, i.e. analyzing the “special relationship” btw Israel ‘n USA w. intellectual honesty-analytical-patriotic mind. Kudos. I remember well how the ‘Wolf PACK’, lead by Horrowitz-Goldberg tried to discredit your courageous work ‘n necessary outcry based on facts-documented trends. Posterior events, staged by the Zio themselves, ‘n new evidence-knowledge about the “Israeli Lobby” proved how right u were, as Goldberg’s contradictions do.
Goldberg and similar ‘war mongering neocons’ are poor examples of a human being.
Most have no experience in ‘war’ and have not ever served in any military capacity other than attending college while others, whom have not had the luxury
or priviledge of a ‘deferment’or some status in society, have ended up in a ‘shithole’ created by such ‘bastards’! The suffering to innocent people and the environment, caused by these slimeballs, is historic in proportion. The truth is surfacing because of the writings of people like ‘Walt’, and justice will not be kind!
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the lobby is just for show. jews control the federal reserve, dems and repubs, all media= they run the country. the big crime 911 was unpunished because the perps run the country
Ross – Zionist Jewish grudge is much older than the establishment of Pakistan in 1947. The Father of Pakistan (Quaid-e-Azam) Muhammad Ali Jinnah was dead against the partition of Palestine to get rid of Europe’s “Jewish Problem”.
David Ben Gurion always considered Pakistan as sovereign state and its nuclear program as grave threat to the very existance of Israel. Israel is suspected of being involved in the assassinations of Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Israel also played the part in Mumbai and several other false flag terrorist operations which were pinned on Pakistan. Pakistan Army found conclusive proof of US-Israel-India training and arming the Al-Qaeda insurgents in Swat Valley.
With the help of Zionist-controlled mainstream media – Israel had been able to blame its false-flag operations on its enemies especially the Muslims around the world. However, lately, the deceptive behaviour of the West’s “poor little Israel surrounded by enemies” is being exposed – suprisingly by the western intellectuals. The recent two terrorist activities on American soil – the Christmas Eve bomber and the Times Square bomb – are the latest acts of Israeli terrorism against the very nation which has financed the Zionist entity with more than US$3000 billion since 1970s. While the Christmas Eve bomber gave Senator Joe Lieberman to ask Barack Obama to invade Yemen – the Times Square bomb was pinned on Taliban in Pakistan by two so-called ‘intelligence sources’ – S.I.T.E. and IntelCenter, both made in Israel. S.I.T.E. co-founder and director, Rita Katz, is an Iraqi-born Jewess whose father was executed by Iraqi government for being member of Israeli Mossad. She graduated from Tel Aviv University and speaks both Hebrew and Arabic fluently. She emigrated to the US in 1997. She has admitted receiving US$130,000 from FBI as a ‘consultant’. IntelCenter, which supplies Bin Laden tapes to US government – is owned and run by a Zionist Jew by the name Ben Venzke and the group is an offshoot of INDEFENSE which was staffed by senior PSYOP officer Jim Meinick who worked for Donald Rumsfeld. The group allegedly receives the Jihad video directly from Mossad HQ in Herzilya (Israel).
How easy it would be for the Zionist entity with its moles placed in most sensitive places in America – to carry out a nuclear attack inside the US – one just have to remember how in 1965, 587 pounds of highly enriched uranium missing from NUMEC ended up in Israel. “If, as Benjamin Netanyahu admitted, 9/11 was “very good” for Israel, a nuclear 9/11 might be even better. As the spellbinding effects of that traumatic event nine years ago have begun to wear off, and with Americans increasingly questioning the costs of a one-sided alliance, it may even be considered necessary – and the country blamed would be either Iran or Pakistan,” – Maidh O Cathail in The Next 9/11 – Made in Israel?
Jeff Gates in May 3, 2010 article, titled Is Pakistan the Next Evil Doer? wrote: “Was this (Times Square) a genuine terrorist event? Or was this an agent provocateur operation meant to freshen up a stale storyline: the Global War on Terrorism? Remember the “Christmas Day Bomber”? Were you surprised to find that “significant terrorist event” was an Israeli operation?”
We Americans are not known for our fluency in geography. But we know Pakistan is a neighbor of Iran who—we are constantly assured – is a certified Evil Doer and habitual Holocaust Denier with an agenda of nuclear terrorism. To punish a genuine Evil Doer would require that we hang those who fabricated the intelligence that induced us to war in Iraq on false pretenses. To indict and prosecute those Evil Doers would also help restore U.S. national security. Dispatching more Americans to kill more Muslims seems unlikely to achieve that goal. To convict and execute genuine Evil Doers requires that we do what the 911 Commission members implied: open a new investigation. Americans don’t yet know how this significant terrorist event succeeded. Nor do we know bywhom it was orchestrated. Or why…….. Those with a grip on reality will not be surprised if a good faith investigation uncovers the same transnational network of operatives as we found in the Crotch Bomber incident. We may find the same operatives at work in the shadows of this latest event.
One possibility is that this event was the work of the only nation with the requisite means, motivation and opportunity—plus the stable intelligence network – required to stage events such the Crotch Bomber attack and others too numerous to list. That nation is not Pakistan. Nor is it Syria. Nor is Iran a possibility. However, don’t be surprised if someone uncovers an evidentiary trail pointing to Hezbollah and the Evil Doers of Iran. Or Pakistan.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/pakistan-%e2%80%93-the-next-%e2%80%98rogue-state%e2%80%99/