Saturday, March 21, 2015

On Me, Israel, and Netanyahu

I consider myself a strong supporter of Israel (the fact that I've sided with them at least 95% of the time, etc.). But on this one topic (Iran and nukes), I really and truly believe that Netanyahu is fully of shit. a) The fellow has been predicting incorrectly on this subject for going on a quarter of a century now and b) our own security agencies (the alphabet soup of America) have repeatedly stated that they aren't building a bomb (hell, even Leon Panetta has stated as much when a reporter was able to briefly get him off script).....................................................................................Look, I'm not saying that Iran has been a good actor over the years but the facts are the facts here and they shouldn't be ignored (I would also submit that Iran thinks that we're going to bomb THEM, and that this accentuates the paranoia). That, and I would also remind you of how the second Bush administration wholly blew what was a golden opportunity to normalize relations with the Iranians after 9/11 (the fact that Ryan Crocker - a person who both sides seem to respect - was able to make solid progress in negotiations, the fact that Iran was willing to help us bich-slap al Qaeda, etc.) and of how the situation deteriorated majorly when Bush instituted his ham-handed "Axis of Evil" bromide. Yeah, I'm not a major fan of Obama but on this one the man is clearly pursuing what is probably the best of a bunch of shaky options while Mr. Netanyahu....not so much.

8 comments:

Rusty Shackelford said...



Sorry Will.....Bibi on one hand the Iranian Mullahs on the other?
I think I'm going with Bibi.

dmarks said...

Do you think that the "golden opportunity to normalize relations with the Iranians after 9/11" would have resulted in any significant change in Iran's foreign policy "Job One" being killing off all Jews/Jewish Israelis?

dmarks said...

Rusty said:

"Sorry Will.....Bibi on one hand the Iranian Mullahs on the other?"

Bibi wants to kill the maniacs trying to build nuclear weapons as part of the Iranian government's efforts to kill all Jews.

The mullah's want to kill all Jews.

There are many (not Will, of course) who see an equivalence between these two opposing efforts. I see a huge difference.

Les Carpenter said...

Can Israel remain a democracy?

Les Carpenter said...

Referencing prior link.

Perhaps a different issue but saber rattling and disingenuous remarks are Bibi's specialty it seems.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

According to David Crist's book, "The Twilight War", not only was Iran willing to cooperate with the U.S. after 9/11, they were practically desperate to. a) Their economy was in a shamble and they much needed to trade with us. b) Most of the Iranians were just as aghast as we were at the scope of the crime that al Qaeda had inflicted, and literally tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in a candle-light vigil in support of the West. And c) we actually shared a lot of the same miserable enemies; al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban (the Iranians always supported the Northern Alliance and were exceedingly pissed at Afghanistan over the drug issue).......And it didn't appear to be simply window-dressing, either. a) Iran had made is perfectly clear (in lower level talks with Ryan Crocker that by most accounts were apparently making progress) that they were fully prepared to support American actions in Afghanistan to the tune of even allowing us to use their air-fields and ports. b) They also fully supported the concepts of Afghan elections and even a renunciation of terrorism (Antiwar.com's Scott Horton has even claimed that they would have been willing to ditch Hamas and Hezbollah). And c) They actually contributed more to the early reconstruction funding in Afghanistan than we did......Yeah, they may have ultimately stabbed us in the back but the fact Bush didn't even try is a travesty.




Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

And Ahmadinejad never actually said, "wipe Israel off the map (he was calling for regime change)". That was just a neocon talking point.

dmarks said...

Ahmad, who, Will?

I was referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has demanded the killing of all Jews. The man you named is but his puppet.