Israel vs. Iran: The Truth Slips Out

[yurbud]

This article points out a basic truth that American as well as Israeli politicians leave out of foreign policy discussions that drive me nuts: even if every nation we are worried about gets nukes, it would be suicidal for them to use them against us or even Israel since Israel has the capacity to nuke every major city in every Muslim country, and we have the capacity to nuke every country off the map several times over.

It is an embarrassing cartoonish lie than anyone old enough to remember the Cold War should be too embarrassed to tell: then we faced an enemy with as many and sometimes more nukes than us, but neither side pulled the trigger for fear of the devastating retaliation.

I doubt they really think Arabs and Iranians are like the villains in action movies who live to be killed by us.

For decades, American voters have been inundated with news stories reporting supposed threats to Israel’s security as if they were objective fact. Rarely do our mass media allow any questions about, much less objections to, the myth of Israel’s insecurity. At least two questions are urgent now:

Even if the Iranians did manage to make a handful of nuclear weapons, why should we believe they would ever use them against Israel? They know that Israel already has 100 to 200 nukes of its own, enough to destroy every major city in Iran, and is perfectly prepared to use them. Iranian leaders have not given any evidence that they’re interested in committing national suicide.

And why should we believe Israel was better off before the Arab Spring, when its neighbors were all dictatorships, breeding grounds for popular anger that could easily turn (or be manipulated) against outside enemies? Governments that better reflect public sentiment are more stable and reliable for their neighbors to deal with. In fact, the Arab Spring movement is having a moderating effect on Islamist politics, as both the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are now demonstrating.

***

Since Israel brought nukes into the Middle East decades ago, its concern about a “regional nuclear arms race” is code for other Mideast nations getting nuclear capability. “Strategic position” is code for Israel’s current absolute military domination of the greater Middle East, symbolized by its sole possession of nukes. It’s that symbolic as well as very real domination, not its national existence, that Israel is at risk of losing.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/09-1

[NAO]

1. Martyerdom takes the teeth out of MAD

The idea of an afterlife takes the teeth out of Mutual Assured Destruction.

The idea of martyrdom glorifies MAD: the good guys get 72 virgins AND the bad guys go to hell.

This is the danger of religion that created the "New Atheist" movement.

[yurbud]

2. individuals do stupid things like that, nations do not unless you are willing to make the case...

that Arabs and Persians are uniquely gullible and suicidal people.

Even so, pre-emptive war crimes that kill a lot of innocent kids and grandmas is not the way to show them that violence is wrong.

[Electric Monk]

3. To whomever alerted on this, thanks for bringing it to my attention. All 6 of us said Leave It. K&R

I might have missed this discussion if not for your alert

[CrawlingChaos]

4. New Atheism is a warmongering ideology

By relentlessly pushing the stereotype of the maniacal, horny terrorists who simply can't wait to get to their 72 virgins, New Atheists are obscuring the real causes of terrorism and hard-selling a mythical enemy so irrational and dangerous that they must be "dealt with" preemptively. And they're willing to toss our civil liberties on the trash heap too while they're at it.

As yurbud asks, are you willing make the case that Persian and Arabs are uniquely gullible and suicidal people? And if so, how is that not racist?

Btw, I am not the person who alerted on this, even though I find it to be an odious post.

[fascisthunter]

10. self-deleted

[westerebus]

14. And the case for Pakistan's nukes tells us what?

Given the current state of terrorism that wears the Muslim moniker of religious martyrdom, did I miss something?

Oh, that's right, they don't produce oil. Silly me.

I knew it had to be something else.

Religion? As in the sacred homeland? Holy books?

Explains it all.

[yurbud]

15. I'm missing your point about Pakistan's nukes. Could you explain how that relates

to the rest of your comment?

[westerebus]

17. Pakistan has neuclear weapons.

Pakistan has about 60 to 100 nukes and delivery systems in the form of missles and aircraft to deliver them. Pakistan is not a stable nation and is a Muslim nation. There are terrorist training camps and related organizations operating in that country.
Despite these facts, no one is calling for sanctions or worse against Pakistan.

So the argument that martyrdom by terrorist Muslims is a justification for sanctions and war just does not hold up. If we were to apply the same policy we do to Iran to Pakistan as a center of terrorist activity, you might be able to justify it as a national security policy, but we don't.

So, what does Iran possess that Pakistan does not? Oil.

All the huffing about religion is a cover to continue the grab for resources. Unless the intent is to tell the Israeli government their claims to Palestine have no merit, because they are based on religious associations (sacred homeland and holy books), the premise of going to war because Muslims claim the same lands for the similar religious reasons (resulting in a holy war) the argument has no merit. A strawman.

[yurbud]

18. We agree about Pakistan and Iran: the same could be said of Saudi in spades

the are extreme fundamentalist Muslims AND Congress found their government helped the 9/11 hijackers, including funneling money through the Saudi ambassador's wife to the hijackers handler.

What was their punishment?

Bush smoked cigars with Prince Bandar on the balcony of the White House while the Pentagon still smoldered in the distance.

When the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 documented the Saudi gov't role, Bush immediately classified it, apologized to some other Saudi prince that it was mentioned at all, and kissed him on the lips.

[got root]

19. nonsense

it is a means to an end, to 'win', not national suicide.

[leveymg]

5. Tried to 5th rec, but it's not letting me for some reason.

Please repost this tomorrow, if it doesn't make it onto the /reatest Page tonight. As for the comment above about martyrdom, we have a major Neocon infestation lately.

[yurbud]

7. it's embarrassing to DU to have that shit here

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Uh...DU is not a person, it cannot be embarrassed.

I, as a DU member, am not embarrassed by the post.

[leveymg]

13. I think the reference is directed at the martyrdom comment in the thread, not the OP.

The point and validity of the OP is plain enough. The first response comment, however, is a bit opaque and wrongheaded.

[NAO]

12. "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the republican party"

Neocon? not even close. I don't even know what you're talking about.

I am a lifelong, hard-left progressive.

If you take people of faith at their word - just give them the benefit of the doubt that they actually BELIEVE what they say they believe - then death is just like snapping out of one world (the temporal material world) and waking up in another world (the eternal spiritual world).

[yurbud]

16. So you don't think that are political grievances that make them susceptible to that?

Can you imagine an American kid who thought he and his country had a bright future volunteering for a suicide mission?

Or conversely, if an American kid felt a suicide mission was the only way he could protect his country or his people, wouldn't that be when he would start talking about how great heaven will be and all the martyred saints?

I was very religious in college and my very devout friends had a way of being who they were regardless of our religious beliefs. For example, there were some explicit commands like giving all we have to the poor that NO ONE followed (and that didn't even involve suicide).

Even neocon Fareed Zakariah acknowledged this shortly after 9/11: guys are attracted to these religious groups because they have no secular way influence their society, to question the dictators we prop up, and an economic order that uses their countries as the fossil fuel equivalent of organ donors.

I had a chance to meet secular Iraqi oil workers, and they had the same nationalistic concerns as religious leaders like Muqtada al Sadr--religious leaders just have a ready-made network to act on those grievances.

I don't have any sympathy for terrorism as a method or religion itself for that matter, but to fix the problem, you have to correctly diagnose it.

Blaming Islam is akin to blaming Christianity for skinheads or Judaism for atrocities committed against Palestinians. In both cases, religion is the excuse not the cause.

[Jefferson23]

8. Recommend n/t

[varelse]

9. K&R