Days of decline

[bemildred]

Iran's race to develop a nuclear bomb, alongside its president's calls for the destruction of Israel, have caught us at one of our worst moments. The public has no confidence in senior government ministers, who proved their lack of wisdom and their haplessness in the Lebanon war. Their lack of seriousness, and especially their lack of responsibility, is also evidenced by the way they have clung to positions that the war, as well as the period that followed it, clearly proved them unfit to hold.

This crisis of civilian leadership is occurring simultaneously with a no less fateful crisis of military leadership. For many years, the public wanted to believe that "the Israel Defense Forces is different" - in other words, that the army was free of the structural and moral ills that plagued civilian systems. But it was not only in terms of their functioning that the war revealed the nakedness of most senior commanders. When it came to setting a personal example, for instance by marching in front of their troops into battle, or drawing personal conclusions, the commanders' norms proved debased, just like those of the politicians.

In both realms, the civilian and the military, those responsible for the failures are refusing to draw conclusions. They have managed to cling to the altar and survive because the public is apathetic, or has despaired, and is not girding itself for a civilian struggle.

These norms did not develop in a vacuum. A specific worldview nurtured the norms of behavior that led to these days of decline in which the army and the government alike find themselves. Now, when the results of this culture have slapped us in the face and are threatening our existence, there is virtually no prime ministerial candidate in the political system whose norms, or abilities, can be said to differ from those of the leaders of this failed government, and from whom salvation might therefore arise.

Haaretz

[antiimperialist]

1. Iran is years from a bomb

Our intelligence agencies say so.

[bemildred]

2. Read the whole thing, that's just a small part of it.

It doesn't really appear to me that Iran is in any hurry to get the bomb, or that it has any need to hurry to get the bomb. It is, after all, signatory to the non-proliferation treaty and not shown to be in violation of it's obligations under that treaty. But that is peripheral to this piece.

[Igel]

3. That certainly sets my mind at ease.

But I remember the uselessness of the CIA in the mid-late '80s wrt the USSR. And the way they managed to spin their ignorance and foolishness and knowledge and brilliance by the late '90s.

I remember uselessness of the CIA (and IAEA) in the early '90s wrt to Iraq, and their acute embarrassment when shown to be wrong in their assessments of Iraq's nuclear program. And their continuing uselessness in the '00s.

I remember the uselessness of the CIA wrt N. Korea in the '90s and '00s.

Personally, the CIA's saying that Iran's years away from having a nuclear weapon makes me want to hurriedly dig a bombshelter.

[tocqueville]

5. you are wrong on Saddam

Saddam's nuclear program was known all the time. Just read the IAEA reports. At its peak he had around 25 Kg fissile material through enrichment of perfectly LEGALLY bought yellowcake from Portugal, Niger and Brasil.
But it's not because you have 25 kg that you can make a bomb. It demands very advanced technology (besides the creation of a supercritical mass) specially if you want to use neutron reflectors to minimize the bomb and make it operational. All this was dismantled after Gulf War and Saddam gave up. Only the neocons pretended that he was hiding the stuff.

What was found 2003 were some empty barrels of yellowcake that went probably to Iran. That was about all.

[bemildred]

4. A lethal combination

Democracy is capable of overcoming all hardships: wars, economic crises, unemployment and distress. But there is one obstacle that it will not overcome for long: the loss of its citizens' confidence. The source of the crisis in which Israeli society now finds itself is not really the failure in the Lebanon war, but government leaders' refusal to admit that the defeat was their own handiwork. It is not the regime that is to blame, but the petty people into whose hands the reins of government have fallen.

Since the establishment of the state, the parliamentary regime has withstood every test and challenge it faced, including difficult wars. Parliamentary democracy is very far from perfect, but, unlike demagoguery of the Olmert-Lieberman school, it is not responsible for the erosion of confidence in the government.

The real reason for the erosion of confidence is not the system of government, but the bankruptcy of the political elite. In order to remove the stain of failure from themselves, many members of this government, and Ehud Olmert first and foremost, are willing to disrupt the necessary checks and balances among the different branches of government, and thus to undermine the foundations of Israeli democracy and call individual freedoms and rights into question to a degree that is intolerable in a free society. And let us not forget: Israel is not America.

Because it betrayed all its promises, from the convergence plan to repairing society, and thus finds itself in serious distress, the governmental elite is now calling for help from the most dangerous politician we have ever had in Israel. Rehavam Ze'evi was also a racist whose "legacy" is a disgrace to Israeli society, but he did not have the benefit of a power base such as the one that Avigdor Lieberman has consolidated. This base does not consist only of the Russian-speaking community; Lieberman also has the ability, through the power of xenophobia and by slinging mud at the Knesset and the Supreme Court, to mobilize the frustrations of the lower middle class. In the past, this role was reserved for the Likud, but Benjamin Netanyahu's movement today represents the interests of the bourgeoisie, rather than those of the weaker sectors. Lieberman caught this wave even before the war, but now he is exploiting his success in order to fill the vacuum that has been created by the center's moral collapse.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/780068.html