Hillary and Iran

End of Innocence:
” .. we should do all we can to prevent Iran from developing a weapon–it would touch off a nuclear arms race ..”
Alright.
But indulge us, the dim-witted, gentile minions, in answering a few questions – for consistency’s sake:

1) Why didn’t Israel’s development of a (nuclear) weapon lead to a nuclear arms race in the region?

2) If your retort is that Israel does NOT have a nuclear weapon, then we need a confirmation that our suspicion will not become a mushroom cloud: Can Israel prove to the civilized community of nations that it does NOT have a nuclear weapon?

Joe, should we need to play a real-life game of RISK? If Iran builds The Bomb, aside from Israel, which Arab nation has the most to fear? If it’s a semi-friendly one like Saudi Arabia, maybe we can have them take non-military actions. If this is framed as “it’s not Israel at ‘risk’, it’s YOU” will this work? I’d rather see more indirect support of the protesters “without interfering” (ha!), such as hacking Iranian firewalls back open and arranging a Pepsi / McDonalds – sponsered Britney Spears / Madonna / Angelie Jolie / MJ Memorial[tm] concert / rally for “the people”. Win them over with our culture, not our bombs. Then Angelina and Madonna can bring home cute Iranian kids for adoption (plus extras for Octomom). Thoughts?

Thanks for the posting Joe. I wish we could get more concerning Iran, which seems to have mostly dropped out of the news cycle lately. There is still plenty happening in that country politically speaking.
For instance, now Ahmadinejad is defying the Supreme Leader Khamenei’s order to reject his top V.P. choice, Mashai. Mashai made the fatal mistake last year of stating that Iran is a friend to all nations, including Israel. Oops!
And of course the protests to Ahmadinejad’s Presidency continue on. Probably not too smart in that case for Ahmadinejad to start defying his biggest supporter.

Since the U.S. is prepared to protect the Middle East with a “nuclear umbrella”, what need does Israel have for a nuclear arsenal of its own?

Would Israel trade its own nuclear arsenal if its neighbors gave up theirs and their ambitions? I would bet that most Americans — Hell, most people who live outside of the Middle East — would love for the region to become a nuclear-free zone. Sadly, I suspect that the Islamic states would accept that bargain before Israel would.

Once there was Taliban. They were Muslims – just as the Americans are Christians and the Brits are, eh, weirdos. Then Taliban and Afghanistan was no more. Then there was barbarian Muslim Afghani and Afghanistan.

And we still had the world’s largest, most efficient killing machine spoling for a fight – and a reason for living ..

Then there was Hussein. Then Hussein and Muslim Iraq was no more. Then there were the Iraqi Muslim barbarians and Iraq.

And we still have the world’s …

There was Ahmnmadenajad and Muslim Iran….
Then there was Syria …

Barbarians galore.
[Communist Russia?]And we still have the world’s …

Then there was Jung and the communist North Korea .. And those South American socialists …

[Communist China?]And we still have the world’s …

And there are the resource-rich Africans of Zimbabwe, Nigeria, CAR, Camerooon, … What do they need the resources for? What is their reason for living?

And through it all there was the fabulously resource-rich Congo and the worthless natives: Over a million of them slaughtered over the past five years ..

Long live the empire.

This set off some jitters in Israel, where the Defense Minister Dan Meridor thought that Clinton was implying that the U.S. was ready to accept an Iranian bomb.
.
Yes, that is obviously what she means. The Obama Administration isn’t going to admit it – that would be political suicide, especially with Liz Cheney’s he’s-a-foreign-traitor attacks – but it’s what they are signaling.

BTW, this clear implication of the “nuclear umbrella” idea was of course completely ignored during the primaries. Pundits either embraced the HRC-is-an-out-of-control-hawk or the HRC-is-standing-up-against-those-dangerous-Iranians narrative. Both narratives were equally absurd because the refusal to accept the idea that Iran is vulnerable to deterrence is the cornerstone of the argument for an imminent invasion of Iran. By rejecting that thinking HRC was rejecting the neocon rationale for seeking conflict with Iran.

Speaking to an audience at a former royal palace, Mrs. Clinton said, “We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment that if the U.S. extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it’s unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won’t be able to intimidate and dominate, as they apparently believe they can, once they have a nuclear weapon.”

“It faces the prospect, if it pursues nuclear weapons, of sparking an arms race in the region,” Mrs. Clinton said. “That should affect the calculation of what Iran intends to do, and what it believes is in its national security interest.”

This is dumb. Clinton states that Iran is pursuing a nuc weapon (caustic, unfair), and, yes, that the US has resigned to the eventuality that they will have one (unacceptable, defeatist, scary for other the Gulf States). Then bolstering Iran’s neighbors? I don’t want to pay for that, and I can think of few things that would more effectively encourage Iran to develop weapons than her arming regional competitors. The missile defense system is a wasteful, antagonistic, fantasy. And Israel is sparking the nuclear (and conventional) arms race, on the US taxpayer. I would expect this from an ideological hack (Kristol?), not the Sec of State.

The point is to install a deterrence umbrella in response to an Iranian acquisition of a nuclear bomb. Obviously the purpose of such a deterrence would be defeated by installing it before Iran had a bomb.

Plus, no one is saying anything about missile defense in the Middle East. And no one seriously thinks a Eastern European missile defense is for Iran; I completely oppose the extension of (largely ineffective) missile defense systems to Eastern Europe, but such an extension is not being motivated by concerns about Iran. It’s being (weakly) justified by citing Iran instead of the true target: Russia.

Personally, I expect Iran to eventually acquire a bomb because a. they probably can and b. considering Israel’s belligerence it would be irrational for them not to. That said, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East involving countries like Saudi Arabia would be a significant risk in that event and measures should be taken to avoid it. Besides using the leverage of aid and international support to force Israel to back down and reduce Iran’s need for a nuclear bomb, the best way to avoid such an arms race would be to threaten a deterrence umbrella.

And Kristol would never accept Iran’s vulnerability to deterrence.

Bill Kristol’s activism for Israel strikes one as curiously visceral .. as if, in a showdown, he would bear arms against our USA ..

What is the nature of his relationship with israel?
Why doesn’t/can’t/won’t he emmigrate?
Can he explain why the USA and the henpecked-by-Israel American gentiles critically need him?

One step to peace in the Middle East might be for the United States to offer the nuke missile defense shield to Israel’s neighbors as well. Take the Nukes out of the mix.