As Iran and six world powers scramble to reach a deal over Iran’s nuclear program by the deadline of Nov. 24 in Vienna, Washington is seeing a flurry of last-minute events focused on the pros and cons of pursuing diplomacy with Tehran.
While advocates from both sides made their arguments on Capitol Hill this week, two distinguished former US ambassadors told an audience here Wednesday that a deal between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program offers “huge advantages” and that the chances of a “complete breakdown” in the talks at this stage are low, even if the prospect of a comprehensive accord being signed before the looming deadline is also unlikely.
Stuart Eizenstat, who played a key role in promoting sanctions against Iran under both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, endorsed the diplomatic process with Iran at a Nov. 19 panel discussion hosted here by the Atlantic Council.
“I am of the belief that an agreement is important, and that there are huge advantages—to the United States, to the West, and to Israel—in having an agreement along the lines of what we see emerging,” he said.
Last month the veteran diplomat, who was named special adviser to the secretary on Holocaust issues last year, offered a key endorsement of diplomacy with Iran in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.
Eizenstat, who currently chairs the Coucil’s Iran Task Force, also emphasized the consequences of failing to reach an accord with Iran:
Without an agreement, one always has to ask, “What’s the alternative?” No deal means an unrestrained [Iranian] use of centrifuges, it means a continuation of the Iranian plutonium plant in Arak, it means no intrusive inspections by the IAEA, it means no elimination of [Iran’s] 20% enriched uranium, it means less likelihood of eliminating weaponization, it means undercutting those who are relative moderates in Iran. So there are enormous implications.
Thomas Pickering, who served as Washington’s chief envoy in virtually every hot spot—from Moscow to San Salvador and from Lagos and Tel Aviv to Turtle Bay (in the run-up to and during the first Gulf War)—meanwhile explained why a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program is highly preferable to the “military option.”
“Nobody believes that the use of force is a guaranteed, one-shot settlement of the problem of Iran’s nuclear program,” said Pickering, who co-runs the Iran Project, which promotes diplomacy between Iran and the United States, along with several other top foreign policy experts.
Pickering also argued that a deal would open the door to “further possibilities” for US-Iranian cooperation on a host of regional issues, most immediately in serving the president’s plan of “degrading and destroying” Islamic State (ISIS or IS) forces in Iraq and Syria and in bringing stability to Afghanistan.
“I remain optimistic,” he said, “but only on the basis of the fact that reasonable people could agree.”
Pickering argued that domestic politics in both countries could be the ultimate impediment to a final deal.
“The real problem is that there is a lot of unreasoned opposition, in both countries, that is affecting the situation,” he said.
On the American side, the “unreasoned opposition” Pickering referred to is rooted in Congress, where key members of the House and Senate advocate the Israeli government’s position that any deal should completely or almost completely dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which would be a non-starter for the Islamic Republic.
Yet whereas Pickering was critical of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for having “overreached” last November in calling last year’s interim Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) a “historic mistake,” Eizenstat suggested that his hardline stance may actually have toughened the P5+1’s (US, UK, Russia, China, France plus Germany) resolve to minimize Iran’s enrichment program as much as possible.
But Uzi Eilam, the former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Defense Mission to Europe, argued that Netanyahu is “getting used” to the idea that Iran will retain some enrichment capacity under a comprehensive deal.
A deal that includes stringent monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a third party (Russian) commitment to process Iran’s enriched uranium into fuel and assume responsibility for spent reactor fuel would be enough to meet Israeli security concerns even with an active Iranian enrichment program, said Eilam.
Pickering also noted that sanctions relief remains a sticking point, with the Iranians wanting full relief immediately and the P5+1 insistent on maintaining some sanctions in order to ensure Iran’s continued compliance with the terms of the final accord. But he was joined by Eizenstat in arguing that it would be “almost impossible” (Eizenstat’s words) for both sides to just walk away from the talks at this point.
While both Iran and the P5+1 continue to insist that they are focused on reaching a comprehensive accord by the deadline, with just three days to go, it appears highly unlikely.
As to how long the talks would go on in the event of an extension, Pickering argued that “short-term would be better than long-term,” though he acknowledged that “short-term is harder to get because everybody’s tired, they want to go home and think.”
Eizenstat added that the impending political change in Washington, where Republicans will take control of the Senate in January and are expected to oppose any deal with Iran, would make a short extension more desirable than a long-term one.
]]>The neoconservative hawk and deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens, has once again figured it all out. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, and no US president since then, including Ronald Reagan and George [...]]]>
The neoconservative hawk and deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens, has once again figured it all out. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, and no US president since then, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, has done anything but appease that evil regime for reasons that befuddle us all.
Hence, it is now of paramount importance to halt the current president’s “outreach” to Iran because all previous attempts motivated by Washington’s “excess of decency” have allowed “33 years of Iranian outrages” to go “unavenged” and “undeterred”.
Stephens, a former editor of the Jerusalem Post, was an avid supporter of the US invasion of Iraq and a fierce critic of the planned 2011 troop withdrawal, arguing that the US should have maintained a “serious tripwire force in Iraq as a hedge against Iran and other bad forces in the region” instead.
Now, again, he is amplifying his call to arms with fear mongering and a line that fellow neoconservative pundit Michael Ledeen has been using for years – Iran and the US are already at war, so the US should start acting like it:
Maybe the president thinks decency obliges him to give diplomacy another chance. But it is from an excess of decency that 33 years of Iranian outrages have gone unavenged, and Iran now proceeds undeterred. Sensible policy on Iran begins not with the question of how to avoid a war—that war was foisted on U.S. in 1979—but how to win it. Anything less invites further terror and dishonors the memory of Iran’s many American victims.
Following this line of reasoning requires diverting the conversation from how best to effectively engage with Iran in order to stop its nuclear program, to how to wage a successful war against an intractable and wicked enemy. Stephens’ conclusion is based on a litany of Iranian offenses (some of which remain questionable, let alone unproven) from the hostage crisis to bombings and kidnappings in Lebanon in the 1980s, the Khobar Tower bombing in Saudi Arabia, “thousands of U.S. troops killed by IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan” and the curious case of Mansour Arbabsiar, the Iranian-American who recently pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US in collusion with Iranian counterparts. This, according to our militarist pundit, has been the Iranian record against the United States.
And what of the US record against Iran? Why, an “excess of decency” of course! For reasons that Stephens doesn’t have time to get into or simply cannot explain, the US leadership from Reagan to Obama has repeatedly chosen the soft line with Iran. Perhaps the inherently peaceful character of the US has led to its impressive military hardware being reserved for only special occasions, which, in the case of the Middle East, Stephens forgets to mention, has somehow been deployed since the first 1991 Gulf War with no hiatus in between.
With this in mind, there really is no reason to waste time over the nuclear issue. Stephens wants a war to “avenge” the Islamic Republic’s 33-year long record of crimes and does not shy away from declaring his unhappiness regarding the direction of the Iran conversation in the US. The idea that sanctions are working unsettles him because it suggests that there is still time for serious and public diplomatic engagement with Iran to resolve the nuclear issue once and for all. (And no, I am not talking about a Reaganesque mission to secretly dispatch a national security adviser with a cake and bible to Tehran.) Even attempting peaceful conflict resolution is difficult for Stephens to accept because it “dishonors the memory of Iran’s many American victims.” For Stephens and many of his neocon colleagues, the real issue goes beyond the nuclear impasse; what we should really be concerned about is Iran’s history of “dishonoring” America since its Revolution.
Interestingly, this argument echoes talking points made by Iranian neoconservatives (which we often refer to as hardliners). Just read any column by Hossein Shariatmadari, the intractable editor of Kayhan Daily, and you will understand what I mean.
What are the similarities? First there is the victim mentality. Nothing the US or Iran has done can outdo the “bad” things that are done to them. From Shariatmadari’s point of view, the Islamic Republic has always been on the receiving end of Western “savagery” (a term also recently used by Leader Ali Khamenei to describe US conduct vis-à-vis Iran) because of its values, principles, and its daring resistance against US “arrogance.” From Stephens’ point of view, nothing the US has done – like siding with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and at a minimum engaging in a collusion of silence over Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran’s military and civilians, or shooting down, even if accidentally, an Iranian civilian airliner and then promoting the naval commander responsible for it – is even worth mentioning. Iranian conduct always occurs in a vacuum and is only worth noting in terms of the harm that is imposed.
From the neoconservative point of view — in the U.S. and Iran — correct values, “decency,” and the desire to be a beacon of goodwill, is the only mark of their respective countries. And the violent and disdainful conduct of the other side is the only conduct that needs to be noted. I am sure that, in the minds of folks like Shariatmadari and Stephens, that is indeed the only conduct noted.
This is why Stephens refers to the “crippling” sanctions that Governor Romney and President Obama referenced in Monday night’s debate as more of a “campaign prop than policy tool.” The notion that “unprecedented” sanctions that target the financial core of another country — not to mention killing nuclear scientists and sabotaging nuclear facilities — could also be considered an act of war is incomprehensible for Stephens.
Beyond feigned or actual feelings of victimhood, there is also a similarity in their avoidance of responsibility for the outcome of their proposed solutions. Neoconservatives in both Iran and the United States have had their chances at influencing their respective countries’ foreign and security policies. George W. Bush’s “muscular foreign policy” promoted by the likes of Stephens brought the US the debacle that has been Iraq — which, if anything, has actually strengthened Iran — and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “aggressive foreign policy,” pushed by folks like Shariatmadari, has brought Iran crippling sanctions.
Do they take responsibility for any of their disasters? Absolutely not! Stephens’ push for another war in the Middle East is clear evidence that he does not see himself or his cohorts as responsible for the fiasco in Iraq. In fact, he has said so plainly. The war was not the “original sin,” he wrote in 2007. In fact, it was no sin at all. Things went wrong because of mistakes that occurred after the neoconservatives lost their influence in the Bush administration when Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State (this being, by the way, the reason Stephens vehemently opposed Rice becoming Romney’s running mate).
A similar argument is now being parlayed by Iranian neoconservatives. Things always begin to go wrong when the Iranian government indicates a willingness to talk with the United States, they say. It exhibits weakness, and it is only through a show of strength and “will”– a favorite mantra of neoconservatives everywhere — that “bullies” like the US can be deterred.
Let me end by pointing out that despite the uncanny similarities of their worldviews, there is at least one critical difference between Iranian and US neoconservatives. This difference does not exist in their self-satisfied and belligerent poses; it relates to the location of their respective countries in the geopolitical and economic order.
It is the United States and its allies that are trying to strangle Iran economically, not the other way around. And of course it is the United States that will be engaging in yet another version of “shock and awe” if folks like Bret Stephens have their way, not the other way around.
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Meir Dagan, the former director of Israel’s Mossad, has received a liver transplant in Belarus. Reports from the Israeli press that have now made their way into western media sources state that Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, announced at a press conference on Oct. 16 that the operation had taken place [...]]]>
Meir Dagan, the former director of Israel’s Mossad, has received a liver transplant in Belarus. Reports from the Israeli press that have now made their way into western media sources state that Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, announced at a press conference on Oct. 16 that the operation had taken place ten days earlier and had been completed successfully.
Dagan has been among the most outspoken opponents of an Israeli military strike on Iran in Israel’s intelligence community. During a March 2012 interview with CBS’s Sixty Minutes he told Lesley Stahl that an Israeli attack on Iran would not only trigger a regional war, it would be ineffective. Hardly a dove, Dagan much prefers that a war against Iran be launched by the US, and believes that sabotage and other efforts to effect regime change in Iran can stave off Iranian nuclear capability until the US is ready to take action.
Why would a prominent Israeli, a citizen of a country whose medical system is renowned for its sophisticated and cutting edge medical research and groundbreaking innovations in liver transplants, choose to surreptitiously go to a third world European backwater, which boasts that it now ranks 53rd out of 190 countries in the world, for lifesaving treatment?
According to the Jerusalem Post:
“Lukashenko said that surgeons in several countries, including the US, Germany and Sweden, had refused to operate on the patient after learning of his former career as a spymaster, though he didn’t mention Dagan by name. The president added that doctors in these countries had recommended the Belarusian Transplant Center as the best place for the man to undergo his operation.”
Y-Net, the English language news site of the Israeli Daily, Yediot Acharonot, offered no grounds for the refusal, but cited sources close Dagan who claimed “Sweden was never asked to operate and the US did not fulfill criteria for the transplant”. UPI, citing Y-Net as its source, says ”because of his condition, Dagan was found to be unsuitable for a transplant in the United States.”
Based on details provided to Al-Monitor by Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, Laura Rozen reports that Dagan had gone to Sloane Kettering hospital in New York two months earlier hoping to find a compatible organ but could not. “He returned to Israel and his health was deteriorating,” Melman said.
“Dagan’s illness, cancer, was known for a couple of months to a small group of confidants and colleagues and me, but it was decided for reasons of not invading his privacy not to report it,” Yossi Melman told Al-Monitor by email Tuesday. “Tonight the Belarus President Alexander Lukaschenko revealed it in a press conference trying to gain for himself and his pariah regime.”
Although Israel is among the most medically advanced countries in the world, organ transplants are subject to intense bureaucracy. At least part of that bureaucracy stems from religious concerns of many orthodox Jews about desecrating a human body after death by autopsy or organ removal. Defining “death” has also proven to be a religious obstacle, since once the standards of total brain death and respiratory death have been fully satisfied according to Jewish law, certain organs cease to be viable. Despite efforts to boost the number of available organs for transplants by promising would-be donors a slot at the top of the donor list should they need a transplant, only 12% of Israelis are registered organ donors. Bloomberg News reports that desperate Israelis are among the biggest clients for organ transplants abroad, which are often acquired by respectable hospitals from black market sources.
The US has a waiting list of nearly 17,000 patients for liver transplants, about 10,000 of whom have been awaiting a donor for more than a year. Whenever a prominent person like Steve Jobs receives a transplant, the question of “jumping the list” arises. It is more likely that Dagan would have been asked to wait his turn, rather than turned down because of his prominent role in Israel’s intelligence community, as Lukashenko claimed.
This, however, does little to address the question of “Why Belarus?”
Belarus, against which the EU renewed its sanctions the other day for persistent human rights violations, has much less stringent criteria for consent of organ donors than Israel, the US, and most western countries. These lower standards of consent allow it to promote “medical tourism” and advertise the ease and economy of organ transplants performed in Belarus. According to the website MedTravel Belarus:
Transplantation of organs taken from cadaveric donor is forbidden in many countries of the world and this is a reason for considerable increase of the list of those who need this operation because the amount of donors decreases significantly.
The problem of the removal of cadaveric organs is primarily related to the issues of legal and ethical qualities. For example, in the USA and many European countries, the principle of “consent of the requested” works, this means that the usage of a person’s organs without his legally formalized permission is forbidden, so the doctor is not entitled to do the removal. A presumption of consent to the removal of organs works in our country so the law permits the removal of cadaveric organs, but on condition that the deceased person during his lifetime, or his relatives have not expressed their opposition to it.
That is why Belarusian clinics are so popular among people all over the world. The transplantations of bone marrow, kidney, heart, liver are performed in our country, tissue transplantations and stem cells transplantations are performed as well. It also should be taken into consideration that the prices for this type of medical service in our country are much lower than in other countries.
In other words, Belarus is not bound by some of the bio-ethical constraints on transplants that apply in the US and Israel, and much of Europe. MedTravel Belarus claims that 70 liver transplants have been performed in the country since 2010.
While Dagan has devoted most of his career in the Mossad to countering “the Iranian threat” to Israel, Belarus –formerly part of the Soviet Union, and now part of the successor Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — is one of the very few European countries with whom Iran maintains good relations. In late June, Iran and Belarus co-sponsored an “International Conference on Modern Application of Nanotechnology” in Minsk. Ironically, Belarus, which apparently was Dagan’s best and perhaps only hope for obtaining a liver transplant, has been accused of aiding Iran in missile development and in evading western sanctions against its nuclear program:
Diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Belarus is beginning to act as a kind of middleman to help secure the Iranians access to Russian technology.
“Belarus is becoming a key element in Iran’s efforts to develop its SSM (surface-to-surface missile) and nuclear capabilities, especially with regard to navigation and guidance products, which are defined as dual-use,” a diplomat said.
Politics, indeed, makes for some strange bedfellows.
]]>Having pulled all the stops to avert an Israeli attack against Iran last spring that never happened, has the Obama administration given all that it has to Israel’s hawkish leaders, only to learn that it has been played? If so, how might this affect the US response to Israeli warnings that [...]]]>
Having pulled all the stops to avert an Israeli attack against Iran last spring that never happened, has the Obama administration given all that it has to Israel’s hawkish leaders, only to learn that it has been played? If so, how might this affect the US response to Israeli warnings that it will attack Iran before the 2012 presidential election?
Martin Indyk, a former US Ambassador to Israel during the Clinton years who is now head of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, is reported by the Sheldon Adelson-owned Israel Hayom to have told Israel Army Radio on August 23 that:
The administration was convinced that Israel was going to attack in the spring. That was the official assessment, everyone ran to battle stations, mobilized, engaged with the Israelis, did whatever they could to calm them down and make it clear that the President [Barack Obama] was absolutely committed to Israel’s security and to ensuring that Iran would not get nuclear weapons. That seemed to work fine. But after that, the administration concluded that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and Defense Minister [Ehud] Barak were engaged in a complete bluff, and having succeeded in bluffing them, I think they were wary of being bluffed again.
When Obama met with Netanyahu in March, according to Indyk, the president came away convinced that an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was about to occur. He did everything possible to reassure Israel’s leader that the US would do whatever was necessary to deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. “Apparently, Israel complied, as no attack has yet taken place,” according to the religious nationalist news site Arutz Sheva.
A diplomatic success story? Hardly, according to The Jerusalem Post:
After no Israeli strike took place, Indyk said that the US officials felt as though they had been duped by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s ruse. The former ambassador added that there is a sense within the US government that Washington is once again being misled by Israeli declarations and leaks.
It’s not clear whether Indyk is working for or against the President in suggesting that the Obama administration feels it was played by Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. Or, by stating that after having been misled about Israel’s intentions, the administration remains committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons but views Israel as “the boy who cried wolf” and is therefore taking less seriously the hyperbolic hints that Israel will attack Iran prior to the US election. It’s possible that Indyk’s current message intentionally contrasts with the recent recommendation of fellow Clinton adviser Dennis Ross that Obama try to avert an Israeli military strike on Iran by promising Netanyahu even more armaments and military support.
The author of the Clinton administration’s “dual containment” policy that simultaneously targeted Iran and Iraq (instead of playing the two Persian Gulf powers off against one another as traditional “balance of power ” strategic logic would have suggested), Indyk has served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near East affairs, Special Assistant to the President, and the US National Security Council’s senior director for Near East and South Asia. Bill Clinton appointed Indyk as Ambassador to Israel in 1993. A former Research Director at the American Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Indyk was the founding director of the Washington Institution for Near East Policy (WINEP), an AIPAC-created think tank dedicated to influencing the executive branch on Middle East foreign policy while AIPAC focused on lobbying members of Congress. Indyk is also the founding director of Brookings’ Saban Center for Middle East Policy. During the 2008 presidential primaries, Indyk backed Hillary Clinton, but supported Barack Obama when he won the Democratic nomination.
In the past several months, however, Indyk has grown critical of Obama’s foreign policy. As co-author of Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy (with Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Lieberthal) he classified Obama as a pragmatist who opted for reasonable policies — often the least-worst available options — “with an approach typified by thoroughness, reasonably good teamwork, and flexibility when needed”. Indyk told Nahum Barnea of the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot in an interview coinciding with the book’s publication that despite the greatness of the vision he presented, “Obama’s cold, analytical and aloof attitude didn’t suit the Middle Eastern climate.”
In a February 29 op-ed in the New York Times, Indyk criticized the “fundamental design flaw” in the Obama administration’s Iran sanctions policy. Indyk warned that “crippling” sanctions designed to “persuade the Israelis that there is a viable alternative to a preventive strike” could backfire as “the Iranians conclude that they have no choice but to press ahead in acquiring the ultimate means of assuring the regime’s survival.” Furthermore, Indyk opined, the constant warnings of Obama’s military advisers about the grave consequences of a military strike by Israel might signal that the US cannot be counted upon to restrain the Israelis from launching a war against Iran. Indyk also suggested that election year rhetoric might impact Iran’s strategic calculus. The louder Obama insists that that he will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that that Iran will respond defiantly:
The only way out of the vicious circle is for Khamenei to understand that Obama is not seeking his overthrow — that behind the negotiating door lies a path to Iran’s peaceful use of nuclear power and not a corridor to the gallows. But how, while pursuing sanctions designed to cut Iran’s economic jugular, can Obama credibly signal this to Khamenei without opening himself up to the charge of weakness? Any hint of reassurance to the Iranian regime will surely be seized upon by his Republican rivals as a sign of appeasement.
Yet during an Yediot Aharonot interview at the end of May, Indyk recommended that Israelis be wary of US efforts to negotiate with Iran. “The Israeli response must be skeptical, regardless of what exactly is agreed upon there,” Indyk said. “When others are negotiating in your stead, you have every reason to suspect you are being sold out.”
In his latest interview, Indyk’s message seems to be that Obama has nothing left to promise Netanyahu:
Essentially, the U.S. had done everything it could to reassure Israel, the president doesn’t have anything more in his quiver, no other arrow to shoot to reassure it. I think this time around they thought, ‘Here we go again, there’s nothing more we can do we’ll just learn to live with it.
What exactly is Indyk’s game?
]]>Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal: For months the Journal’s editorial board published hawkish articles about Iran on [...]]]>
Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal: For months the Journal’s editorial board published hawkish articles about Iran on a weekly basis. We highlighted some of them here, here and here. Then they stopped, perhaps due to the heating up of the presidential campaign and the crisis in Syria. But this week the editors returned to reminding readers about their hardline position on Iran by arguing that current sanctions are not strong enough and filled with “loopholes”. Interestingly, they criticize the measures for being inadequately painful and advocate more “pain” while simultaneously claiming that they are unlikely to be effective:
But enough pain to stop the 30-year nuclear drive of a revolutionary regime built around a messianic cult of martyrdom? A regime with foreign currency reserves between $60 billion and $100 billion, and which would net more than $40 billion in oil revenue even with a 40% drop in sales?
We’ve never considered sanctions likely to persuade Iran to drop its nuclear program, but it’s dangerous to pursue them half-heartedly while claiming progress and keeping the international temperature down as Iran’s centrifuges spin. That’s been the Obama Administration’s consistent approach, and it’ll probably continue at least through Election Day in November. It’s a good way to comfort adversaries in Tehran and Beijing while undermining friends in Jerusalem and beyond.
Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post: A fellow from the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and frequent JPost contributor praises his superior’s call for “economic warfare” on Iran. (Find a response to “Battle Rial” here.):
Writing in late June on the website of Foreign Policymagazine, Mark Dubowitz, a leading US sanctions expert, urged greater “economic warfare” targeting Iran’s entire energy apparatus and branches of its non-gas-and-oil sectors.
Dubowitz,the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, advocates a creative piece of US legislation from Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Florida), Rep. Robert Dold (R-Illinois) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) that designates Iran’s entire energy sector as a “zone of primary proliferation concern.”
Benjamin Weinthal, National Review Online: In a piece titled “Economic Suffocation for Iran’s Rulers” Weinthal says the Obama administration should begin rounding up a coalition of the willing for an attack on Iran:
The Obama administration could begin preparing a blueprint for a coalition of governments that would support a military option within a defined timetable. In addition to Israel, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have also maintained that a military option should remain on the table.
Mark Dubowitz, NPR: The executive director of the FDD is arguably the most enthusiastic advocate of crippling sanctions against Iran from the world of Washington think tanks, and yet, he regularly admits that sanctions won’t impede Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions:
So, are sanctions working to make Iran less of a nuclear threat?
Some experts are skeptical.
“The regime has been bracing for this,” says Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It has large foreign exchange reserves, and it is still earning $40 [billion] or $45 billion a year from oil sales.
“The supreme leader’s economic expiration date — when his cash hoard falls low enough to set off a massive economic panic — may still be far off,” Dubowitz argues. “If the [Obama] administration wants to bring that date closer, it needs to make clear that the United States and our allies will do everything in their power to destroy Iran’s energy wealth unless the regime compromises.”
Amotz Asa-El, Market Watch: The Israeli pundit and former Jerusalem Post executive editor praises crippling sanctions against Iran because he believes they will lead to political upheaval:
Watching their money evaporate between their fingers, a growing number of Iranians increasingly ask why they need a leadership whose adventurism’s main cheerleaders are Hugo Chavez and Bashar Assad. Moreover, the millions in Iran who believe the ayatollahs stole their votes three years ago have since seen people power drive other inept Middle East leaders from office.
Between the increasingly restless masses and the economically dilettante ayatollahs, change from within is on its way to Iran, either in the wake of next year’s election or before it, whether peacefully or not.
A growing number of current and former Israeli officials are voicing concern that attacking Iran may prove counterproductive in deterring Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. Last week, former Israeli internal security chief Yuval Diskin warned that attacking Iran may “encourage them to develop a bomb.”
A growing number of current and former Israeli officials are voicing concern that attacking Iran may prove counterproductive in deterring Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. Last week, former Israeli internal security chief Yuval Diskin warned that attacking Iran may “encourage them to develop a bomb.”
In an interview on Tuesday, former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence head Shlomo Gazit joined the chorus warning against attacking Iran. Gazit agreed with Diskin that attacking Iran would not destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and could even accelerate it, the Jerusalem Post reports:
The public discourse over a strike largely neglected the likelihood that Iran would resume its program after being attacked, Gazit noted.
He said he agreed with Diskin that an Israeli attack would not destroy the program, and could even accelerate it, while enabling Iran to legitimize its efforts diplomatically.
Diskin raised eyebrows last week when he slammed Barak and Netanyahu as “our two messiahs” and charged:
[Israel's leadership] presents a false view to the public on the Iranian bomb, as though acting against Iran would prevent a nuclear bomb. But attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster.
But Gazit urged those who agree with Diskin’s assessment to direct their criticisms to the electorate:
Even if they have messianic considerations, this is not important. They were legally elected through a ballot, and Diskin should direct his claims [against them] to the electorate.
In New York on Friday, former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan backed up Diskin’s criticisms, telling the Jerusalem Post that Diskin was speaking his “internal truth” and characterized him as a good friend and serious person.
Sources “close to the prime minister” told the Jerusalem Post that Diskin’s attacks were “irresponsible” and “motivated by personal frustration that he wasn’t chosen to lead the Mossad.” But another former head of Israel’s internal security service, and current member of the Knesset, Yoel Hasson, was reported by the Jerusalem Post as warning that Netanyahu should be concerned about the criticms he is facing from former heads of the security establishment, such as Diskin, Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazi.
While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime, those estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Like their Israeli counterparts, American officials including President Obama vow to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, but questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the West’s crisis with Iran.
]]>Weekly Reads/Watch:
Weekly Reads/Watch:
- - News: Ex-national security adviser: No apologies to Israel over Iran’s nuke program
- News: U.S. lawmakers say Iran talks inadequate, urge more penalties
- New: Iran’s Parchin complex: Why are nuclear inspectors so focused on it?
- News: Israel Deputy PM: ‘An Attack On Iran Won’t Help Us’
- Opinion: Blame Saddam: Another Way of Seeing Iran’s Nuclear Program
- Opinion: Seven Steps on the Way Towards a Peaceful Resolution of the Conflict Over Iran’s Nuclear Activities
- Opinion: Congress should not sabotage Iran negotiations
- Opinion: Backed Into a Corner
- Opinion: Five Principles for a Nuclear Deal with Iran
- Opinion: Hostage Negotiator Reveals Secrets to Dealing With Iran
- Opinion: US and Iran Should Adopt Nixon’s Yellow-Pad Method
Jennifer Rubin, Daily Beast: In response to a reader’s question, “Do US Interests Ever Diverge From Israel’s?”, the Washington Post’s extremely pro-Israel blogger presumptively says it’s “interesting” that the question was asked about Israel rather than the United Kingdom or Australia, implying that the questioner has an ulterior motive. That’s a curious way to respond, considering how Rubin is unabashedly one of the most pro-Israel commentators on U.S. foreign policy currently hosted at a prominent platform and spends much of her time vehemently criticizing the Obama administration for not doing enough for Israel. Besides that, there is no reason for a person to ask that question about the U.S.’s commonwealth allies because they do not receive anywhere near the aid or seemingly unbreakable loyalty that the U.S. has been giving Israel for decades. But perhaps what is most “interesting” is Rubin’s answer when it comes to the issue of Iran:
…if military action is needed, American should be the power to take the lead. Fist of all we have the best military in the world with the greatest capabilities, but also it cements our role as leader of the West. If we are seen to be subcontracting out if you will our responsibilities, I think that diminishes the influence of the United States and suggests that we’re less than enthusiastic, that our allies are on their own so to speak and that’s a very bad precedent.
On the other hand, Israel has a very different take. When the Prime Minister came to the United States a couple months ago he held up two sheets of paper, they were the letters from the World Jewish Congress 1932 begging the President of the United States then to bomb the railroad lines to the death camps, that plea was rejected and it has been essentially a fundamental principle of Zionism and the Israeli State that Jews in Israel must defend themselves, that they must take their own national security into their own hands and in essence they shouldn’t be contracting out the survival of the Jewish State to another power.
So in one case we have the instance in which America may feel like it should take action and another case in which Israel should take action. Now those critics of the President’s policy such as myself think the problem can be solved either by coordination or acting sooner rather than later but that is not a dispute that is probably going to be resolved. And I think one or the other will go and I suspect given this administration’s disinclination to act forcefully on foreign policy before the election it will probably be the Israel’s to feel compelled to act.
Some more questions for Rubin now since she apparently has all the answers. In what way does it serve U.S.’s interests to initiate a war with Iran on Israel’s behalf, when it has been acknowledged by the highest echelons of the U.S. military elite that Iran does not present an immediate threat to the U.S.? In what way does it serve U.S. interests to initiate a war with Iran that analysts across the political spectrum have been arguing for years could have catastrophic short-term and long-term effects such as global economic havoc, harm to U.S. troops posted overseas, possible harm to U.S. citizens in retaliation, high financial costs for the U.S. economy, not to mention massive harm to human life and to Israeli citizens who would also likely be targeted in retaliation? And why would it serve Israel’s interests if everyone agrees that striking Iran would at best set back its alleged nuclear ambitions by only a few years and could in fact provide Iran with an incentive to become a nuclear-armed power quickly? So tell us, please, Mrs. Rubin, why a U.S.-waged war on Iran would serve U.S. interests?
Also see a commenter’s response to Rubin’s answer about the Iraq vs. Iranian narratives here.
Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute (AEI): The AEI’s vice president for foreign and defense policy studies (who declared a few months ago that “[t]he biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it. It’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it.”) says Israel’s bitter description of recent talks between Iran and the P5+1 was “too kind”. Pletka also expresses no qualms about an Israeli strike on Iran which she eagerly reminds us is still a possibility:
Israeli PM Netanyahu labeled the outcome of the talks a “freebie” for Iran. He was too kind. The talks were a victory for Iran, and a humiliation for the Obama administration, and its hapless “please meet with me” delegation. The thin-skinned president was angry and slapped back at Netanyahu, yet another sign he’s playing Iran’s game for them. But that doesn’t mean the Israelis have to play along: Today, Defense Minister Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Israel has made no commitment not to strike Iran while talks are going on.
Tom Ridge, General Hugh Shelton, Patrick Kennedy, Fox New: By now those who follow U.S.-Iran relations closely should be familiar with the Mujahideen-e-khalq (MEK aka NCRI, MKO, PMOI) and their massive lobbying campaign to get delisted from the U.S. foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. If not, see here. Part of the MEK’s efforts have reportedly involved spending millions in “speaking fees” for high-level former U.S. officials to sing their praises in one way or another as Ridge, Shelton and Kennedy did this week. This is not the first time that these public figures have advocated for the MEK and it’s unlikely to be the last. In any case, here they argue that the MEK whom they inaccurately describe as the Iranian government’s “main opposition” (despite it’s efforts to appear otherwise the MEK has little support outside Iran and almost none inside it), is a “weapon” for bringing about U.S.-backed “regime change”. Oh, and don’t forget about the humanitarian reasons to support this Iranian exile U.S.-designated terrorist group, they say:
As President Obama struggles to find a solution to Iran’s increasingly threatening nuclear ambitions, he should realize that the most powerful weapon the US can deploy now is not the sanctions of diplomacy, or the missiles of war, but support for regime change in Iran.
In the meantime, one can only hope that Secretary Clinton means it when she says that the Iranian people deserve to be free of the mullahs. Unshackling the main Iranian opposition movement from an unwarranted State Department blacklist and honoring US promises to guarantee the safety of exiled Iranian dissidents would certainly be a good place to start.
Chuck Freilich, Jerusalem Post: A rather confusing argument came from the former deputy national security adviser to the Israeli government turned Harvard fellow this week. Diplomacy with Iran should be pursued and while going to war should be avoided, it should also be considered, Freilich claims, even if the best case scenario that “military action” will result in is a “few years” of favorable results. Then the same argument again (along with a half-baked argument for why Iranians would ultimately welcome foreign-waged war) along with the declaration that soon the only choices the U.S. will have are war or a nuclear-armed Iran regardless of what happens:
Military action is certainly not a panacea. Iran already has the know-how needed to reconstitute the program, if attacked, and could reach its current stage of development again within a few years. A gain of a few years, however, should also not be dismissed.
…
Some argue that an attack will merely rally the Iranian people around the regime, which is indeed a likely short-term result. There is, however, no reason to presume that this will be the case once the initial fury passes and Iranians truly consider their interests, especially if the international community continues to impose heavy costs. It should be remembered that the regional uprisings began with the demonstrations in Iran in June 2009.Diplomacy and sanctions should be pursued during the coming months, while the window of opportunity for doing so still remains open.
Ultimately, however, the choice will come down to one of two danger-fraught alternatives: living with a nuclear Iran through containment and deterrence, or military action. Whichever approach one favors, we owe it to ourselves to face up to this painful choice honestly.
An online NBC report by Robert Windrem published on Friday goes into explicit technical detail about the military hardware that will be brought to bear in an Israeli attack on Iran:
Israel has both medium and intermediate range Jerichos. The medium-range Jericho I would not have the range to reach many Iranian targets but the intermediate-range Jericho II’s, capable of hitting targets 1,500 miles away, would have no problem. The Jerichos would be equipped with high explosives, not nuclear warheads. Asked if the Jericho would have the accuracy and the explosive power to take out a hardened bunker of the sort believed to be protecting Iran’s most-sensitive underground nuclear facilities, one official replied, “You would be surprised at their accuracy” and that the high explosives involved is a special mix of chemical explosives that could conceivably penetrate the Iranian fortifications.Missile attacks would be coordinated with fighter-bomber attacks (presumably the Israelis’ extended-range F-15I Strike Eaglet) as well as drone strikes. The fighter bombers would use what one official described as “high-low, low-high” flight paths — high first to increase fuel efficiency, then low for most of the trip to evade radar, then climbing high again as the weapons are released in what is known as a “flip toss” on the target. The Israelis would be prepared to lose aircraft if necessary, the officials said.
Windrem amalgamates and synthesizes the views of various unidentified “US and Israeli officials” about a more than likely Israeli attack on Iran in the next several months into a tidy and digestible question-and-answer format. One question he neither asks nor answers is whether Israel is actually capable of successfully carrying out a winner-take-all high tech attack on Iran that could destroy or (more likely) delay the development of Iran’s budding nuclear program, at minimal costs–financial, environmental or in casualties–to itself and anyone else except Iran.
Whether it’s due to technical glitches or human error, military hardware doesn’t always function the way it’s supposed to. A mysterious Yasour helicopter crash on July 26, 2010, during a training exercise in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania was, according to Jerusalem Post military analyst, Yaakov Katz:
…a blow to the IAF’s image and raises two serious questions – first, whether the transport helicopter, which has been in IAF service for over 40 years, is still a reliable and sturdy aircraft, and second, if this is what happens during a regular training exercise in Romania, what will happen in a future IAF long-range operation.
Katz went on to ask and answer the obvious question:
One might wonder why an Israeli helicopter was in Romania in the first place. The answer is that every long-range IAF operation today, wherever it may take place in the world including in Israel, takes into consideration ‘third-sphere threats’ like Iran, which are far from Israel.
On Nov. 10, 2010, two Israeli pilots were killed in the Negev Desert when their F15-I crashed. Last Sunday (Jan. 29) a state of the art Israeli Heron TP unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), also known as the Eitan, crashed in central Israel. No further reports have emerged to date regarding the cause of the disintegration of “the drone that can reach Iran,” believed to be the first such Israeli UAV crash of its kind.
The huge drone–the size of a Boeing 737, with a wingspan of 86 feet, and capable of carrying a one ton payload and reportedly capable of staying aloft for as long as 45 hours–went down near the Tel Nof Air Force Base not far from the town of Gedera in central Israel, about 20 miles southeast of Tel Aviv. According to the Associated Press, the Heron TP is “the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel’s military arsenal” and would “be featured prominently in any potential Israeli operation against Iran and its expanding nuclear program.” It can be aloft for as long as 45 hours, “making it capable of conducting a wide variety of missions.” Last September, Katz had reported that the Israeli Air Force’s claim that the deployment of the Heron TP by the end of 2011 would “boost its intelligence-gathering capabilities” and that “foreign reports” said the drone also had the ability to launch missiles.”
Early press reports about the downing of the UAV were inconsistent as to whether the UAV test flight was “routine” or “experimental.” A “flagship product” of Israeli Aircraft Industries, the Israeli business daily Globes assessed the cost of the downed UAV at $10 million. Y-Net cited the figure as $5 million, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty at $35 million. Israel is currently trying to market the drone to other countries and France recently decided to purchase Israeli Heron TPs instead of US Predator drones for use in NATO operations.
There hasn’t been much coverage of the investigation regarding the cause of the drone crash since it occurred. Initial reports stated that the cause was attributed to either human error or technical malfunction or some combination of the two. One possibility raised was that the one ton weight-bearing capability of the drone had been exceeded. (A GBU-28 “bunker buster” bomb weighs between 4500-5000 lbs.) Katz cited an explanation from military sources that the aircraft was flying with a new navigation component that might have disrupted the drone’s automatic flight systems. Yoav Zitun of Y-Net reported that a highly-advanced device on the wing was being tested during the drone’s flight.
Drones seem to offer the potential–and very real possibility–of wreaking enormous damage on an enemy from far away, with no military casualties to the country and with no loss of life to the military forces of the state launching the attack. On the other hand, UAVs don’t always reach their intended targets. Their “precision,” like that of a video game, depends upon the human hands on the controllers, and the choices made. These, in turn, are guided by the intelligence data they have available to them, at least some of which is gathered by UAVs.
The implications of last week’s crash of the Heron TP is a reminder that UAV technology, despite its increasing use, is far from perfect–a point that has received no discussion in the Israeli or global media. Presumably the fact that it is flawed is implicit. Nonetheless, the ramifications (and potential unintended consequences) of its deployment are staggering.
Iran (in case you were wondering) has its own UAV program, the domestically produced Kerrar. With an estimated range of 620 miles, a payload of 500 lbs. and a maximum speed of over 600 mph, the Kerrar is not (yet) capable of reaching Israel. This is good news for Israel for two reasons. The first–that Israel is out of reach–is a no-brainer. But there is another one too. An Israeli drone en route to Iran but shot down or otherwise crashing in Iraq or Bahrain might be declared to be Iranian, and be used as a pretext for war under international law.
What if, in the next test, an Israeli drone were to go further from its base but fall short of its target, causing widespread loss of life and property damage in Iraq, the Arabian peninsula, Turkey, or within Israel itself? If a malfunctioning Israeli drone en route to Iran were to crash and cause a disaster, would Israel accept responsibility, or would it point the finger at Iran, raising the specter and stakes of international retaliation? It might take days, weeks or months, possibly even years, for the truth to become known–long after a retaliatory strike had taken place.
Blogger Richard Silverstein has already suggested that last week’s crash was not that of a Heron TP but a Hezbollah drone targeting Israel. While Silverstein’s claim isn’t being taken seriously by anyone but himself and some of his readers (see Dimi Reider’s rejoinder on +972), it’s certainly within the range of possibility that a similar incident and accusation, coming from the lunatic right instead of the left, might be taken at face value, and drag the US into yet another war before the facts were even known.
Could the consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran that didn’t succeed be almost as bad–or even worse–than one that did?
]]>Conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin asserted in a blog post that Texas governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry did not write a Friday pro-Israel op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal and Israel’s Jerusalem Post. The op-ed, in which Perry [...]]]>
Conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin asserted in a blog post that Texas governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry did not write a Friday pro-Israel op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal and Israel’s Jerusalem Post. The op-ed, in which Perry cherry-picked a quote from a historian to link Texas and Israel, criticized President Obama’s pro-Israel record. “Perry almost certainly didn’t write it,” said Rubin. “We know that because his own foreign policy views are rudimentary. [...] A ghostwritten piece so far above his current abilities highlights the concern.” Rubin acknowledged that “most pols have these things written for them,” but said that “until he personally could articulate his thoughts in detail, [advisers] should forgo the pretense of sophistication.” Among Perry’s top reported foreign policy contacts are former Bush officials Donald Rumsfeld and Douglas Feith. So who wrote Perry’s Op-Ed?
]]>No one is coming out of this story looking good. Not the reporters and the editors of the News of the World newspaper, who hired a private detective to “hack” into the mobile phone messages of the subjects of their investigations – actors, celebrities, footballers, but also families who lost soldiers in wars and victims of murder. Certainly not the top brass of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, who pushed the Sunday tabloid into the murky depths of the journalism swamp, chasing down sensationalist headlines and higher sales.
The power of the News International empire – which in Britain controls not just the tabloid with the biggest circulation, The Sun, but also “institutional” papers The Times and Sunday Times, as well as the BSkyB satellite television channels – was so extensive that, when the police caught a glimpse of the phone hacking affair more than five years ago, a decision was made that there were more important issues to investigate.
Pfeffer’s piece was yanked off the Haaretz English website after less than 24 hours, where many older pieces often linger for days, even weeks. Equally noteworthy is that the article is now very difficult to locate in the Haaretz archives. Querying the Haaretz website search box for “Murdoch” or “Pfeffer,” the default “sort by relevance” results bury Pfeffer’s article about Murdoch, which can be located easily only if searching by date.
Haaretz‘s generally slipshod archiving of its published articles is irritating to researchers and writers, and is particularly unfortunate for a newspaper whose English language edition is published in coordination with the International Herald Tribune. The most interesting and provocative articles seem to be most difficult to find and to have the shortest shelf life, sometimes vanishing in a matter of hours. (This author learned long ago to print out any item of interest appearing on the Haaretz site before it disappeared.)
Israel’s other English language news sites thus far have been offering no original commentary about Murdoch, and providing only reports or brief excerpts from wire service coverage. Curiously, neither Pfeffer nor the wire service reports point out that Murdoch is considered staunchly “pro-Israel.” In the past two years, Murdoch has been an honoree of at least two prominent pro-Israel groups in the U.S..
On March 4, 2009, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) presented Murdoch with its “National Human Relations Award.” (This author posted this detail in a reader comment to Pfeffer’s piece that Haaretz chose not to publish just prior to the article’s disappearance, and also pointed it out in an e-mail to Pfeffer himself, to which he has not replied.) Speaking at the AJC awards dinner, Murdoch refuted the widely-believed myth that he himself is Jewish, but took the opportunity to reiterate and endorse some other myths prevalent in the Jewish community:
In Europe, men and woman who bear the tattoos of concentration camps today look out on a continent where Jewish lives and Jewish property are under attack – and public debate is poisoned by an anti-Semitism we thought had been dispatched to history’s dustbin.
In Iran, we see a regime that backs Hezbollah and Hamas now on course to acquire a nuclear weapon.
In India, we see Islamic terrorists single out the Mumbai Jewish Center in a well-planned and well-coordinated attack that looks like it could be a test run for similar attacks in similar cities around the world.
On the first point, Murdoch ignored the inconvenient truth that the resurgence of European anti-Semitism has proceeded in tandem with European Islamophobia. Less than six months before Murdoch received his AJC award, the 2008 Pew Survey of Global Attitudes had revealed that Islamophia and anti-Semitism were both on the rise in Europe. As Ian Traynor of the Guardian noted at the time, “The survey found that suspicion of Muslims in Europe was considerably higher than hostility to Jews, but that the increase in antisemitism had taken place much more rapidly.” The rise in European anti-Semitism is a byproduct of Islamophobia at least as much as (and perhaps more than) it is a consequence of it.
Debate over whether or not Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon receives ample coverage on this blog and elsewhere, and elaboration of this issue would be a digression from the topic at hand. Suffice it to say that Murdoch (or any other speaker) could not, and would not dare to, address a Jewish group, particularly one that devotes so much of its abundant resources to anti-Iran rhetoric as AJC, without invoking “the Iranian threat.”
Murdoch’s mention of the attack on the Chabad House in Mumbai, India strongly implied that the Jewish house of workshop had been singled out for an Islamist terrorist attack. At least 150 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks Nov. 26-28, 2008, on a crowded train station, two luxury hotels popular with foreign tourists, a hospital and several other crowded Mumbai sites, with the Chabad House an apparent afterthought. The initial Fox News report did not even refer to the Chabad House as having been a target. Murdoch’s AJC speech also didn’t mention that Mumbai has nine synagogues attended almost exclusively by locals, which were not attacked; the only one targeted by the terrorists was the Chabad center, which was both run and frequented by foreigner visitors from Israel and Western countries.
Not to be outdone, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chose Murdoch as the recipient of its “International Leadership Award” on Oct. 13, 2010, which was presented to him by ADL Director Abraham Foxman:
“I have come to know the man, not his image,” Mr. Foxman said in presenting the award to Mr. Murdoch. “I learned that he cared deeply about the safety and security of Israel. I learned that he was as distressed as I was about efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state, to hold it to a double standard, and to seek its demise by some.”
In his acceptance speech (reproduced in full by the arch-neoconservative Weekly Standard, which Murdoch’s NewsCorp had helped to get off the ground and had run at a loss for 14 years before selling it in 2009 to Philip Anschutz), Murdoch blamed anti-Semitism on Muslims, and leftists for the “soft war” being waged against Israel, conflating criticism with armed assault:
Now the war has entered a new phase. This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it. The battleground is everywhere: the media … multinational organizations … NGOs.
In this war, the aim is to make Israel a pariah.
The result is the curious situation we have today: Israel becomes increasingly ostracized, while Iran – a nation that has made no secret of wishing Israel’s destruction – pursues nuclear weapons loudly, proudly, and without apparent fear of rebuke.
Israel “ostracized” by the media? Criticism of Israel as the latest manifestation of terrorism? Iran pursuing nuclear weapons without fear of rebuke? Murdoch ought to have spent a bit more time reading his competitors. Israeli policies and perspectives receive largely deferential treatment by western international wire services that are still dominant in global news flows — and, of course, the US new media.
Murdoch also used the occasion to take a swipe at US President Barack Obama:
I was pleased to hear the State Department’s spokesman clarify America’s position yesterday. He said that the United States recognizes “the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people.”
This is an important message to send to the Middle East. When people see, for example, a Jewish prime minister treated badly by an American president, they see a more isolated Jewish state. That only encourages those who favor the gun over those who favor negotiation.
Obama’s alleged mistreatment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was another myth purveyed by Murdoch-owned news media. Fox News fueled the hysteria about Obama “insulting” Netanyahu by conversing with him on the telephone on June 9, 2009 while his legs were stretched out on his White House desk, revealing the soles of his shoes, at which an Arab might take umbrage. (Since neither Obama nor Netanyahu is Arab, it was unclear why this was considered to be of any relevance.) Accompanying the article was a photo released by the White House, showing Obama at ease while communicating with the Israeli Prime Minister.
All this has apparently earned Murdoch and his empire the unswerving loyalty of Israelis and the major institutions of the “Israel Lobby” here in the U.S. Last February, a group of 400 American rabbis objected to the Holocaust terminology used and misused by then-Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck. In an open letter published in the Wall Street Journal and the Forward, the rabbis appealed to Murdoch to sanction Beck and Fox News Chair Roger Ailes. The Jerusalem Post depicted American Jews as critical of the rabbis, rather than of Beck, Ailes or Murdoch. JP quoted the ADL’s Foxman as saying that he found the rabbis’ public stance against Beck and Ailes to be bizarre: “They’re not our enemy, and they are certainly not Holocaust deniers.”
A new accusation by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown asserts the Murdoch media empire may have used known criminals to conduct illicit surveillance activities such as hacking and wiretapping in order to obtain personal information. Heartlessly shoddy and amazingly under-handed (and illegal; not to say, immoral) journalistic practices at his news sites? Who cares, as long as he’s “good for Israel”? And if Murdoch is “good for Israel,” they’d all best shut up about him.
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