Good stuff. He's not really as shrill as he ought to be in terms of pointing out the evils of the hysteria-mongerers, but he does an excellent job in debunking their hysteria.
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Zakaria on Iran
05 Sep 2006 10:31 am
Comments (7)
I'm not so sure comparing Iran to the US is valid--the war will be in Israel, as will the Iranian missiles. Also, Iran holds the ace in the hole, oil, which gives it Russian and Chinese allies. Modern wars don't seem to have clear cut victors--everyone seems to lose. Throw religious fundamentalism into the mix and actions seem to be unpredictable.
Iran is a threat, is more powerful than Zakaria thinks, feels empowered by a weakened America, has control of world oil supply routes as well as having oil of its own, and has to keep its population fixated on the world outside (as does Bush). Israel has much to fear--and if things go badly for them, nukes will fly in many directions--enter Pakistan, stage left.
Of course, if the US had a prestigious President, or if the UN had bigger teeth, things might look better. I am not advocating Bush do anything--anywhere--he makes everything worse. Right now, this atheist leaning Jew finds prayer most effective and ineffective.
Israel has much to fear--and if things go badly for them, nukes will fly in many directions--enter Pakistan, stage left.
Express the number of estimated Iranian nukes as a percentage of the the number of estimated Israeli nukes. Do the same for predicted number of nukes for both countries five and ten years out. Console yourself that you are, in fact, worrying about outcomes that are unlikely to happen.
Zakaria remains by some distance the only reasonable conservative voice in Big Media. He really needs to get on shows more regularly.
Yes but what is so "nasty" about the Iranians other than their rejection of Israel? Is the Bush-era U.S. federal government "nasty"? They don't torture anyone right? They don't carry out warrantless surveillance or anything like that, right? What about the U.S. government in the past? Nasty or nice? They didn't try to overthrow any Mossadegh's or anything, right? I wonder why Zakaria doesn't assess the particular nastiness of the American empire vis-a-vis the misdeeds of the mullahs. Perhaps Newsweek has a no criticism of American imperialism policy, or perhaps it's Zakaria's own internal struggle to never utter such horrible truths.
As to the question of Israel, as soon as the Americans and Israelis stop acting like playground bullies, the world community and the U.N. just might be able to make some progress on the issue. Iran seems to want to show some leadership, or was Hezbollah doing a lotta bake sales to repair all those buildings? Zakaria doesn't mention that the reason Iran is "nasty" is because eventually Hezbollah will impede the Israeli settlements from expanding to the Litany River or at least filling their pools and filters with its water.
What Zakaria does write is mostly sensible. What he omits is mendacious. If you got punched while you were blindfolded, Fareed Zakaria could tell you what undercurrents were present, but he doesn't want you to know who really threw the punch.
Iran won't have to go nuclear to destroy Israel--a small country within missile range. It's when Israel sees it is defenseless against this weapon (see recent events in Lebanon) that it will strike back. My guess is Israel will fire nukes first because it can't continue to fight all the Arabs and also many of the non-Arab Islamic states. And for the love of oil, China and Russia will side with Iran.
So instead ending the land grabs and water theft to make peace with the Arabs and going back to the 1967 borders Israel will choose to nuke Iran? That's utterly self destructive.
Comments closed September 19, 2006.
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Heads in the Sand
hey--you're right! He does make most of the important points. I'll be darned.
And I've got a feeling, MY, that his avoidance of shrillness may play better in that venue than shrillness would have.
(I mean, I'm a big fan of shrillin and all. But I'm not sure Newsweek readers are. So this may have been the better pitch.)
Posted by kid bitzer | September 5, 2006 11:30 AM