Matthew Yglesias (January 22, 2007) - I Don't Understand (Foreign Policy)

Second, you suggest looking at the Iranian regime's past actions rather than its rhetoric... But what do you make of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires--an attack that is widely believed to have been orchestrated by Iran?

Iran had a role in a conventional terrorist attack; therefore, it would be likely to launch a nuclear first strike. Mossad carried through revenge killings on the planners of the Munich massacre; therefore, shouldn't Israel have nuked the entire Middle East six or seven times already?

Posted by David Weigel | January 22, 2007 9:56 AM

...don't really know what kind of argument one can mount under those circumstances.

How about, "I am rubber, you are glue"?

Posted by hamsterdaemus | January 22, 2007 9:56 AM

Maybe he's behaving as Krauthammer-lite: he's not going to openly say that we should just kill all of the Muslims--indeed, he'd probably disclaim such a desire--but something about this primrose path looks awfully familiar....

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 22, 2007 9:56 AM

By "carried through" I of course meant "carried out."

Posted by David Weigel | January 22, 2007 9:57 AM

Do you think you could keep your employment at TNR while prominently opposing US and/or Israeli attacks on Iran?

Posted by otto | January 22, 2007 10:00 AM

Do you think you could keep your employment at TNR while prominently opposing US and/or Israeli attacks on Iran?

I suspect that we're about to find out. I also suspect that the answer is "No."

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 22, 2007 10:04 AM

Hey Otto,
Brad Plumer seems to have taken over Spencer Ackerman's role as "token TNR foreign policy writer who manages to stay not at all divorced from reality", but it looks like the senior ownership of the magazine is clearly going to side with Richard Just over him, in a big way. In about a month, his employment status will serve as an answer to your question.

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 22, 2007 10:04 AM

No, your not "unserious" if you believe that Iran won't strike at Israel with a Nuke, your just giving the Iranian regime way too much credit.

There is certainly an element in the clerical Iranian gov't that wants nothing more than to attack israel to help pave the way for the return of the hidden iman. Moderate elements are understandably resistent to this, as they have a little more grasp of the power of Israel's and the US's military. The problem in my mind is similar to what we are seeing in Iraq, vis'a'vis republican guard forces, with or without orders from higher up, are providing assistance to insurgents. If Iran is able to produce a nuclear weapon, the biggest risk wouldn't be a long range missle fired from Iran, but rather it would be a backpack explosion carried out by a republican guard member or a hezbollah operative.

Posted by bjs | January 22, 2007 10:09 AM

If Iran is able to produce a nuclear weapon, the biggest risk wouldn't be a long range missle fired from Iran, but rather it would be a backpack explosion carried out by a republican guard member or a hezbollah operative.

Jackie Shire, on one of her all-too-few bloggingheads appearances, said that the smallest nukes were (IIRC) roughly the size of a small Volkswagon. If the average Iranian or Palestinian is sized to carry a Volkswagon on his back, we might want to think about whether our interests lie elsewhere.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 22, 2007 10:13 AM

I'm pretty sure it's possible to work for TNR and oppose US and/or Israeli attacks on Iran on the TNR blog or a once in a while small piece inside, as long as your own stomach can cope with the overwhelming leaning of the magazine in the other direction. I'm more concerned with whether it would be possible to hold your position at TNR while actually trying to stop the US or Israel attacking Iran by appealing to the wider public, say by writing an Op-Ed for the New York times or such like, in the way that TNR-types seem to moonlight in other venues.

Posted by otto | January 22, 2007 10:15 AM

I have no clue why he thinks the first of his two possible readings is the more obvious and correct. BJS, however, is correct on what the real strategic threat is. It's an old story that eight suitcase-sized nuclear weapons detonated at specifics sites around the country could eliminate it, and there are people in the Arab world who will tell you where those sites are. Whether terrorists would gain access to the weaponry through Iran as opposed to loose material on the black market is another issue.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | January 22, 2007 10:16 AM

Bjs is totally right, it is the BACKPACK sales we really have to look at as proof that, finally, Iran needs to be bombed. But righteously. We need to bomb the backpack factories, and perhaps backpack wearing Iranians, but I'd also suggest dropping leaflets about the freedom we are going to bring Iran. Soon the youthful Iranians, oppressed by the regimes evident desire to keep them from converting en masse to Christianity, will rise up and overthrow their leadership. And only then can the international community allow Iran a backpack capability.

What's so strange, really, is that the so called liberal community still doesn't get the backpack threat. There's a reason Peretz' column is called the Spine - because he remembers that we have one. Liberals, and other terrorist sympathizers, should be reminded of this fact occasionally - although the irony is that their spinelessness would actually take care of the backpack problem (because if you don't have a spine, you can't wear a backpack). But liberals refuse to see even this.

Posted by roger | January 22, 2007 10:18 AM

The Right exists on fungible paranoia.

Whatever they want to do, they raise a chorus of fears about. That becomes "wisdom". Other fears get demoted at need. Personally, I wish it didn't bother me to see the technique so nakedly applied, but there's an obscenity to it that can't be avoided.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 22, 2007 10:21 AM

It's always remarkable to see a panty-wetting hysteric like "roger" opine on something like "spine".

Posted by brendan | January 22, 2007 10:22 AM

Frankly, I'm confused and don't really know what kind of argument one can mount under those circumstances.

A conservative one, apparently. Seems to be a pattern.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | January 22, 2007 10:25 AM

Useful reminder, though I expect Brian can tell us whether there's anything to this.

Posted by Matt Weiner | January 22, 2007 10:27 AM

Brendan, I think it possible that roger's comment was not meant entirely seriously.

Posted by Matt Weiner | January 22, 2007 10:27 AM

“I believe that the world and us know how to deal with the present threat, but, please, we need to stop instilling fear of an existential threat just to grab more headlines …There is no need to make the threat worse than it is.”

Olmert yesterday.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | January 22, 2007 10:28 AM

ALL the "first-strike" hysteria is bullshit. There isn't a country on the face of the planet willing to commit national suicide by launching a nuclear attack against an overwhelmingly superior nuclear power, in this case Israel. It just isn't ever going to happen, period. That's always been the core fallacy of the Great WMD Scare.

The exception to the above is, of course, the United States, and the "overwhelmingly superior nuclear power" will be our former enemies and current allies, once they finally admit that we're the greatest threat to civilization the world has ever known.

Posted by John H. Farr | January 22, 2007 10:34 AM

As much as I would like to believe the whole issue is just an Iranian plot to create a crisis that raises oil prices, and vastly increases the Iranian oil income, I'm afraid we can't just assume that.

Numerous Iranian statements are not just hostile toward Israel but eliminationist. Plus, they are clearly scaring the local Sunni nations, who have their fingers on the pulse better than you and I. I don't believe that Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are all starting nuclear programs just for the electricity, there is something new they are scared of.

Israelis literally shudder at the thought of the drubbing they'd take, politically and otherwise, if they launched an attack first, but they are considering it because they feel they have to. It's a matter of survival.

We have to believe there is some practical reason for Iran to have been avoiding the IAEA -- electric power generation isn't a problem for the IAEA.

There's some chance that Iran doesn't really give a rat's butt about Israel, but this bet isn't about another small war, but about multiple holocausts, so we can't just let the bet ride.

Posted by Warren | January 22, 2007 10:34 AM

I'd like to say '24 Not Real: Headlines at 10', but our local FOX affiliate now leads its evening bulletins post-24 with 'news stories' about the show.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 22, 2007 10:36 AM

If you don't think Iran is a threat, just look at recent history:

In the 1950's the U.S. perpetrated a coup in Iran and installed a dictator.

In the late 1970's, in the aftermath of a revolution against that dictator, the Iranians took 50 U.S. embassy personal hostage and killed...um...zero of them.

In the 1980's the U.S. provided material support to Saddam's unprovoked war against Iran, which resulted in the deaths of about 1 million Iranians.

In the 1980's the U.S. shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing everyone on board.

In 2003, the U.S. launched an unprovoked invasion of Iran's neighbor, Iraq, killing (so far) an estimated 650,000 people.

In the face of Iran's crazy militaristic behavior over the past 50 years, a peace loving country like the U.S. may have no choice but to take preventative action.

Posted by Jim W | January 22, 2007 10:36 AM

Bjs is totally right, it is the BACKPACK sales we really have to look at as proof that, finally, Iran needs to be bombed.

This is the best. It would be criminal not to build a case for the bombing of Tehran around this. Maybe with links to REI, or whichever backpack-selling company has big and growing international sales. Just beautiful.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 22, 2007 10:37 AM

Oh, that can't possibly happen. Doesn't Left Behind say the Russians will do it?

Posted by Redshift | January 22, 2007 10:38 AM

Wearing backpacks without a spine???

Posted by Harry R. Sohl | January 22, 2007 10:42 AM

Wearing backpacks without a spine???

Posted by Harry R. Sohl | January 22, 2007 10:43 AM

Oh, that can't possibly happen. Doesn't Left Behind say the Russians will do it?

Yes... and who is Iran's bestest friend on the Security Council of the World Government right now? Russia! Once Russia is set to launch their new Iranian-built nukes at Israel, watch out! Wait, except God will make such an attack magically fail. So why are we worried about Iran, again?

Posted by mds | January 22, 2007 10:51 AM

It is not correct that the smallest nukes are roughly the size of a Volkswagen, but what's smallest is a little bit more complicated than that.

The smallest nukes are probably those carried on the buses of multiple independently targeted missiles, MIRV's, which have a cross section larger than a hardball, smaller than a softball. That, however, is because they don't have to carry much in the way of conventional explosive to slam the sub-critical assemblies together: slamming the front end into the ground while the back end catches up with it at 19,000 mph is enough to do the job.

Weapons of this sort are unavailable to less industrialized countries not because they can't make the bombs but because they don't have the very very advanced materials science to make the re-entry vehicles.

Still, it is obvious that the fissile part of a bomb is small enough to be carried in a backpack or briefcase, and making a terrorist weapon where the TNT/CX or whatever was carried separately -- say in a Volkswagen -- ought not to be too difficult.

Prevention, as by tracing fissile materials, separation technology, and so forth, remains Job One. Job Two is making sure that all decision makers in places like Tehran, Pyongyang and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue understand the power of a retaliatory strike.

Given the arrant lunacy of some at that last address, I think there are many of us who see the world as a safer place if there are countries here and there with the power to take out an American aircraft carrier. Iraq, for instance, would still be evolving in peace, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive, if Saddam Hussein had had some WMD's -- some WMD's other than the chemical-spraying helicopters supplied by Donnie Rumsfeld, that is.

Posted by David Lloyd-Jones | January 22, 2007 10:53 AM

I have to admit that it bothers me that many Democrats seem to avoiding the crucial question: Is there a backpack gap?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 22, 2007 10:58 AM

Now that you mention it, about two blocks from me here in Jerusalem there is a shop called "Iran Bazaar" near a shop that sells nothing but backpacks.

Matt - If I'm the Brian you mean, I'm not sure what you want to remind us of. The belief in the 12th Imam eventually revealing himself is real. There also happen to be some millenialist groups around right now. Juan Cole has chronicled Muqtada Sadr's beliefs in his imminent coming which he sees American foreign policy as deliberately opposing. For Ahmadinejad, I'd look for information on Ayatollah Yazdi, whom he follows. This may be his web site.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | January 22, 2007 11:00 AM

Still, it is obvious that the fissile part of a bomb is small enough to be carried in a backpack or briefcase,

Interesting. Still, I'm not sure that anything involving nuclear physics or nuclear engineering is obvious to someone without training and work experience in the area. At a minimum, I wonder about shielding, and about how much engineering expertise is required to make small bombs. Still, if anyone reading this knew someone at bloggingheads, and Jackie Shire was still showing on BH, maybe mooting nuke related issues would be of some interest. You know, before we bomb Tehran because of the Backpack Gap.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 22, 2007 11:03 AM

There also happen to be some millenialist groups around right now.

Yes, and many are prominent in the Republican Party. Nevertheless, the United States has been deterred from using nukes since 1945.

Posted by Matt Stevens | January 22, 2007 11:12 AM

Matt,

you write that Justin "remains convinced" that Iran's likely to launch a first-strike nuclear attack on Israel. In fact, he never says that. On the contrary, Justin says he doesn't know if Iran would do this or not. But because he's not certain if Israel's nukes would deter Iran, he doesn't want Tehran to acquire nukes. ("But if a lying, hateful man got control of nuclear weapons in my neighborhood, I'd be worried. So would anyone. Can you really blame Israelis for being nervous?")

Posted by me | January 22, 2007 11:21 AM

"I don't believe that Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are all starting nuclear programs just for the electricity, there is something new they are scared of."

Yer damn right. What they're scared of is US. The lesson of Iraq is the lesson of North Korea: nuclear capability is utterly essential to protect yourself from an unprovoked attack by a batshit crazy American administration that's suddenly decided you're a threat, even though you had been best friends for decades and nothing else has changed.

No way, nowhow is Iran going to drop a nuclear bomb on Israel or anybody else unless they feel themselves under imminent threat of destruction.

Posted by gyrfalcon | January 22, 2007 11:28 AM

But if a lying, hateful man got control of nuclear weapons in my neighborhood, I'd be worried.

I've been worried since January, 2001.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | January 22, 2007 11:45 AM

Uranium is 2 1/2 times denser than iron, so a suitcase sized nuke wuld weigh several hundred pounds.

There is certainly an element in the clerical Iranian gov't that wants nothing more than to attack israel to help pave the way for the return of the hidden iman.

Whatever we do, we have to make sure that they can;t communicate with our Armageddonist President over here. If they get a chnce to coordinate their plans we're doomed.

Posted by John Emerson | January 22, 2007 11:46 AM

Brian, I just meant that I suspected that "Iranians will nuke Israel because of the twelfth Imam!" hysteria is a bit overblown, but that you'd know better than I. Is it a bigger influence in Iranian foreign policy than Christian millenarianism is on US foreign policy, in your opinion?

Posted by Matt Weiner | January 22, 2007 11:47 AM

Honestly, folks, suitcase nukes are a relic of a bygone era. What we really need to worry about are rectal nukes. Eight ounces of plutonium could easily demolish the Knesset. And if you don't believe such devices exist, you need only consider the fiendish nature of our enemy, and how very much he hates freedom.

Posted by scarshapedstar | January 22, 2007 11:49 AM

What we really need to worry about are rectal nukes.

At the moment, I don't think we need to worry about an Asshole Gap.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 22, 2007 12:08 PM

Why doesn't the US just have the following as standing policy:

Any nuclear strike on the US will be immediately followed by a nuclear strike on Mecca.

Your move, Osama, Ahmadinejad, whoever....

Posted by ME | January 22, 2007 12:09 PM

It's true. Threatening to nuke Mecca is about the one thing we haven't done to alienate the Middle East, and it ought to be considered for that reason alone.

Posted by Steve | January 22, 2007 12:28 PM

Re: Still, it is obvious that the fissile part of a bomb is small enough to be carried in a backpack or briefcase

No it is not obvious at all. Sure, you could tote around a lump of fissile material like that, but it would quiet useless unless you included A) explosives to compact it to chain reaction size and B) shielding so its radioactivity is undetectable (and not a danger to those working with it and transporting it-- even suicide bombers can't risk radiation sickness before they carry out such a mission as it would prevent them from doing so). So the smallest nuke is going to be something you need to carry in a truck or van, not something you carry in a briefcase. The "backpack nuke" is an urban legend.

Posted by Jonf | January 22, 2007 12:43 PM

The only thing that TNR has published recently that is worth a damn is Michael Crowley's expose of Michael Crichton's depravity.

Posted by ponte | January 22, 2007 12:56 PM

Actually, a suitcase nuke wouldn't weigh a couple of hundred pounds because most of a nuke isn't the fissile material but rather explosives, electronics, casings, etc. Self-contained sub 100 lb nukes are quite possible. In particular, the Mk-54 warhead at the heart of the Davy Crockett "backpack nuke" weighed about 50 lbs and had a yield of 10-20 tons. Not as exciting as a kiloton range but still a fairly big bang. Moreover, as I understand it the low yield was by design, not because you can't make a larger bang with a package that size.

The nuclear weapon archive's list of US bombs is fairly illuminating on this point and lists several kiloton-range devices that weighed in at order 1-200 lbs. In particular, the W44 weighed 170 lbs with a yield of 10 kt.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Allbombs.html

Posted by EKR | January 22, 2007 12:59 PM

In Britain they've already started shooting foreign-looking backpack-wearers. I fear our own response lags dangerously behind.

Posted by Alan in SF | January 22, 2007 1:04 PM

For years, if it wasn't a nuke, it was a "dirty bomb". Seemingly the easiest thing in the world would be a bomb which sprayed nasty, highly-radioactive, city-crippling crap around. Encase a bunch of thorium or something in a lead box. Put some TNT underneath it and let 'er rip.

I don't know how we survived all the ensuing dirty bombs. Parts of London, Manchester, NYC, Chicago are still barren deserts whose streets show up like green glowing veins on satellite photos.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 22, 2007 1:29 PM

just about every reputable observer--left, right, dove, hawk, American, Israeli, European--believes that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Except the IAEA. The CIA doesn't seem to be entirely convinced, either. Of course Iraq has taught us that the beliefs of "every reputable observer" (read: foreign policy writers with no expertise in language or culture) are a sound basis on which to launch a war.

America has openly talked about wiping the government of Iran off the map and has lots of nukes. Someone should invade to take care of the problem!

Posted by guy | January 22, 2007 1:36 PM

Just seems to have never heard of the art of the demagogue, or the offer of a Grand Bargain made by Iran to recognize Israel in 2003.

There is no reason why the Persians cannot live in peace with the Jews, and there will always be a ready population for a demagogue to proclaim to as long as Israel acts as an apartheid state that engages in ethnic cleansing and policies of ethnic superiority and discrimination to the detriment of the native and local Muslim and Arab population.

People like Just are just unwilling and unable to honestly see that a Zionist Israel is always going to stir up far more troubles in the region, and fodder for demagogues, than would a liberal and democratic Israel that does not engage in policies of ethnic superiority and exclusion, and that accurately represents and governs the people who live in its territory irrespective of whether they are Jews.

There is hope for peace in the Middle East, at least so far as Palestine, Israel and Iran, but it will take compromises by both sides, as well as honorable and authentic engagement and negotiation. Iran has already made an offer to recognize and come to peace with Israel, long rebuked by the US with no doubt the acquiescence of Israel, while Israel and the US seem to seek only power and influence while making threats against anyone else doing likewise, which is not a formula for success without the implicit presumption of violence underneath it.

Posted by Jimm | January 22, 2007 1:40 PM

Here Benny Morris, a TNR fave, predicts a "second holocaust"--an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel. If we don't attack them, they'll attack us!

Be afraid, people. be very affraid.

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/01/second-holocaust-will-not-be-like-first.html

Posted by david mizner | January 22, 2007 1:43 PM

I just think it's dishonest to emphasize all these darker demagoguic statements while completely ignoring the overt actions taken to reach a Grand Bargain and peace and recognition with Israel (which were rejected).

To me, that's war mongering, and dishonorable, and always will be.

Posted by Jimm | January 22, 2007 1:48 PM

In case you didn't follow the link to Morris's incredible piece, he's a bloody bite:

"[The Iranians] will launch their rockets. And, as with the first Holocaust, the international community will do nothing. It will all be over, for Israel, in a few minutes - not like in the 1940s, when the world had five long years in which to wring its hands and do nothing. After the Shihabs fall, the world will send rescue ships and medical aid for the lightly charred. It will not nuke Iran. For what purpose and at what cost? An American nuclear response would lastingly alienate the whole of the Muslim world, deepening and universalizing the ongoing clash of civilizations. And, of course, it would not bring Israel back. (Would hanging a serial muderer bring back his victims?) So what would be the point? Still, the second Holocaust will be different in the sense that Ahmedinejad will not actually see and touch those he so wishes dead (and, one may speculate, this might cause him disappointment as, in his years of service in Iranian death squads in Europe, he may have acquired a taste for actual blood)."

Posted by david mizner | January 22, 2007 2:12 PM

Ahmadinejad is on the outs. Any fantasy (millenial, mahdi, or nuclear) involving him is highly unlikely at this stage.

The clock may be ticking on Iran's fiery president

Posted by SoCalJustice | January 22, 2007 2:17 PM

Any nuclear strike on the US will be immediately followed by a nuclear strike on Mecca.
Your move, Osama, Ahmadinejad, whoever....
Posted by: ME on January 22, 2007 12:09 PM

It's true. Threatening to nuke Mecca is about the one thing we haven't done to alienate the Middle East, and it ought to be considered for that reason alone.
Posted by: Steve on January 22, 2007 12:28 PM

Not to mention what the Saudis would think, killing thousands of their citizens on their territory. I thought that they were supposed to be our "allies" in the "war on terrah".

Never mind inflaming the Middle East, this would enrage the entire Muslim world from Morocco to Mindanao, friends and foes alike. It would alienate our allies worldwide and embolden our enemies. Good idea, dude.

Posted by jasperjava | January 22, 2007 2:48 PM

Jim W at 10:36, my thoughts, exactly.

Posted by Murph | January 22, 2007 3:57 PM

Didn't Benny Morris used to be, like, not a delusional, hate-filled fuckstick?

It's interesting to me how the neoconservative impulse is so tempting to relatively good, relatively mainstream thinkers in a way that the conservative impulse rarely is. I have my own theories about how neoconservatism is sort of the reductio of Euro-American liberalism - the making-explicit of the colonialism present at the birth of and partially constitutive of the liberal tradition, and I have some hope that the liberal tradition can remake itself and truly acknowledge its colonial past and its colonial present, and that this acknowledgement may at least be accelerated by having to deal with neocon fucksticks.

(Certainly, a new expression of liberalism is in no way worth hundreds of thousands dead and a horrible regional conflagration on order of magnitude worse possibly brewing, and I hope I don't give that impression.)

Posted by DivGuy | January 22, 2007 5:07 PM

"Didn't Benny Morris used to be, like, not a delusional, hate-filled fuckstick?"

No, at a certain point in his live he thought that writing accurate history books was more important than his politics.

Since he was one of the first historians in Israel to actually abide by that notion, he became famous.

But that has passed a long time ago.

Posted by Dude | January 22, 2007 6:57 PM

There is certainly an element in the clerical Iranian gov't that wants nothing more than to attack israel to help pave the way for the return of the hidden iman.

From what do you derive this certainty? Do you have any evidence?

As far as I can tell, the whole millenialist/mahdi argument derives entirely from some idiot somewhere reading an introductory book on Islam, learning about the idea of the mahdi, and thinkng "Gee wouldn't it be terrible if the powers that run Iran believed this?"

Posted by cg | January 22, 2007 7:51 PM

jbs:

There is certainly an element in the clerical Iranian gov't that wants nothing more than to attack israel to help pave the way for the return of the hidden iman[sic].

I'd be interested in seeing a concise statement of the evidence for this alleged certainty. (Not holding my breath.)

Posted by David Tomlin | January 22, 2007 9:02 PM

The smallest uranium bombs may be the ones allegedly used against Lebanon this summer:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece

"According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed 'elevated radiation signatures'."

Posted by me | January 22, 2007 9:15 PM

cg:

As far as I can tell, the whole millenialist/mahdi argument derives entirely from some idiot somewhere reading an introductory book on Islam, learning about the idea of the mahdi, and thinkng "Gee wouldn't it be terrible if the powers that run Iran believed this?"

I think it may also have been influenced by all those dumb movies in which agents of Satan try to carry out some magic ritual that will bring on the Apocalypse while the good guys struggle against them.

Posted by David Tomlin | January 22, 2007 9:48 PM

Benny Morris has always been a shit. His service in detailing the history of the Palestinian expulsion of 1948 was implicitly to prepare for for further expulsion. The conclusion was that it was a job left undone.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 22, 2007 10:29 PM

Whether Benny Morris has always been a shit I'm not qualified to say, but he has at least seemed to suggest that genocide sometimes can be justified:

'Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh & cruel acts …'

In the Jan. 18th Jerusalem Post article, he asks whether the Israeli leadership (which he despises) will launch 'a preemptive nuclear strike against the Iranian nuclear program, some of whose compnents are in or near major cities.' Without explicitly recommending anything, he asks:

'Would they have the stomach for this? Would their determination to save Israel extend to preemptively killing millions of Iranians and, in effect, destroying Iran?'

This contemplates something far beyond even ethnic cleansing. It's a fair question whether Morris (& his editor at the JP) now means to suggest that genocide against the Iranians may be morally justified, or even obligatory.

Posted by KH | January 22, 2007 11:46 PM

The notion that Iran is an imminent threat is nonsense. Ahmedinejad is only the President of Iran, and is accorded little real power by its constitution (that goes to the Supreme Leader/Guardian Jurisprudent), and anyway he certainly doesn't have control over their nuclear program, and anyway being in the NPT gives Iran the legal to have a civilian nuclear program, and anyway Khamenei and the clerics mostly seem against having nukes, having issued a fatwa forbiding them as being un-Islamic, and anyway Israel has about 200 nuclear warheads and a first strike on them would put Tehran into orbit, and anyway the CIA thinks that Iran is at least ten years away from having nukes, and anyway AAAAUUUUGGGGHHH!

Sorry. Frustration feedback. I get that from too many facts. Anyway, I'll bet once Osama Barack gets elected he'll add a minaret to the White House right away. That's why we need to take the fight to them and nuke Iran today! USA.

Posted by Patrick | January 23, 2007 4:23 AM

It is getting extremely tiresome to see legions of likudniks spew militarist and/or genocidal rhetoric based on the principle that the holocaust gives Israel the right to kill anyone and everyone who looks at it crosseyed.

Posted by turkey turkey turkey | January 23, 2007 5:07 AM

The Iranians will understand that Israel will have in place a retaliatory response based on submarines and cruise missiles that will bring an end to Iranian history. They will not attack Israel with their nuclear weapons.

Posted by bob h | January 23, 2007 8:22 AM

Re: "According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed 'elevated radiation signatures'."

Depleted (but still radioactive) uranium is often used in munitions today-- unfortunately, since uranium is both chemically toxic and radioactively dangerous. However such a weapons are not "nukes" as they do produce an explosion from either fission or fusion.

Posted by JonF | January 23, 2007 10:31 AM

However such a weapons are not "nukes" as they do produce an explosion from either fission or fusion.

Botulinin toxin, which any housewife can make accidentally by doing a poor job of canning, is now a 'biological weapon' and a 'weapon of mass destruction'. We might as well start calling DU weapons 'nukes'.

Posted by David Tomlin | January 23, 2007 5:58 PM

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