The Persian Hand

As you've probably heard if you follow the news at all, for the first time in nine months a suicide bomber has struck Israel, murdering three people in a bakery in Eilat. The Israelis had become quite good at blocking the infiltration of attackers from the West Bank through their use of checkpoints, a giant wall, restrictions on Palestinian movement, etc., but this guy came through from Egypt. What I don't see in either that Times story or in The Washington Post's account is the effort to blame this on the enemy du jour, Iran. Fortunately, yesterday at 3:30 PM Eastern Time my inbox was hit with a press release from The Israel Project glossing the events thusly: "Iran-backed Terror Group Behind Attack in Eilat". They note, accurately enough, that Iran provides financial support to Palestinian rejectionist groups including most notably Palestinian Islamic Jihad and then swiftly move to the Iranian nuclear program:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and believes it is his duty to bring about an apocalyptic war that will usher in the 12th Imam, a Messiah-like figure of Shiite Islam. A group in Iran says it has recruited 25,000 people to carry out martyrdom attacks against the West, and Tehran is pursuing a nuclear program in defiance of the U.N. Security Council.

You may recall from the Iraq Debate that these kind of truthy charges about Saddam Hussein's role as a sponsor of Palestinian terrorism played a prominent role. These are good talking points for the hawks because they have the virtue of -- unlike many of their talking points -- being firmly grounded in some actual facts. The purpose, clearly, is to get people to leap beyond the facts and believe either that Iran is likely to give PIJ/Hamas/Hezbollah a nuclear bomb, that "Iranian support for terrorism" means Iran is hell-bent on sponsoring terrorist attacks on American soil and may have been involved in 9/11, and to believe that Iran is the main cause of Palestinian terrorism. This last you may recall from the "road to Jerusalem goes through Baghdad" school of thought which held that with Saddam out of the way the Palestinians would suddenly fold and Israel could achieve that glorious combination of a stable peace deal without giving anything up they want.

Comments

Something about this post reminds me of a pioneering aviator.

Posted by otto | January 30, 2007 8:35 AM

Look at a map: of course the road to Jerusalem goes through Baghdad, if you live in Teheran.

Posted by CharleyCarp | January 30, 2007 8:42 AM

"It's on" and "The Persian Hand" are both quite good post titles.

Did the "It's on" sound too pessimistic?

Posted by otto | January 30, 2007 8:43 AM

Iran isn't being smart about this at all. They should take the money they're spending on an enrichment program and simply purchase a few warheads from a broker on the black market. Certainly Halliburton has a front company specifically created for just such a need.

Posted by steve duncan | January 30, 2007 8:44 AM

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad . . . believes it is his duty to bring about an apocalyptic war that will usher in the 12th Imam, a Messiah-like figure of Shiite Islam.

Still waiting for some evidence for this one.

Posted by David Tomlin | January 30, 2007 8:56 AM

Perhaps we can all agree with Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project who says "The time for strong sanctions is now so that there can be a peaceful resolution to this global crisis."

Posted by Ragout | January 30, 2007 9:03 AM

"You may recall from the Iraq Debate that these kind of truthy charges about Saddam Hussein's role as a sponsor of Palestinian terrorism played a prominent role. These are good talking points for the hawks because they have the virtue of -- unlike many of their talking points -- being firmly grounded in some actual facts."

Yup.

They are un-refutable and politically powerful talking points.

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and believes it is his duty to bring about an apocalyptic war that will usher in the 12th Imam, a Messiah-like figure of Shiite Islam. A group in Iran says it has recruited 25,000 people to carry out martyrdom attacks against the West, and Tehran is pursuing a nuclear program in defiance of the U.N. Security Council."

But note how the talking points always need the coming use of the A-Bomb as the rug that really tied that room together, no matter whether those talking points are firmly grounded in some actual facts or not.

Posted by Petey | January 30, 2007 9:36 AM

You may recall from the Iraq Debate that these kind of truthy charges about Saddam Hussein's role as a sponsor of Palestinian terrorism played a prominent role.

Just think: if they we conquer every Arab country the Palestinians will HAVE to surrender, because um, stuff. (Wouldn't this go a bit faster if the Israelis just fucking kicked all the Palestinians out? I mean, shit, they're working around to it anyways; can we just get this over with?)

Something about this post reminds me of a pioneering aviator.

Pat Buchanan mentions Matthew in today's column. Yer becoming quite the minor political figure, Matthew!

Also, you are like so totally a Nazi, dude.

m, Iranian refers to 'Aryan' anyways, don't it?

Posted by max | January 30, 2007 9:45 AM

"Pat Buchanan mentions Matthew in today's column."

You really need to send Jonah Goldberg a gift basket.

Posted by Petey | January 30, 2007 9:49 AM

That Iran had very little to do with the actual mechanics of this poor schnook's self-incineration they do offer support to Islamic Jihad. And the absence of on-the-ground operational support here neither means that Israel does not face a strategic threat from Iran that may require drastic means nor that a Jewish-neocon-Zionist cabal of distinct ethnic proportions (ah, but not your kind of Jew at all Matthewleh) is uniquely and balefully driving American foreign policy. That said, there is a spitball's chance in hell that Israel will face Iran, ultimately, anything other than alone, with the support of those Jews who are not debilitated by self-hatred or shame but without the support of the American government. Don't worry about it. It isn't going to happen.

Posted by Paul Freedman | January 30, 2007 10:17 AM

"That said, there is a spitball's chance in hell that Israel will face Iran, ultimately, anything other than alone, with the support of those Jews who are not debilitated by self-hatred or shame but without the support of the American government. Don't worry about it. It isn't going to happen."

When you don't refrain from not incorporating what are not so many negatives in one passage, there is just no chance of anyone, other than those without a lack of ignorance, failing to follow. Even if they don't neglect to misconstrue what you write, they may fail to lack confidence that you didn't write the opposite of what you intended.

Posted by Njorl | January 30, 2007 3:04 PM

Who is that "group in Iran", and why are they mentioned inbetween references to official Iranian references?

This is the kind of dishonest communication that was part and parcel of the fraudulent invasion of Iraq.

Posted by Jimm | January 30, 2007 3:29 PM

For reference, compare this to the Solomon piece on the Edward's house. This is modern journalism.

And I really really don't think the big-time press writes like this in order to push whomever into a war; they write like this because they know there is going to be a war.

Posted by bob mcmanus | January 30, 2007 3:39 PM

Ask the Israelis and they'll tell you the road to peace in Jerusalem runs over the corpse of every Muslim from Africa to Afghanistan....

"C'mon, Uncle Sam, fight just one more war for us. Just one more...."

Posted by turkey turkey turkey | January 30, 2007 10:22 PM

The translation for Checkmate is something like 'Dead King' in Farsi.

Persian Checkmate. we don't have long. Keep track of refuling deployments in the region, any large stacks of food or ammo as well.

Posted by McAdder | January 30, 2007 10:22 PM

Iran is moving toward some sort of nuclear showdown, and we clearly need to divert their course. This is real serious stuff. Yglesias adds style and snarkiness without adding useful analysis or a constructive suggestion.

Iran is actively waging war against the West, against Israel and against the USA. Pretending that there is no war is just not healthy. It's a slow war, an irregular war, but it's a war.

The bakery bombing in the south of Israel was the fault of the Palestinians, though, not the Iranians. Although I can believe they helped.

Posted by Warren | January 31, 2007 7:18 AM