Israel to World: "Suck It."

misdirection...? yeah I dunno

It would be easy and cheap to for Iran close to close Hormuz to VLCC traffic for a period of weeks. Just launch a few hundred untethered drift mines in the vicinity and very large crude carrier (VLCC) insurers will make transit prohibitive. There aren't that many minesweepers available to U.S. forces, and while NATO probably still has quite a few (I should check Janes), most are deployed in Northern Europe.

Now whether the parties will go through with what they've been threatening for years now is another matter entirely.

"a period of weeks" /= Obama defeated gimme a break. there are so many "big ifs" in this scenario

I think it's silly, but even sillier is assuming that if such a chain of events played out it's because Bibi wants to throw the election to the Republicans. Such a course of action could have huge repercussions for Israel and wouldn't even guarantee Obama would lose. Not to mention that the advantage to Israel of having a Republican candidate in office over having Obama is so minuscule as to be non-existant. I don't understand why everyone (aka Iran) gets to be treated as a rational actor, but people speculate that Israel will do all kinds of stupid shit.

what Mordy said. this is like some next-level conspiracy-theory nonsense.

Should Bibi try it, it would do immense damage to Israel.

The curious question remains, why would Adelson throw his money behind Gingrich, when Romney already has Elliot Cohen, one of the chief neocon archtects of the Iraq invasion, as his national security advisor. Either candidate would be more Likud-friendly than Obama.

Adelson goes back decades with Newtie iirc

I don't see why the explanation has to be anything more complicated than that the two have a personal connection going back to the early 90s.

Iraq invasion was not a coup for Likud.

But also, Adelson isn't a secret operative for Likud. He's a guy who feels very (crazily) passionate about Israel and has a lot of money to drive his agenda. There isn't like a big conspiracy.

Saudi Minesweepers - 3 at least, maybe up to 7

Long, interesting article in NYT: Will Israel Attack Iran?

Yeah, reading that right now. Can I just O_O at this description of Dagan?

As Sharon put it at the time: “Dagan’s specialty is separating an Arab from his head.”

Yeah I was O_O reading that

some random thoughts + quotes that i thought were particularly interesting from the article:

In January 2007, several insulation units in the connecting fixtures of the centrifuges, which were purchased from a middleman on the black market in Eastern Europe, turned out to be flawed and unusable. Iran concluded that some of the merchants were actually straw companies that were set up to outfit the Iranian nuclear effort with faulty parts.

I'm sure Mossad is thrilled that every setback w/ Iranian nuclear project is blamed on them, but it seems to me that if you're purchasing insulation units on the black market, you might get stuff sometimes that is flawed and unusable without any conspiracy.

Israelis cannot enter Iran, so Israel, Iranian officials believe, has devoted huge resources to recruiting Iranians who leave the country on business trips and turning them into agents. Some have been recruited under a false flag, meaning that the organization’s recruiters pose as other nationalities, so that the Iranian agents won’t know they are on the payroll of “the Zionist enemy,” as Israel is called in Iran. Also, as much as possible, the Mossad prefers to carry out its violent operations based on the blue-and-white principle, a reference to the colors of Israel’s national flag, which means that they are executed only by Israeli citizens who are regular Mossad operatives and not by assassins recruited in the target country. Operating in Iran, however, is impossible for the Mossad’s sabotage-and-assassination unit, known as Caesarea, so the assassins must come from elsewhere. Iranian intelligence believes that over the last several years, the Mossad has financed and armed two Iranian opposition groups, the Muhjahedin Khalq (MEK) and the Jundallah, and has set up a forward base in Kurdistan to mobilize the Kurdish minority in Iran, as well as other minorities, training some of them at a secret base near Tel Aviv.

I have no doubt Mossad is responsible for some of the assassinations (particularly the magnet bombs) but this does sound a lot like trying to discredit any resistance to the Iranian administration by linking it to Mossad.

“An Iranian bomb would ensure the survival of the current regime, which otherwise would not make it to its 40th anniversary in light of the admiration that the young generation in Iran has displayed for the West. With a bomb, it would be very hard to budge the administration.” -- Barak

This is pretty much my opinion of nuclear Iran -- there's no way to keep Iran from eventually getting nuclear weapons. But a nuclear Iran under the current administration is much more dangerous than a replacement administration (ideally based on Green movement ideals) with nuclear weapons. Not least bc of what Barak says above -- it'll be very hard to topple Khomeini if he has nukes.

The Meir Amit - 6 Day War story (where he meets with Hadden and McNamara) is really fascinating and worth reading the article just for that. And I think Barak's response to the story is really interesting too:

Barak, a history buff, smiled at the comparison, and then he completely rejected it. “Relations with the United States are far closer today,” he said. “There are no threats, no recriminations, only cooperation and mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty.”

Ehud Barak dislikes this kind of criticism of the United States, and in a rather testy tone in a phone conversation with me on Jan. 18 said: “Our discourse with the United States is based on listening and mutual respect, together with an understanding that it is our primary ally. The U.S. is what helps us to preserve the military advantage of Israel, more than ever before. This administration contributes to the security of Israel in an extraordinary way and does a lot to prevent a nuclear Iran. We’re not in confrontation with America. We’re not in agreement on every detail, we can have differences — and not unimportant ones — but we should not talk as if we are speaking about a hostile entity.”

Off-topic of this article, but I'm pretty certain that Bibi is going to lose the elections next year. I think charedim is Israel (and esp the Israel Beitenu / Beit Shemesh / Shas right-wing collection) are really unpopular at the moment and that Bibi is seem as being responsible for the degradation of the relationship between secular + charedi Israelis. I think Kadima is going to win next year pretty decisively and Livni will be PM. Which might explain some of Bibi's bluster + even hastiness re Iran if he thinks this is his last shot.

In later conversations Dagan criticized Netanyahu and Barak, and in a lecture at Tel Aviv University he observed, “The fact that someone has been elected doesn’t mean that he is smart.”

oh snap

Asked if it was possible to stop a determined Iran from becoming a nuclear power, Eitan replied: “No. In the end they’ll get their bomb. The way to fight it is by changing the regime there. This is where we have really failed. We should encourage the opposition groups who turn to us over and over to ask for our help, and instead, we send them away empty-handed.”

If this is true, it's really the most tragic piece of the whole matzav.

Saudi Arabia's oil production appears to be "ramping up" and can fill some of the demand shortfalls caused by sanctions on Iranian exports, CIA Director David Petraeus said on Tuesday.

Sanctions on Iran oil imports appear to be biting much more in recent weeks, he said at a Senate intelligence committee hearing.

China has reduced its imports of Iranian oil and "it remains to be seen whether that continues. It appears that Saudi Arabian production is ramping up and can fill some of the demand that might have been met by Iranian exports now that there are the sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran," Petraeus said.

Saudis fucking hate Iran. Why don't they attack Iran?

oh btw

http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news

Morbz, from the NYT piece a little bit above:

Israelis cannot enter Iran, so Israel, Iranian officials believe, has devoted huge resources to recruiting Iranians who leave the country on business trips and turning them into agents. Some have been recruited under a false flag, meaning that the organization’s recruiters pose as other nationalities, so that the Iranian agents won’t know they are on the payroll of “the Zionist enemy,” as Israel is called in Iran. Also, as much as possible, the Mossad prefers to carry out its violent operations based on the blue-and-white principle, a reference to the colors of Israel’s national flag, which means that they are executed only by Israeli citizens who are regular Mossad operatives and not by assassins recruited in the target country. Operating in Iran, however, is impossible for the Mossad’s sabotage-and-assassination unit, known as Caesarea, so the assassins must come from elsewhere. Iranian intelligence believes that over the last several years, the Mossad has financed and armed two Iranian opposition groups, the Muhjahedin Khalq (MEK) and the Jundallah, and has set up a forward base in Kurdistan to mobilize the Kurdish minority in Iran, as well as other minorities, training some of them at a secret base near Tel Aviv.

I guess the news here is that the US in confirming it.

http://www.haaretz.com/culture/arts-leisure/israeli-fans-beg-pm-to-hold-off-iran-attack-over-madonna-show-1.412014

WORLD PEACE

I guess the news here is that the US in confirming it.

― Mordy, Thursday, February 9, 2012 10:50 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...and presumably not objecting to it.

jesus have we not learnt anything from afghanistan?

I'm not sure that Afghanistan is the best comparison-case to make. Iraq seems much closer to this situation (and obviously there are numerous differences even there).

Operating in Iran, however, is impossible for the Mossad’s sabotage-and-assassination unit, known as Caesarea

not if you breach the sovereignty of friendly nations by forging their passports.

afghanistan comparison was re. potential blowback for arming and inflating the self-importance of islamist groups that may not have our best interests in mind.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/world/middleeast/israeli-embassy-officials-attacked-in-india-and-georgia.html?_r=1&hp

So there've been several bomb attacks on Israeli government and embassy personal around the globe today (India, Georgia). Netanyahu points the finger at Iran, saying Iran "is the world's biggest export nation of violence". Meanwhile the death toll of Iranian (nuclear) scientists has been steadily rising too.

I get the scary idea these are the "small beans" of two nations not willing to back down. However macabre it is, it's almost like it is bullying, to and fro. Israel blows up an Iranian scientist, Iran sends someone on a scooter in India to stick a magnet bomb on a diplomat's car. Nothing anyone can do about it, until one of both countries loses its cool. Pretty grim outlook.

Norman Finkelstein coming out strongly against BDS. I'm kinda shocked since this is obviously not where I expected him to come out on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=725EZ6neT1I

I'm wondering if the speech he gave later that night is available online bc I'd like to see that too.

I should clarify, he comes out strongly against elements of BDS that seem to be implicitly calling for an end to Israel. He does say that he supports BDS tactics about midway through the video.

he says it in the first few minutes!

He probably says it a few times but if you watch the whole video it seems to be very much an afterthought to his primary point which could be read very expansively.

it sounds to me (as someone who knows nothing about all this) like he's pretty clearly for "a two-state solution"

or is there some nuance i'm missing? srs q

It's less about nuance here and more about what I (and I think a lot of people) assumed he believed about a few issues that he completely steps back from in this video.

We should encourage the opposition groups who turn to us over and over

The problem for Iran is its major opposition politicians like Mousavi are (correctly) believed to be puppets of the formerly ruling and utterly corrupt Rafsanjani clique, while current president Ahmadinejad is more or less the local version of Hugo Chavez. Hated in cities, beloved in most of the country for finally bringing government patronage etc.

Were outsiders to advocate for regime change, we'd have the choice of corrupt financiers that the rural/poor/religious people hate (Rafsanjani), and...<crickets>

Second most powerful political opposition in Iran is the rump commies. Not many of those left.

Really need to do the research to finish the chart but millitary interventions by sovereign states in the past 200 years:
US: dozens
Israel: at least a dozen
Iran: zero.

Ie, I personally feel safer in a world with Iranian nukes than one with Israeli nukes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Green_Movement ?

Iran: zero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah_military_activities ?

This is a more useful primer on the political factions behind the Iranian Green movement: http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF16Ak05.html
I'd certainly agree with you that the rank and file protesters in 2009 Tehran wanted more openness/Westerness/democracy etc. But for the elites, it was a power play, and for most of the population it was views as a contest between proxies for the Rafsanjani and Khatami bloc (neither of which on the ballot), very little of which emerged in U.S. media.

As for Hezbollah, they're the effective regional government of southern Lebanon. They provide the health clinics and trash pickup. Iran likely has a veto power over Hezbollah operations, but for the most part its seems a Shia Lebanese organization that took help from the only party that offered it. There will probably always be an animosity with Israel due to Hezbollah's birth as the local resistance to the Israeli invasion and occupation in 1982-2000. There's been a tit-for-tat cycle of occupation, soldier kidnappings, invasion & infrastructure bombing, and retaliatory rocket strikes. That cycle will likely recur so long as Hezbollah is viewed as terrorist organization, rather than as a micro-state that can conduct negotiated settlements of boundaries etc. After the successful repulse of the July 2006 invasion they're certainly viewed with more respect in the Muslim world than just about any national entity.

I've never read anything or heard of M K Bhadrakumar before but he's got an interesting POV (I looked at a couple of different things - he's got a voluminous output on foreign affairs but not for many publications I've actually heard of). Do you know anything about him besides what it says under his byline?

That's probably not the best column by former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar on Iran. His coverage in 2009 for the Asia Times Online (a Thai based English webdaily) was miles more insightful than anything that its way into the US/UK/Aus press.

It's unclear to me where a lot of the stuff he's claiming is sourced from. Either he's got a really impressive networks of unnamed diplomatic sources throughout the world or a lot of this is conjecture?

But the point is, most lefty Americans will have an opinion on Hugo Chavez (not least through that masterful documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Its useful to see Ahmadinejad's character as the Iranian Chavez (eager to place foot in mouth, hated by the educated and wealthy, beloved by the rural poor), rather than as he's generally portrayed here. Its useful to know the money and influence behind the 2009 political contest to see why things played out how they did.

A couple different points. One, I'm not sure what the thrust behind your Chavez/Ahmadinejad comparison is, except that it seems like you think they are both leftist leaders who are misunderstood? Actually, I think I can parse that one myself.

The second question is probably the more interesting one anyway, which is how does Bhadrakumar know some of the claims that he's making? For instance, how does he know Rafsanjani was the power behind Mousavi (which is really the central claim of his article)? It seems entirely based on the suggestion that Rafsanjani was "the only politician in Iran who could have brought together such dissimilar factions," and a mention of him that Ahmadinejad made in a campaign speech. Despite the fact that he himself says Mousavi was the "very anti-thesis of Rafsanjani," and that Rafsanjani kicked Mousavi out of the government because he had no time for his anti-Capitalism, anti-Western impulses. He also puts down urban protestors as the "largely inconsequential 'Gucci crowd' of north Tehran" and condescendingly describes them as having "no doubt imparted a lot of color, verve and mirth to Mousavi's campaign." Plus, of course, Rafsanjani's plot to take over Iran (by dragging the election into a run-off and winning there) and the belief that Iran's election was democratically conducted and the results not doctored.

I mean, this is a lot to believe without sources, facts, data, actually demonstrating how money travelled -- I mean. It's written very compelling and in a very readable style. But who is this guy and where is he getting any of this?

I'm very skeptical of any claim that posits the Democratic protestors in the Green Revolution as secret pawns of pro-Shah old guard Iranian forces and Ahmadinejad as actually a misunderstood liberal hero-of-the-people.

There were independent polls (by Western/outside pollsters) conducted prior to the 2009 elections that gave the same pretty much the same results. The counter-protests tended to be larger. I don't think there's much evidence that the 2009 elections were stolen. I also have little doubt that the Green opposition carried Tehran (about 17% of the population) handily.

I have no more idea who Bhadrakumar's unnamed sources are than who in the Pentagon is in Seymour Hersh's rolodex. All I know is his commentary in 2009 helped me account for what was transpiring better than any of the coctail party mavens on the NYT editorial page. Atimes is a good editorial/opinion page, imo. It's my second go-to after Project Syndicate when I'm looking for insight.

The Tehran Green protestors all have legit grievances, and I'd like to believe I'd be brave enough to join them had I been born in Tehran. But the political parties in Iran are no more likely to be born of grass-roots dissent than they are in the U.S. Moussavi was seen as the lesser of evils by a majority in Tehran, Ahmadinejad elsewhere.

Project Syndicate thought I might particularly enjoy this columns:
Why Do Jews Succeed?
Is Pornography Driving Men Crazy?
and A Nation of Vidiots

I'm sure there's lots of good stuff there, but I lol'd.

(Answers: Because of their familial traditions, yes it is, and the vidiots are in the United States.)

I don't think there's much evidence that the 2009 elections were stolen.

I'm not so sure of that, there were statistical analyses of the published 2009 voting results that seemed to convincingly argue that they were very unlikely to be a true reflection of voter preferences.

I'm very skeptical of any claim that posits the Democratic protestors in the Green Revolution as secret pawns of pro-Shah old guard Iranian forces and Ahmadinejad as actually a misunderstood liberal hero-of-the-people.

Not so much commenting on the first part as the second. Ahdmadinejad did win his first election on a vague sticking-it-to-the-man champion-of-the-plain-folk-of-Iran ticket, taking advantage of a perception that there was a corrupt establishment (somewhat epitimoised by Rajsanjani) in Iran who had things all sown up. I do not consider him a misunderstood liberal or leftist - he largely failed to deliver on his election promises and turned to clownish foreign policy pronouncements as a way of deflecting attention away from his administrative and economic failures.

we could perhaps do with an Iranian politics thread separate to this one, but such is life.

LOL Iran. I've heard of being caught with your pants down but caught with your legs blown off?

u a Spengler fan sanpaku?