Inherit, you ignorent boob.  Iran and Israel both want to be the local major powers in west Asia, ISrael under the US and Iran under Russia and China.  Did the countries not have strong ties to their major backers, you would have a point, possibly a good point.

But these countries have a history, a public ideology that justifies that history, and a power consensus that supports it.  It is true that Sadat, after winning the 1973 war, did lead Eygpt into the US camp, much against the will and interests of the people, and the present corrupt regime is the outcome of that.  But given the present power configuration, with the US losting power and Iran increasing power, a major switch like this is unlikely.

However an interesting and creative mistake, especially for someone of your intellectual stature.

Sodium:
Yes I do remember that history. Your analysis is faulty because you neglec THE critical point: The Shah was a brutal dictator who suppressed his own people, whose secret police, SAVAK was one that tortured beyond belief.  He was never a benevolent dictator or a believer in democracy.  He was ESPECIALLY suppressive of the religious leaders, which was why Khomeni fled to Paris. Had he been wiser and saner and, at a minimum, more like King Hussein, he might WELL have been successful.

However, our mis-understanding of Iran began long before the deposed Shah’s cancer led him to seek treatment in the US—and, if you remember your history so well, it was PRECISELY the US’s allowing the Shah to be treated in the US that lead to the assault on the Embassy and the taking of the American staff there as hostages—and lead to Jimmy Carter’s defeat in November of 1980.

There is NOTHING I see that indicates a relationship between Israel and Iran isn’t possible, natural or DESIRABLE for both states.

Re cyrena, February 22 at 3:02 pm #

“So, when you have an opportunity, I’m still highly recommending Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.”

              x x x x x x x x
cyrena,

I second your recommendation. I go by this book in my understanding of the history of the conflict. I also agree with Pappe’s current position, which is that there is in fact only one state, the state of Israel, which now includes the West Bank and Gaza, and the only route to peace is regime change within that one state, something like what South Africa went through,that will allow equality and power-sharing between Jews, Arabs and all others living in the land between the river and the sea.

•  “I may disagree with many, MANY of your positions, but at least I know you aren’t parroting somebody else—you think it through and, if you find a discrepancy in your evidence, you’ll alter your position to fit the evidence.  Unlike folks here who alter the evidence to fit the position.”

Thanks Inherit, for the acknowledgement. I appreciate it more than you might know. It’s true that I refuse to parrot anything, or co-sign anything until I’ve checked it out myself from a variety of sources, and I truly abhor group think.  For me, it’s a matter of personal and professional ethics, but so much of our individual world views are based on our personal life experiences.

In my particular case, this checking, verification, adjustment and all of the rest has a lot to do with my work. I used to (among many other things) write flight plans and be a ‘co-decider ‘ in whether or not any given flight could indeed operate safely in the real time environment. Such professionals don’t ‘sign-off’ on anything without checking it out thoroughly, because of the obvious. It’s essentially a high risk operation, and involves the safety of humans in their daily goings about.  Needless to say, not every ‘professional’ has that same motivation, (the safety of others) in mind, but they know that their own safety (job security) relies on them doing it correctly, so few will ‘sign-off’ on anything that they can and will be held accountable for at any given point in time. In other words, there are serious consequences for fucking up.

However, there’s a paradox to that same ‘habit’ in terms of what you (or anyone else) may find to disagree with in my positions. As a scholar, I do the same thing….(look for discrepancies in evidence) and that is what has clearly occurred in my study of the Palestine-Israel conflict. As more and more EVIDENCE comes to light, (some of it several decades old) I have needed to adjust my professional/scholastic/personal opinions based on that evidence. I won’t ignore it because it is ugly or politically/psychologically uncomfortable for whomever has to consider it, and damn sure won’t accept some of the outrageously inane rationalizations that some folks come up with, to excuse it all away.

So, when you have an opportunity, I’m still highly recommending Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.”

An interesting short Youtube video worth watching! Freedom of speech at its best!

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=mCFOT2BvRPw

Cyrena,
One thing I like about you is that you don’t believe something just because someone who generally holds the same positions you do says it—you always want to find out for yourself.

I may disagree with many, MANY of your positions, but at least I know you aren’t parroting somebody else—you think it through and, if you find a discrepancy in your evidence, you’ll alter your position to fit the evidence.  Unlike folks here who alter the evidence to fit the position.

Well, Fadel, you asked, I answered.  Your response is nonsense.  In fact, you buttress my position by adding that the Shah who, in terms of foreign relations was smarter than the Islamic regime, sought good relation with his neighbors ESPECIALLY ISRAEL—the natural alliance I spoke of.

I did not contradict myself.  The factors that lead both Jewish Israel and Shi’ite Iran anathema to Sunni Arabs were not of either’s making—they BECOME the geopolitical landscape.

As for you having no knowledge of the enmity between Iran and the Taliban—why do you think Iran offered to HELP the USA go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban during the start of the US/Afghan War? Help that was stupidly, irresponsibly and INSANELY rebuffed by the insane Bush regime.

That’s about as ignorant as saying “I never heard or saw evidence that Hitler hated Jews.”

Fadel, Lamuach-eze-yo’ Uztez, but I concede nothing to you on this other than my attempts to spell Arabic in Roman letters is pretty poor.

By Inherit The Wind, February 21 at 3:11 pm #

Fadel, you DO mis-understand me completely—but at least you have the smarts to ask if that’s going on.  Unlike that ridiculous ignoramus Folktruther.
==========================
NO, Inherit, in your attempt to justify your wild uninformed generalizations, you go on to make even more of these unsubstantiated generalizations. Here are some specific points by way of refutation:

1. Go and re-read paragraphs 4,5 and 6 of your response and you will find that you are contradicting yourself by, in fact, affirming that geopolitical considerations and common worldly interests, not religion or race, are the determining factors in alliances or enmities.

2. In reference to what you say about hostility to Iran in the so-called Sunni neighborhood you’re wrong again. Your saying that the Taliban, allied with Al-Qaeda, are mortal enemies to Iran is news to me. I don’t know where you got this information!

3. In fact, during the late Shah regime, when Iran was a Shi’a state as it is now, Sunni Egypt, in the person of late Anwar Sadat, and Sunni Jordan, in the person of late king Hussain, along with Israel, were the closest friends and allies of the Shah. So was Syria, Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world; all had normal diplomatic relations with Iran.

4. Even Iraq, ruled by the Ba’th Party under Sadaam, had normal peaceful relations with Iran. Imam Khomeini in his early exile years went to neighboring Iraq, but per request from the Shah, he was expelled from Iraq and ended in France.

5. The later war between Iraq and Iran in the early 1980’s, after the Iranian Islamic revolution, was not about race or religion; it was about territorial and oil disputes. Fifth graders in the Middle East know these basic facts.

6. Ahmadinajad of Iran was the only leader in the area who made an official visit to Iraq since the American invasion. He also recently made an official visit to Saudi Arabia, the bastion of Sunni Islam, along with other Gulf States, and was seen on television warmly holding hands with the King of Saudi Arabia. 

Please concede that you don’t know the history of the area well and that you, sometimes,  make wild statements exactly like the accusations you level against others!

By Inherit The Wind, February 21 at 3:11 pm

•  “Fadel, you DO mis-understand me completely—but at least you have the smarts to ask if that’s going on.  Unlike that ridiculous ignoramus Folktruther.”

ITW,

First, thanks for the entire post, which I really appreciated by the way. Very informative,  and a prompt for further thinking on the geopolitical dynamics, and I hope that more people will consider this, based on what I suspect the average American forgets. Iran is surrounded by hostile elements that also happen to have nukes. I don’t necessarily believe that India is a natural enemy of Iran, but that can be examined under a different context. As for the Sunni Arab lifelong determination to destroy Israel, that has a flavor of hyperbole as well. In reality, the primary Sunni Arab group in earlier conflict with Israel has (specifically Egypt) was eliminated with the Camp David Accords. So what other Sunni Arabs do you think are committed to the destruction of Israel? None that come to mind, but it’s interesting for the purposes of discussion.

Anyway, I only reposted this particular part of your excellent post because… you guys make me laugh – OUT LOUD! Specifically you and Folktruther. Just reading along the posts from post of you, just tickles me. FT calls you an ignorant boob, and you call him a ridiculous ignoramus, and it’s like watching a really good tennis match or chess game, that somehow must be accompanied by these culturally dictated formalities of first exchanging insults. I swear, from an observation standpoint, it really can be entertaining. It always reminds me of what my History (of Constitutional Law) Professor once mentioned, “Put 3 Jews in a room, and you get 5 opinions.” She didn’t mention that these 5 ‘opinions’ are nearly always punctuated with insults of all the other opinions being ignorant, but I think it adds a special flavor to it.

Meantime, I didn’t forget your response on the question of Arabs states attacking Israel. I hadn’t considered the Yom Kipper War at the time, and I don’t remember the specific details without a reference. I can certainly find that on line, since my own reference material is no longer available to me,(and it would be interesting to see how Wikipedia reports it) but for the moment,and only for the limited purpose of addressing the semantics involved in the original discussion, I’ll concede that conflict as an ‘attack’ on Israel, by an Arab state.

Meantime, I’m taking up a collection for a Kindle reader, so I can start to reassemble my own library. I’ll have to set up a Cyrena Foundation or something, so ya’ll can send in your contributions.

Fadel Abdallah, February 21 at 8:23 am #

This is, in my view, contrary to the liberal and open-minded picture you often try to give about yourself. In case I am misreading your comment, you’re invited to explain! Thank you!
*********************************************

Fadel, you DO mis-understand me completely—but at least you have the smarts to ask if that’s going on.  Unlike that ridiculous ignoramus Folktruther.

I am not saying I LIKE this ethnic and religious difference being important. I wish it wasn’t.  But the real politik of the region is that Farsi Shi’ites and Arab Sunnis have been at each others’ throats for generations.  Arab Sunnis have been out to destroy Israel since 1948.

It is an ARABIC saying that “the enemy of my enemy is my ally”.

Buried in FT’s idiotic shriek is one truth: Alliances are based on geopolitical needs. Usually, the geography is more important than anything else. And geography puts a large population, hostile to both Israel and Iran, between them. 

Classically, it usually doesn’t matter what the internal political systems of the nations are—that’s why Hitler, an ethnocentric, ethnophobic racist could ally Germany with Japan—also ethoncentric and ethnophobic racist, despite both being of different races and fundamentally hostile to the others’ race.

Meanwhile, the Democratic West formed hard alliances with the Soviet Union despite completely incompatible political systems.

Back to Iran: Iran lives in a very hostile world, surrounded by enemies. In our limited Western view we cannot understand why the Taliban, allied with Al Qaeda, isn’t also allied with Iran—but they are mortal enemies.  Look at Iran on a map and trace her relations with ALL her border neighbors and near-neighbors.  Most of ‘em are hostile and threats to Iran’s existence.  Logic says she would not make MORE enemies but reach out to those who share her enemies.  And that means Israel.

Fadel, the CAUSE of the enmity may be racial, which I deplore, but the REALITY is that it exists, as much as I wish it didn’t.

Inherit, you ignorant boob.  It is your geo-political naivete, a lack of realism,  that holds you by a fraying rope over the pit of Ziofascism.  NO ideology, race or culture of polities prevents them from going to war, as all history attests and Fadel has pointed out.  Wars are determined by the geopolitical interests of the warring power structurs.

If Iran gets an atomic weapon, the threat is not that it will use it aggressively, since that would assure its obliteration.  The threat is DEFENSIVE, that it would neutralize the nuclear weapons of Israel.  Which increases the restrictions on conventional war, which must not be allowed to get out of hand.

Since Israel is based on ethnic cleansing and war, and is hated by all the people it oppresses, and increasingly disgusts the entire world, violence is the only means it can use to continue its stealing the resources of the Palestinians, and threatening the neighboring nations.  Since Iran has oil revenues, it can fund Hamas and Hezbollah to protect the Palestinians and Lebanon as best they can, and can support Syria to take back the Golan Heights.

Therefore the US-Israel Zionists, such as Sepharad and Howard, and will probably include you as well, must conceive all of these entities as Terrorist, since any of the warss and massacres of Israel is by definition Defensive.  Since even liberal Zionists, such as yourself, maintain operatively that Israeli imperialism has the right to exist, then any military opposition to it is by definition Terrorist.

In Israel, with the recent election, it is evident that Zionism is moving to the right and even the fig leaf of the two state solution is being rejected.  The rest of the world, including the US population however, is moving to the left, leaving Ziolibs in the center no traction or support.  I would guess that you will move to the right too, putting on a liberal guise, like Sepharad, while increasing the emphasis on Aipac arguments for war and oppression.

This is why the Jewish population has been so mindless and braindead. They cannot distinguish between the Jewish population and Zionist power, and feel, rather than think, that the current short term policies are disastrous in the long run. But, like you,  are afraid to think outside of the Aipac and Likud subtext, which is now held by all the main Israeli parties, and by Obama as well.  Since the US and the West are rapidly losing world power, I doubt that Israel will survive past the next few decades. 

but it can kill a lot of people before it does, the Masada complex being part of its death policies.

By Ed Harges, February 20 at 5:30 pm #

D’après cable news, the first thing Netanyahu did upon winning was to announce that he wants to eliminate the phony ‘threat[’ from Iran. That means that the Israel lobby, which always pushes the Israeli government line unquestioningly, will start pushing harder than ever for war against Iran, and the usual overwhelming majority in Congress, many of them Democrats, will scream in unison with the Israel lobby. Can anyone imagine Obama resisting this? I can’t.

  x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xx x x

I sure can.

By Inherit The Wind, February 21 at 7:25 am #

What drives me crazy is there’s NO reason for enmity between Israel and Iran—in fact, just the opposite.  They are natural allies—separated by Sunni Arabs.  Israel—Jews of various ethnic types, and Iran—Shi’ite Persians (Aryans).
=====================
Judging from your comment above, Inherit, I can see that in your world view you place great value on race and religion in determining alliances and enmities between nations.

This is, in my view, contrary to the liberal and open-minded picture you often try to give about yourself. In case I am misreading your comment, you’re invited to explain! Thank you!

Three articles related to this thread, for further reading and enlightenment!
============================

Netanyahu Asked To Form New Israeli Government
By Donald Macintyre

http://www.countercurrents.org/macintyre210209.htm

Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish leader of Israel’s biggest right-wing party, Likud, was yesterday given six weeks to form a coalition government as he appealed for a “new approach” of unity to deal with the “great challenges” from Iran’s nuclear programme and the global recession

Obama Was Unconvinced By Bibi’s Desire For Peace
By Robert Fisk

http://www.countercurrents.org/fisk210209.htm

Mr Obama, who figured out the Middle East pretty quickly, apparently found Bibi arrogant and unconvincing in his professed desire for peace with the Palestinians. What Mr Netanyahu thought of Mr Obama is not known, but he could scarcely have tried to hide his election line: security for Israel, but no Palestinian state

Global Boycott Movement Marks Its Successes
By Jeff Handmaker

http://www.countercurrents.org/handmaker210209.htm

Responding to the many calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, solidarity movements around the world have marked many successes. It is important for human rights advocates to build on this momentum and seize the opportunity to do what is within their power to try and hold Israel accountable for its abuses of human rights and other international laws

What drives me crazy is there’s NO reason for enmity between Israel and Iran—in fact, just the opposite.  They are natural allies—separated by Sunni Arabs.  Israel—Jews of various ethnic types, and Iran—Shi’ite Persians (Aryans).

So they are in this vicious dance between, now What-a-Yahoo and Imadinnerjacket, like binary stars spinning closer and closer till they destroy each other.

Who benefits from this?  Who set this up and egged this on?  Who wants BOTH Israel and Iran at war and finally destroyed?

Notice that the LATEST suicide bombers have been Taliban based Sunnis attacking Shi’ites.  Iran HATES the Taliban, probably far more than it hates Israel (Unless What-a-Yahoo ratchets up the brinkmanship—maybe Tzippi Livni should take the Foreign Minister portfolio to prevent that!)

It’s such a bizarre situation that’s SO bad for both it’s got to be encouraged by someone who hates them both….kinda like France and Britain trying to goad Hitler into attacking the USSR in 1939. 

(Of course, Stalin signed the Non-Aggression Pact and Hitler attacked Poland 7 days later—but even George F. Kennan agreed that Stalin had few options at that point)

By Inherit The Wind, February 20 at 12:51 pm #
“Now I’m depressed…”
then later…
“Funny thing—on the Wednesday after Election Day in 1980, a prof I worked for as a T/A told the class that he thought an era of meanness, and lack of compassion for the poor, emphasis on the rich, destroying the environment were all right around the corner.  Was he right!”
~*~
ITW,

I’m in total empathy with your depression, and I mean that as sincerely as I generally am. Seriously, I understand the depression from your end. Needless to say, I’m pretty shaken up myself, for the same reasons.

And yes, that professor was right smack dab on the mark. I’m not a professor, but I’m a perpetual apprentice – long enough to have noticed the same thing. Thinking back to around the same time of the professor’s comment, remember the music of the day as well? Marvin Gaye was belting out all of these same predictions, and he wasn’t the only one. Still, I always think of that every time I hear his classic Environment song, “What’s Goin’ On?”. And it speaks to the whole environment, including this era of meanness.

It’s still here, and the last 8 years have been like the culmination of the destruction. I’m still shocked and awed, but I think the shelling and bombing has stopped, and that there are at least a few emergency rescue workers trying to work the scene.

It’s enough to make us depressed even without continued political drama from Israel.

Oh…the ‘What-a-yahoo’ is pretty good, but rowdy’s Imadinnerjacket in Iran is still the best.

D’après cable news, the first thing Netanyahu did upon winning was to announce that he wants to eliminate the phony ‘threat[’ from Iran. That means that the Israel lobby, which always pushes the Israeli government line unquestioningly, will start pushing harder than ever for war against Iran, and the usual overwhelming majority in Congress, many of them Democrats, will scream in unison with the Israel lobby. Can anyone imagine Obama resisting this? I can’t.

Think our economy’s scary now? Imagine our economy with gasoline at five, seven, or ten dollars a gallon. That’s only the most obvious and immediate consequence of Netanyahu’s ascent.

And as gas starts shooting back up to stratospheric levels, murdering our economic stimulus in the cradle, expect Israel’s fanatical protectors (like Inherit the Wind) to start screaming that it’s all because of “speculators”, and has nothing to do with the fact that Israel is threatening to nuke the Persian Gulf.

Israel and its spies.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/cousin-of-alleged-911-hijacker-exposed-as-israeli-spy.html

Now I’m depressed…

I haven’t been this disappointed since George W. Bush’s “re-election” in 2004.  In 2000, I actually thought the jackass might be tolerable, like his father.  But in 2004 we all KNEW he was a dangerous screw-up.

And we know What-a-yahoo is a crazy screw-up too.

Funny thing—on the Wednesday after Election Day in 1980, a prof I worked for as a T/A told the class that he thought an era of meanness, and lack of compassion for the poor, emphasis on the rich, destroying the environment were all right around the corner.  Was he right!

What-a-yahoo was a lousy PM last time.  What make Peres think he’ll be any better? Because if he REALLY wants Lippi and Barak to work with him, he’s got to abandon ALL the idiocy of the Likud and become a Kadima or Labor PM—and he’s not gonna do that.