And there may come a point in time when there is no choice but to use military force to stop a belligerent Iran. But military action taken after we’ve made progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be much better for all involved. If Israel attacks Iran right now, Iran will be a victim in the eyes of Muslims in the region. People across the Middle East will clamor for an even harder line against Israel.
Even worse, air strikes will only do so much damage to Iranian nuclear capabilities. Most estimates have such a strike setting back Iran’s nuclear program a few years at most, if at all. So when Iran continues its program, it can claim to be doing so to serve as a counter-weight to Israeli aggression in the region. It will work to persuade Muslims everywhere that a nuclear Iran is needed to protect Muslim countries from Israel.
But if Israel can achieve some measure of support from Arab neighbors because of its efforts to build a Palestinian state and improve life for Palestinians, everything becomes easier. If it has to launch a military strike, it can do so with the tacit approval of Arab rulers. And it can do so from the moral high ground, as a country that has tried to make peace with its neighbors. That will count for something in the international community.
The US and Israel could also obtain more support from Arab countries for meaningful sanctions on Iran to keep it from developing weapons in the first place. Indeed it would be preferable if Iran can be kept in check without military force.
Article comments
1 - Ruvy
About a year ago, you wrote an article focusing on whether the United States faced Sarajevo or Munich, arguing for the former.
It was a wise analogy, though not for the reasons you mentioned in the article.
The Great War ended the existence of the German, Austrian, Turkish and Russian Empires, and led indirectly to the end of the British and French Empires. Thirty years after it ended, the British Empire was gone - 55 years after it ended, the French Empire was also gone.
We are in another Sarajevo situation today. Events will transpire that will transform the planet entirely. Like the Balkans and eastern Europe in 1910-1914, the region around Israel is a loaded powderkeg, with two wars already fought here in the last three years. Off of our coast in the Mediterranean is the United States 6th fleet, a European fleet off of Lebanon, a Russian flotilla near Syria, a German flotilla sitting near Somalia (and therefore the Red Sea). On land, there are 100,000 American soldiers an 18 hour drive away from here, an Iranian regime tryint to resucitate an ancient empire that extended to the Mediterranean with 40,000 missiles in southern Lebanon under the control of one lapdog (HizbAllah) and an unknown number of rockets and missiles in the hands of another lapdog (Hamas).
If you want to look for historical analogies of a sort, you can look at the Italian conquest of Libya in 1911, and Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 - but don't try to carry the analogy too far. The point is that the powderkeg is ready to go off, and the war in Lebanon and Gaza were "pre-explosions" to the main event. We do not know how may such pre-explosions to the main event we will see, but from here in Israel, they make a much louder bang than from anywhere in the United States.
There is a real focus on eliminating the Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, or at the very least, eliminating (or reducing to meaninglessness) Jewish sovereign control of the Land. This has been the focus of American foreign policy directed from its state department for over 40 years, and is now the focus of "European" foreign policy, to the degree that one can speak of such a thing.
The "Palestinians" are little more than a red herring. They have a sovereign nation of their own, the Kingdom of Jordan, which is at least 70% "Palestinian". Any "solution" that the American government woould seek to impose would create a second "Palestinian" nation, an apartheid state in Judea and Samaria, one where Jews were banned from their own homes by American fiat enforced by "Israeli" puppets in Jerusalem.
I suspect that your point of view here is more pragmatic than ideological, and that your point is not so much to advance a dog in a race than to see to it that dealing with Iran is not a major hazard for the United States.
I suggest to you that if you wish to focus on Iran, focus on Iran and cut out all the bullshit.
2 - Ruvy
Marcus,
I'm the only person to have commented on this article of yours. The big thing this tells me is that nobody gives a damn about "the poor Palestinians". The only time they open their mouths is if a Jew dares defend himself against one of these Arabs. Hmmm.....
Don't you think that should tell you something?