- While we are explicitly told by anti-war commentators
such as Juan Cole that the only type of American Jews pushing for war on
Iran are right-wing ones, it is apparent that Jewish liberals such as Richard
Cohen are also in the pro-war camp.
-
- See: http://tinyurl.com/JuanColeonIsraelLobby
-
- Now Cohen, just like a number of rightist neocons, does
not directly call for an attack on Iran, but rather advocates a policy
that certainly would lead in that direction. Specifically, he says
that it is time for Obama to start acting "crazy" toward
Iran because of the alleged failure of diplomacy.
-
- Iran and the Crazy Factor, Washington Post, February
23, http://tinyurl.com/cohencrazy
-
- Such a recommendation of craziness is predicated on Cohen's
belief that Ahmadinejad and the Iranian leadership in general are crazy
and that the only way to fight crazy people is by likewise acting crazy:
"fight crazy with crazy." Cohen writes: "I
have no idea whether Ahmadinejad merely acts crazy or is crazy. I do know,
though, that Iran seems intent on getting nuclear weapons and the missiles
to deliver them. I also know that nothing the United States and its allies
have done has dissuaded Ahmadinejad (or the mullahs or the Revolutionary
Guard Corps) from his goal. It may be time for Barack Obama, ever the soul
of moderation, to borrow a tactic from Richard Nixon and fight crazy with
crazy. The way things are going, it would be crazy not to."
-
- It is rather odd that Cohen would pick Nixon's advocacy
of madness as a model for emulation, since Nixon, and especially his bellicosity,
were hardly admired by liberals such as Cohen during his presidency. Moreover,
Cohen acknowledges that Nixon's crazy strategy "while cunning, didn't
work on the North Vietnamese." Desiring the adoption of a
previously failed strategy is hard to fathom.
-
- Furthermore, Nixon's rationale for acting crazy
would not seem to apply in the milieu depicted by Cohen. Nixon actually
predicated his madman strategy on the rationality of his adversaries. The
rational person, presumably, would make some concessions to the madman
to avoid destruction. However, Cohen claims that the Iranians are
irrational. There is no reason to think that acting crazy would cause
them to turn rational, but rather that it would cause them to act out their
craziness, which in the particular situation that exists in the Middle
East today would mean an all-out war. To try to put Cohen's argument in
a rational context, this must mean that he sees a war with Iran at the
current time to be preferable to one in the future when Iran would have
nuclear weapons and which would likely involve Israel.
-
- The reasons Cohen gives for taking a "crazy"
stance toward Iran have little to do with any threat Iran poses to the
United States, but actually seem to revolve around Israel and Jews. Cohen
cites Ahmadinejad's "Holocaust denial" and his call
for Zionism to be "wiped out." Cohen acknowledges that
these words might have nothing to do with the launching of war-"On
the face of it, these statements could be nothing more than the ranting
of a demagogue intent on appeasing the mob." But then he points
out that Israel, having experienced Hitler's anti-Semitic words leading
to the Holocaust, would naturally think otherwise. "Israel, of all
countries," he asserts, "has little faith in the rationality
of mankind. It simply knows better. So the question of whether Ahmadinejad
is playing the madman or really is a madman is not an academic exercise.
It has a real and frightening immediacy that too often, in too many precincts,
gets belittled as a form of paranoia."
-
- So, it might be understandable for Israel to be terrified
of a nuclear Iran, at least according to Cohen, but what about a
threat to the United States? "An Iranian bomb," Cohen contends,
"is not a matter that concerns only Israel. It would upend the
balance of power throughout the Middle East and encourage radical/terrorist
organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas to ratchet up their war against
Israel. Other Middle East nations, not content to rely on an American nuclear
umbrella, would seek their own bombs. An unstable region would go nuclear."
It is telling that even in purportedly dealing with threats to countries
other than Israel, Cohen almost immediately gets back to threats to Israel
by writing that a nuclear Iran would "encourage radical/terrorist
organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas to ratchet up their war against
Israel." For Cohen, Israel's safety is certainly on his mind,
first and foremost.
-
- But regarding the US, the dangers presumably consist
of countries in the unstable Middle East obtaining nuclear weapons.
These developments, while undesirable, are hardly dire threats to
American national security. And we are only dealing with the chance
of Iran developing actual nuclear weapons, though it is more likely that
it will develop nuclear capability. And in the most extreme
case with all major countries in the Middle East obtaining nuclear weapons,
it is not even clear whether such a development would lead to a terrible
war or whether it might actually enhance regional stability. Certainly,
the existence of nuclear weapons served to prevent a major war between
the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And the possession
of nuclear weapons have not caused India and Pakistan to be more aggressive
toward each other. Of course, the loss of its nuclear monopoly
would weaken Israel's position in the Middle East.
-
- What Cohen does not even make an attempt to show is that
in regard to American security the danger of not attacking Iran outweighs
the terrible impact of a war in the Middle East, which would be a likely
result from his recommendation that Obama act crazy. It would seem
to be a general consensus that a war on Iran at the present time would
have terrible consequences for the already-battered world economy, which
would certainly affect the US. It should be pointed out that the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, reflecting
what has been the consensus view of the American military leadership,
has expressed strong opposition to any military strike on Iran and
desires the continuation of peaceful diplomacy.
-
-
- http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/513886/admiral_mullen_no_attack_on_i
ran
-
- In sum, it would appear that the liberal Richard Cohen
does not differ substantially from his co-religionists on the Right in
his militant position toward Iran. And there is nothing particularly
new about this. Cohen had supported the war on Iraq and only later
recanted, after the war had become unpopular, but included Israel in his
explanation for his earlier pro-war position: "Saddam Hussein was
a beast who had twice invaded his neighbors, had killed his own people
with abandon and posed a threat - and not just a theoretical one - to Israel."
-
-
- "The Lingo Of Vietnam," Washington
Post, November 21, 2006, p. A-27)
-
-
- It would seem therefore that the safety of
Israel always looms very large in the minds of even liberal Jews.
-
- Transparent Cabal Website http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/
-
- Amazon listing of The Transparent Cabal http://tiny.cc/zNV06
-
- --Stephen Sniegoski
-
-
- See: Iran And The Crazy Factor
-
-
- http://tinyurl.com/cohencrazy
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