From that fount of all objective facts, Wikipedia’s entry on Avigdor Lieberman:
So it sounds like Lieberman will be involved with foreign affairs and national security matters, though exactly how much power he wields is unclear - but probably enough to cause Israel’s Arab neighbors some worry.
Still, my original point was: Olmert brings an ultra-right-wing party into his coalition and gives its leader an important security position; the next day, Israel engages in saber-rattling with military flights over Lebanon. [Shiroko called it a photography flight, the news report I read called them mock bombing runs; but they were clearly military in nature.] All of which suggests a distinctly rightward tilt by Israel’s government.
I think giving Avigdor Lieberman a voice in government and a veneer of respectability is a dangerous precedent. This is the same guy whose idea of good governance involves shooting members of political parties he disgarees with, bombing the Aswan Dam when Egypt gets uppity, oh, and the ethnic cleansing of Israel. Yeah, great guy to bring in your coalition. Way to go, Olmert. How’s that disengagement going? Bueller?
The Middle East is abuzz with ugly rumours. One of them is so dire - and comes from sources in so many capital cities - that it has to be taken seriously.
The suggestion is that the Israeli government has served notice on the White House that it must take pre-emptive action against Iran’s sites of nuclear weapons development - or Israel will go it alone and do the job itself. Israel has apparently given Bush a deadline of six months.
It’s very unlikely an American strike would effectively eliminate the Iranian weapons program. It is completely impossible that an Israeli strike would. They couldn’t kill Hassan Nasrallah, and now they’re going to go after dozens of hardened targets in Iran? Uh HUH. Mideast go fwoomf.
And I say this as someone who comes down on the side of Israel 90% of the time in the various interminable arguments on P&R. But they’re driving off the cliff now, in a big way.
I heard rumors of an Israeli strike on Iran in 6 months from my brother-in-law the last time I was in Israel, which was 7 months ago, so I’m not sure how much credence I place in these rumors.
Well, his views are a bit more rational than you describe here, on other hand, rationality does make his idea any nicer in my opinion.
He got a newly invented job as a minister, which has no real point, no one in Israel even remotely thinks Olmert will care dearly if Lieberman wanna attack Iran or something. The isreali papers mostly laugh at his job, and the reason for it as that Olmert wanted a bigger more stable coalition (Seemingly, one without any real long-range foreign plan as he has nearly everyone from left to right in the government now) and Lieberman wanted any minister job at all, just to try make himself seem a reasonable contender for a PM in the next elections. (He takes some fire for signing up for so little achievements, so this points out what his main goal is)
You said it, it sounds impossible and it probably is. Don’t believe any shitty rumors you read, especially if its from English journalism.
There’s no chance Israel will actually strike Iran, as it cannot achieve its goals from such a strike. It’ll get an angrier (Possible?) Iran still on its way to nuclear weapons.
The flight was photography, according to IDF, I can believe it as lebanese-annoying photography flights isn’t something that new in Lebanon. And Israel has no real reason to give it up now.
Shiroko, the fact that you think the British, and the British press, are biased against Israel is either evidence of your naivety, or your complete and utter lack of perspective. The majority of British people are pro-Israel, and are probably second only to the US in supporting Israel. The two biggest selling newspapers in the UK, the Sun and The Daily Mail, are massively pro-Israel. Just an example of two recent commentary columns from the two newspapers:
Obviously Shiroko can speak for himself, but my impression is that he was commenting on the quality of the journalism, not on any perceived anti-Israel bias. As I said, I first heard it from my brother-in-law, who’s not exactly anti-Israel.
For that matter, the rabid right wing in the U.S. have been talking about an Israeli strike on Iran for 4-5 months as well–just because they’re pro-Israel doesn’t mean that I suddenly think the rumor is true.
That opinion would seem to be an even more insane viewpoint. If the British press, in general, is of such a low quality to be not worth reading, then there can’t be much press in the world that is. I don’t want to sound jingoistic, but we’re not talking about Uganda here. This is a country with the longest journalistic history in the English speaking world, and with more “newspapers of record” than the US. If British journalistic standards are too low for you, then you aren’t left with many alternatives.
Well come on, you had a head start, what with inventing English and all.
I wouldn’t hold up the Sun or the Daily Mirror as examples of British media. Judging a nation’s media by their tabloids hardly seems fair. I certainly wouldn’t want the quality of the US media to be judged on the basis of anything owned by Rupert Murdoch.
I’m sorry Tim, I’m referring to quality. British journalism is on the verge on tabloids in too many cases. (And they Israeli journalism is not that fantastic as well).
(And I’m sure there are enough excellent papers as well, and they’re probably least popular as people seemingly prefer the tabloid approach…)
But anyhow, what was written there is full bs, and just some journalists way of hearing silly hearsays and spread them around as a scoop.
But nboe that I review the text again, he the writer says there are tons of rumors, he simply decided to take this one seriously.
I rest my case with this idiocy. No planned Israeli strike on Iran, definitely not one that anyone could even remotely think would stop Iran’s nuclear plans. And if Avigdor Lieberman has a meaningful job in the government, it escaped the minds of all Israeli media, who preferred to laugh at his idiotically invented role just so he could get in the coalition.
The Sun and the Daily Mail are the two most popular newspapers in Britain, so they are good examples of whether the popular British press is biased for or against Israel, which was my point. Clearly they are biased in favour of Israel, probably more so than America’s most popular newspapers, which are USA Today and the WSJ.
As for the quality of British journalism, a broad statement that British journalism in general is so low quality it can’t be trusted is just insane. I’d have the same reaction if that statement was made about American, Canadian or German journalism. It’s just plain ridiculous.
Nonsense. If Israel would want to bomb Lebanon into the stone age, they would already do so. They went out of the way to make sure that it didn’t happen during recent confilct.
Lum, the problem is - what are the alternatives? The USA or Israel airstrikes on Iran nuclear targets is not a pretty option, I completely agree. But what else can Israel do? To allow the state that openly calls to wipe Israel from the map to get nuclear bomb? That would be even worse.
The UN process is clearly going nowhere, Iran will continue to play UN Security Council members against each other while speeding up the nuclear weapon program, as they have been successefuly doing for the last few years. And Russia and China will veto any meaningful sanctions against Iran, making passing UN resolution with actual teeths impossible.
I don’t see Iran with a nuclear bomb as a nightmare scenario. If they get the bomb, that’s a big bargaining point in foreign negotiations and it gives them status and eliminates almost any foreign invasion threats. If they use the bomb in a aggressor role they get nuclear retaliation from everyone else. I can’t imagine an American president hesitating to pull the trigger on a nuclear strike on Iran if Iran had nuked some other country first.
The Iranian leaders, whatever else you might think about them, are not stupid men. They have to know this. Iran with the bomb is a little troubling but it’s not some Israel doomsday situation.
It certainly hasn’t worked up until now, despite several years of hard efforts by major european countries, backed by USA. And currently there are absolutely no indications that it would work in the future.
In fact, Iran is acting much bolder now than it used to few years ago, while China and Russia have made it clear over the last year that they will not allow passing any UN resolution that would put in danger their commercial interests in Iran.
In this situation, if you would be PM of Israel, what would you do Lum? Could you really afford to gamble with the very existence of your country and your people?
Personally I wouldn’t want to be the one making such decision. It’s a very ugly situation of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type, with no good options available. But in the end I see bombing as the lesser of two evils. Israel will survive international outcry, no matter how loud it will be. Israel won’t survive a single crude nuclear bomb (originated from rogue state, or from terrorist organization with secret sympathizers within Iranian nuclear weapon program) detonated in its major city - the country is simply too small for it. And even if chances for this scenario are, say, 20% or 10% - Israel simply can not afford the gamble when millions of lives are in stake.
Nick, The Iran is country ruled by hardcore islamic mullahs. They are not old Soviet Union style government, with whom Doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction worked. Many of them are sort of people who are perfectly willing to sacrifice themselves (and others) for their ideals.
And it doesn’t even have to be a government decision. Few hardcore individuals who happened to be in important positions within nuclear weapon program may be enough to let 3rd party, such as a terrorist organization, secretely acquire enough materials for nuclear bomb. Just look at Pakistan, and how a single scientist was passing critical nukes “know how” and equipment to many countries for 20 years without USA or any other country having a slightest clue on what’s been going on under their noses.
As I said, I think it is more likely than not than Iran will not have balls to use bomb directly or (more likely) through proxy terrorist organization despite their rhetoric. However it is definitely not an impossible scenario. And if this will happen, Israel will cease to exist, and millions of people will die. Can you really gamble with such things at stake?
But striking Iran is also a gamble. A failed attack would result in an even more explosive situation in the Middle East, meaning that if or when Iran gets the bomb, there will be a much greater chance that it will use it on a first strike basis.
If it could be guaranteed that a strike on Iran’s nuclear development infrastructure would destroy it utterly, or at least put it back so far that we don’t have to worry about it for a few decades, then I’d support it and take the diplomatic fallout that it would cause. I don’t think a reasonable guarantee of this is possible, however.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. It’s one thing to say they are willing to sacrifice themselves (unlikely) or their troops (likely). It’s quite another thing to say they are willing to sacrifice almost their entire people. Nuclear retaliation is not discriminatory, it wouldn’t just be a few military bases.
Big difference between “know how” and “we aren’t paying attention to the guy with the trigger.” Again, the leaders have to know that if their nukes end up misused they pay dreadful consequences.
The only way to remove risk from the world is absolute tyranny and the abolition of free will and individual choice. Given that the cure is worse than the disease we have to accept a certain amount of risk. And frankly I think the risk is tiny.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. It’s one thing to say they are willing to sacrifice themselves (unlikely) or their troops (likely). It’s quite another thing to say they are willing to sacrifice almost their entire people. Nuclear retaliation is not discriminatory, it wouldn’t just be a few military bases.
Big difference between “know how” and “we aren’t paying attention to the guy with the trigger.” Again, the leaders have to know that if their nukes end up misused they pay dreadful consequences.
First - Only if you will have an iron proof that it was their nuke. And not a nuke made from enriched uranium or plutonium acquired from other source. And you can be 100% sure that whoever would do this traction will go to impossible lengths and do everything they can to cover their tracks.
Second - if a person believes, like all islamic fanatics do, than dying for the holy cause such as fighting infidel Jews would put you in paradise, than sacrificing millions of their people for a Jihad against infidels suddenly stop being such a terrible proposition. In fact, they would be making them martyrs.
The only way to remove risk from the world is absolute tyranny and the abolition of free will and individual choice. Given that the cure is worse than the disease we have to accept a certain amount of risk. And frankly I think the risk is tiny.
In my opinion “certain amount of risk” is not exactly the same as “risking existence of millions of people”.
Let me ask you this. Try to imagine yourself living in Israel. If you would suddenly learn that your neighbors country, which is governed by radical mullahs and whose government openly calls for your destruction and extermination of your people, is actively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons capable of doing just that - would you still keep a philosophical attitude and talk about tiny amount of certain risk? I think there is a good chance you might feel a bit differently about this whole nuclear scenario.
