The U.S., Israel and Efforts to Halt Iran's Nuclear Program
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-03-06/us-israel-and-efforts-halt-irans-nuclear-program
President Obama met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for two hours yesterday at the White House. Iran was at the top of the agenda. The meeting followed months of speculation that Israel is close to a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The president gave assurances the U.S. would do what is necessary to protect Israel. But he made it clear the U.S. wants to continue using diplomacy to try to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. Later Netanyahu expressed impatience with the U.S. position. He told a conference of pro-Israel Americans that the world cannot afford to wait much longer. Diane and her guests will talk about the U.S., Israel and their differing approaches to Iran.
Guests
Paul Pillar
director, graduate studies at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University and a former CIA National Intelligence officer
Aaron David Miller
a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and former adviser to Republican and Democratic secretaries of State; author of the forthcoming book "Can America Have Another Great President?"
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
founder and president, The Israel Project.
Reza Marashi
research director, National Iranian American Council, former Iran desk officer, U.S. State Department.
Comments
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People who play with guns shouldn't try to stop others from doing the same. Do I trust Israel with nuclear or military power? Not at all. Decade after decade of encroachment and brute force under the banner of "self-preservation" is enough.
Iran's nuclear "weapon" is the potential to produce large quantities of energy. We live in an age of energy. And as more of the world population (India, China) finds its way out of the ruins of poverty and approaches the standard expectations of life we take for granted in the West, more people will need more energy.
What is the threat? That oil will no longer be the commodity. That energy from nuclear means might defy the intentions of sanctions and bring Iran to the stage of economic stability and self-sufficiency. That Iran might have a voice on the world stage where they are no longer the demon, but an active participant.
PILLAR MISTAKEN TO COMPARE ISRAELI AND IRANIAN PARANOIA
Respectfully, Israel has never threatened to annihilate any of it's hostile surrounding neighbors, neither in loose talk nor as a matter of policy; this may not be said of Iran nor of Israel's neighbors, who in all matter of talk and policy have targeted Israel for annihilation.
In the case of Israel, the age old adage applies, that "just because you are paranoid does not mean that everyone is not out to get you". The amazing thing in the case of Israel is that despite the multitudinous external motivations to paranoia (e.g. threats of annihilation, denial of the right to exist, terrorism, repeated wars, boycotts, etc.), Israel's behavior has been extraordinarily restrained and rational.
That there has been significant rational behavior by Iran does not go to the deeper issues of a fundamentalist ideology of that government, nor to the delusion to grandeur of it's leader, Ahmadinijad, who sees himself as the Mahdi, who will unite Shia and Sunni in worldwide Jihad.
It may well be that timely intervention against Iran now (one hopes that sanctions will be sufficient) may yet prevent a future of dangerous and expensive "whack-a-mole" against nuclear proliferation. To a degree, there is already engagement in such whack-a-mole. At what point does that endeavor accelerate out of control? Ahmadinijad? Assad? An Al-Quaeda operative with a suitcase bomb?
PILLAR WRONGLY ANALYZES EFFECT OF ISRAEL'S DESTRUCTION OF THE IRAQ NUCLEAR PLANT
Pillar argues that Iraq accelerated it's nuclear efforts after Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear plant. His view is that the nuclear plant's destruction was counterproductive. His interpretation is bizarre.
Saddam Hussein, self-molded in the image of Stalin, and as paranoid and megalomaniacal, destroyed his own country, murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people, and invaded Kuwait; had Israel not taken out Iraq's nuclear plant in the 1970's, would Hussein have been turned back by Desert Storm? would there even have been a Desert Storm?
Respectfully, the result of Israel's destruction of the Iraq nuclear plant is that Saddam Hussein did not have a nuclear capability with which to magnify his megalomania, and now he is dead and gone. As well, now Qaddafi is gone, Assad may soon be gone, and the writing is on the wall for Ahmadinijad to see. If Ahmadinijad is rational, or if the Iranian body politic is rational and able to take on Ahmadinijad, then the rational things for Iran to do are (a) to see to the peaceful removal of Ahmadinijad, and (b) to ameliorate itself of the internal and external policies that make Iran a megalomaniacal totalitarian regime.
It should be clear and obvious that the results of the destruction by Israel of Saddam Hussein's nuclear plant have been positive and that these positive results have extended beyond Iraq. It could be argued that the "Arab Spring" that is changing the faces of many Arab regimes could not have taken place, had Saddam Hussein and Bashar Al-Assad's nuclear facilities not have been destroyed by Israel.
Just returned from the Occupy Aipac conference actions in DC. Most of us have read about the Aipac (I lobby) for decades. But as is often the case when you see the numbers (thousands) of people standing outside of congressional buildings in DC to go in and talk, lobby their Reps to vote a particular way say on Senate Resolution 380 you visually get what kind of pressure our Reps are under. Many of us have lobbied (petitions, individually with groups) our Reps to take a far more balanced view on the I/P issue for decades . Went to see and talk with legislative aides in both Senator Portmans and Senator Sherrod Browns offices about why they both co sponsored Senate Resolution 380 which the Aipac lobbyist were pushing for this week. Both legislative aides repeated almost identical responses. “capability” of Iran. “red line” Senator Sherrod Browns legislative aide also mentioned “constituent pressure” I mentioned to both aides that they should come to this site to learn more about the facts on the ground. That Iran has the right to enrich uranium up to 20% and that they were not going to give up that right under the NPT. The legislative aide in Senator Portmans (oh) office seemed dangerously uninformed about the Iran issue.
I heard NPR’s Robert Siegel interviewing Micheal Oren on All Things Considered. Oren was repeating inflammatory rhetoric about Iran as well as complete lies “Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map” Siegel did not challenge Oren’s false claims once.
http://www.npr.org/programs/all-things-considered/
Israeli Ambassador Weighs In On Netanyahu Visit
[4 min 32 sec]
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: