Israeli officials are again complaining that public statements from top U.S. officials have not been sufficiently supportive of waging war on Iran and have played into the hands of the Ayatollahs.
This is not a first. Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other senior Israeli officials complained that U.S. officials speaking publicly about their reluctance to start a war with Iran ”served Iran’s interests.”
The consensus in the U.S. military and intelligence community is that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and has demonstrated no intention of doing so. Given these assessments, and in the face of an increasingly hawkish Israel and a Congress vying for war, several high level U.S. officials have publicly warned against a preemptive military strike on Iran and have even stated that the U.S. wouldn’t back Israel if it decided to attack on its own.
“If the United States doesn’t broadcast determination all along the road, both in sanctions and in the threat of military action, Tehran is liable to mistakenly understand from this that 2012 is a lost year for the international community, so its nuclear program can advance as usual,” a senior Israeli official told Ha’aretz.
“At the moment,” the official continued, “largely because of the administration’s contradictory messages, the Iranians assume that nothing military will happen before the U.S. presidential elections in November. They believe the administration fears an attack because of the danger that gas prices will rise, and that Israel won’t move without a green light from Washington. Iran is under more pressure than before because of the sanctions, but absent a unified and determined front against it, it won’t change its mind about the nuclear issue.”
Of course, as best as anybody can tell, the Iranians have made up their mind about the nuclear issue. Namely, they have decided not to develop nuclear weapons, to allow inspections and 24 hour surveillance at all 15 of their declared enrichment sites, and to ask for peaceful negotiations and a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The latter suggestion is rejected outright by Israel, which may be the crux of the problem, as opposed to American reluctance to start another unnecessary war.
Stay home, Netanyahu. We don't want your war!!!
One would think Netanyahu had a terrible youth with lots of suffering but the guy grew up in a rich neighborhood on the mainline of Philadelphia area. Natanyahu tough image came from the fact that his brother was killed on the airport raid in Africa. Natanyahu is more of a director when it comes to bleeding and actually doing the fighting. Natanyhu favorite stores is the suffering of his grandfather in old Europe. I do not know a lot of my grandfather who grew up in the United States. How is this clown such an expert on his grandfather? I suspect his is a phony of that one also. I know nothing of the day to day living of my grandparents.
What makes this so bad is our kids will die over this phony individual who was a spoiled brat growing up in a rich school and thinking they hated me because of my religion. A cry that J. Pollard always made.
People use suffering to justify their mistreatment of other all the time. Usually it's the own. Netanyahoo does one better trying to claim the moral high ground with his grandfather's suffering. The man needs to grow up and get past his neurosis.
I think Netanyahu and his political establishment are pushing for this like mad because another window is closing on them which many people aren't talking about, namely that Iraq is trying to get its air-force up and running. They have around 20 F-16s and will be procuring more modern equipment like SAMs now that sanctions aren't on them any more.
If the US won't force down Iranian-bound F-16s – I'm pretty sure Baghdad will do what it can to down them – and I think the Israeli government is taking this into calculation.
Poor Israel. Poor poor Israel. Always the victim. Israel wants a war on Iran and the danged US won't oblige. Poor Israel. Say, you can almost smell the fires of HolocaustⓇ being stoked for graphic effect.
So sad when you find out the Americans are done with taking orders from some two-bit postage stamp of a country that keeps trying to start wars it can't finish. If no one else, the US military is not going to put up with this nonsense any more. They've had it with dying for Israel.
Those days are gone.
Correction: in a few days we are all going to find out whether those days are gone or not. God help us if they're not.
Tell the little toy country that the USA is no going to obey it's zoinist masters……. for a change!
Tell the US Congress. They haven't gotten that message yet.
[…] but absent a unified and determined front against it, it won’t change its mind about the nuclear issue.” Doubt such a front'd do the trick either… and 'the nuclear issue' is misleading, it's Israel's issue and if it weren't a 'nuclear' issue they'd find some other pretext to push the US to burn their witches for them.
Oh darn, Israel will have to fight its own war by itself. Imagine that.
Or not.
We shall see.
On the other hand, why is Israel so against the Middle East being declared a nuclear-free zone? After all, they aren't hiding a stockpile of undeclared, uninspected, and unaccounted for nuclear weapons are they? If they don't already have nuclear weapons- like we've been led to believe for decades- then it shouldn't be a problem, right? RIGHT?
You people make me sick. Iran is a very evil society that represses its citizens, hates women, outlaws reproductive rights / abortions, kills and maims minor criminals, and sponsors terrorism all over the work. That is the requiem you are defending. You folks sicken me.
You also forgot to list the other side. Synagogue's in Tehran and a proud history which includes the history of Cyrus the Great and all that he did for the Jewish peoples. Balance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_synagogues_i…
So?
You must be easily sickened.
Do you get equally 'queasy' at other similar evils at home which should be addressed and would be without recourse to humanitarian bombardment? Or are you purely a 'globalist'?
We don't even use war to stop a real genocides fer pete's sakes.
I thought we were talking about Iran….not the Conservative Republicans.
It makes me sick that we have to send our children to slaughter for Israel to be satisfied on the world political stage. Just because we don't want to pay for another country's war (again) with our money and blood does not mean we support the country they want to attack. That should be obvious, but…oh well. ..you can't win an argument with a psychopath.
It's not even close to how sick people like you make us – with your lies and more damned lies. You are so caught up in BS you don't even know what is true and what's not – we know that if it makes Israel look bad than it must be a lie – and it it makes Isarel look good than it must be true…
Save it – the truth is out, the lies are old – but you don't want to know…
A-hole
Come on ML3, A-holes do a necessary function, namely, passing things like this guy Pete out.
I hear they eat cows, too. What an unreconstructed, unHindu people… …in addition to being less progressive than yourself.
If you replace "Iran" with "Israel" in your post, Pete, you'll get a lot more love here, I promise you.
Personally- even if I weren't a Muslim- I'd much more prefer to have Iran as an ally in the Middle East than Israel. Why? Have you got a few hours so I can 'splain it to you?
Israel attack Iran, what a joke. Yeah, they can bomb it once or twice. There's only one country that could project that kind of power, and everybody knows it.
I can't help wondering what GW would have done? Dick Cheney pressing home for attack…
Tell the Israelis we will be glad to support an attack on Iran right after they send us 20,000 Israeli soldiers to help us finish the other wars they so gleefully encouraged America to start.
"Another year lost to the 'international community'". Maybe that's what the Tsar's police should have said instead of the 'Elders of Zion'. For with gallant little Israel calling the shots for the 'International Community', they seem to have gotten the rest of the story right.
The psychopaths in Israel think that America is a hired gun? Let's hope Obama doesn't cave to their insanity.
"Hired?" They wish. I don't see any shekels coming into the US Treasury to pay for our participation. They expect us to do it gratis.
Warmongers and people without morals complain? Just aswer to the World why You follow some religious texts / Bible as Land Registry and Al Mighty Realestate Agent/ and rest follows International Laws and Norms. Why you hold on arsenal of undeclared WMD…..Time is comming that World will complain why this "embarising, colonial enterprice called Israel" was not abolishet yet!?!?! peter czech
US officials are speaking publicly not to serve Iran's interests but rather the interests of the American people. Public statements undermine the politicians like Joe Leiberman and a pack of others promoting the zionist agenda over the welfare of their fellow citizens. The zionist state is the greatest threat to the whole world due to their obscene and corrosive influence on our democratic republic. Identifying the pockets of this influence and resisting this is the most important thing any American can do to protect the future welfare of children. If the zionist state desires to continue existing , a change in their activities should procede immediately. The existence of a zionist entity is not required to preserve the Jewish people. It is required to establish racist colonial power in the region interfering with the democratic rights of the people of Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Lybia, and now Syria. The goal is not security for the zionist state but economic and military hegemony in preparation for control of the energy resources of the middle east. The sovereignty of peoples is now in long term jeopardy. Unite, localize, teach, resist through democratic means. It is not too late. That is why liars lie. We all have power. Never let it go.
The US historically biggest arms export went to Saudi-Arabia and now the US wants to create a Middle-Eastern NATO ie Sunni-Wahhabi Khalifate regional military power it will end up as; Seeing how the US is sponsoring the Islamic spring, or the "arab spring" as the media calls it. Islamists win elections in Tunisia, Egypt, everywhere…
The US is creating 'an axis of evil' around Israel, seems the US is a bigger threat to Israel than Iran, no? Sunnis was and will remain Israel's (and the world's) biggest islamist headache. Or is this something Israel wants, needs threats around it to be able to function as a state in perpetual war that can get with lebensraum expansion?
I think Israel needs Iran n vice versa. Israel needs someone to take the load of the mostly Sunni middle east and Iran needs Israel to be around for the Sunni-NATO to stop looking for a repeat of Iran-Iraq war, this time regional scale. Israel has to be foolish to think that if the Iranian regime gets toppled, that whoever takes over will forgive war on Iran and be able to work with them when the Sunni-NATO starts to knock on Israel's door. Israel should go no further than a 'cold war' with Iran, it's best for both countries in the long run.
Line up all the jihadists that the US sponsors in Arab countries, those in Iran, those in Balkans, Caucasus, and other kinds of groups in South America, south-east Asia. I think statistically the US is the biggest ever terrorist supporter today and in history.
Interesting observation about Sunni Muslims being Israel's biggest headache. Even more telling in light of the fact that Iran- the enemy Israel is crying about so often- is predominantly Shi'a !
Tell me something something. What obligation does America have to the Zionist that we have to fight their battles for them? Are we their pet Pit Bull? Since 1948 the Zionist have used countries to aid them fighting the Palestinians, drive them off their own lands. Why is there a AIPAC in Washington in the first place? No other country has the privilege of dictating America's foreign policy. There's no doubt in my mind America will be at war with Iran, either to satisfy the Zionist and/or, to get Iran to agree to only sell oil for dollars. The finger is on the trigger with both of them. Armaggedon is at our door.
Germany invades Poland. Britain, out of misplaced 'honor', pledges to defend Poland and plunges headlong into war against Germany and gets their posteriors handed to them on a plate. (Never mind that the Soviets invaded Poland as well, but the Brits didn't bother to declare war on THEM. Once has to wonder why?)
Let's look back even further, to Sarajevo when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. Who was COMPELLED to go to war? No one, except those who decided it was more profitable to get into it than stay out- and we saw how that worked out for everyone.
What is in store for the US should Our Dear Leader decide it's more profitable to go to war than remain (relatively) at peace? I can't help but wonder how many more sons and daughters will be represented at the Tomb of the Unknowns when it's over with.
Nobody is holding them back. They can feel free to go do the job themselves. Since they're so brave and righteous and all that shouldn't be a problem for them.