Sauce for the gander?

I’m not sure the parallel is apt. Isn’t there some ‘ought implies can’ at work? If Iran strikes the US preemptively, it gets wiped off the map in a second strike. If the US strikes Iran, not so much. Vis-a-vis Israel, maybe not, but… are we really even talking about Israel? The basic point is simply: *could* Iran even imagine destroying US or Israeli nuclear capacity? Is there any way it could happen?

I was fairly certain that Israel would act as a “flag of convenience” for the US and strike Iran by the end of March. Forget Iran’s nuclear build up, the USA cannot stand by and let the Iranians set up a new international oil exchange due at the end of March which will trade oil in Euros. This would be a direct threat to the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency and will be stopped.
Sharon’s illness of course throws a spanner in the works. Look for the plan to get back on track if a right winger like Netanyahu replaces Sharon.

Criminal or not is a trivial issue. If Iran attacks, she attacks, if not, not. The political question is what such an attack would mean, and what an Israeli attack to destroy Iranian nuclear capability would mean. And here, of course, the Judeophobic anatoly has it exactly backwards. The world will be a more stable place without Iranian nukes, but a less stable (and less desirable) one without Israel or Jews. Iran (the Iranian regime) is an enemy of Israel and of Jews. Non-Jews may differ as to who to support. Personally I (as a non-Jew and a liberal democrat) would find it impossible to support a strategy of destroying Israel and Jews, such as that of the Iranian regime, so I am all in favor of taking it out first.

I second John Emerson. It’s wrong to think of the current administration asserting preemption as a general right. Rather, it was claimed as an American privilege. Needless to say the Treaty of Westphalia (honoured in the breach in recent years) wasn’t the only treaty to have been unilaterally torn up. The target of this treaty-tearing was just as much your notion of reciprocal rights as it was the contents of the treaties themselves.

Jaded wrote:

An attack by any of these parties on any other would be criminal, but that is beside the point. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons and either the US or Israel destroys them before they are used, I would say we are all better off. If the reverse happens, Iran attacks Israel, we face an awful war.

Absolutely. The strong must destroy the weak. Otherwise the weak become stonger and if they then attack the strong we face an awful war. And nobody wants that.

It seems to me that old forms of deterrence and massive retaliation would be effective against Iran. Anything that Iran unleashes against Israel could be returned a hundredfold against Iran, and also against Mecca and other holy cities of Islam. This would be a quick military command decision not subject to any popular or Congressional oversight.

Hawks routinely allege that N. Korea, Iran, and al Qaeda are crazy and have no rational goals, but this is just propaganda and also projection. Tom Friedman, in fact, admires the craziness of the Bush administration. In bargaining situations you can strengthen your hand by seeming crazy, as both game theory and Malcolm X have taught us, but in a high-stakes game there’s always the real chance that the game of chicken will spin out of control.

I said a long time ago that the lesson of Yugoslavia was: “Get nuclear weapons”. The Yugoslavs and the Iraqis didn’t have any, and look what happened. Korea may have them, and that state still exists. Our Pakistani friends may have them and seem to be helping proliferate them. Israel has them.

American anti-French rhetoric gets heated, but France has nukes, so they’re safe. (Are the French nukes under EU command? I don’t think so, but it’s an interesting question).

Chris, so do you think that once Iran gets its nukes the situation will then be as in scenario 1?

Much of Bushite strategic thinking hinges on taking the most far-fetched, purely hypothetical situations as a starting point. Analytic philosophy, economics, and law all delight in far-fetched hypothetical cases, and someone well-trained in one of those sciences can indefinitely defer the return to actuality.

The ticking time-bomb argument for torture is a prime example. Not a single one of the TTB arguments I’ve seen has named an actual recorded case from any actual war in human history. I think that movies have a LOT to do with this scenario — the movies with a lot of jump-cuts, a vivid villain, a curvaceous FBI agent in a tight jumpsuit, a weenie Spock liberal slapped down by the tough Captain Kirk realist, and a click track always ominous in the background.

The more egregious demonizations of the adversary might come from comic books and films too. We’re at war now against Lex Luthor and Dr. Evil. It’s not surprising that the wars are being sold that way, but I often fear that our strategic planners really think that way.

Military people charged with defense look for a marriage of capability and intent.

Intent is very difficult to perceive, and can chnage quickly, consequently military people get very nervous about capability even without intent.

In the case of Iran the intent has been repeatedly stated. The people have also been indoctrinated to support the intent by a generation of scholloing in hate and distorted history.

So..do we wait until Iran can bring its capbility up to its intent?

I have few moral compunctions about a preemptive strike against a country that says “We will attack you and wipe you from the face of the earth” and refuses to forego building the capability to do so.

Chris, no I don’t think that. But the situations are hardly analogous, are they? You don’t need me to tell you what the differences are betwen Israel’s situation and that of either India or Pakistan. But your claim was that hawks have to believe that Iran would be as justified, or possibly more justified, in attacking Israel now, as Israel would be if it attacked Iran to prevent it from getting nukes. My aim is to try to see why on earth we should believe that, on the grounds that you’ve given.

I wonder how far the bloggers who are advocating (or pre-emptively justifying) an Israeli attack on Iran would be willing to concede the legitimacy of such anticipatory self-defence by Iran?

As others have pointed out, Bush does not believe in a universal right to wage preventive war. To the contrary, the US reserves that right to itself and, with its approval, its allies.

It’s no wonder that this doctrine is extraordinarily unpopular everywhere in the world. It could never possibly be accepted anywhere outside the US as a basis for world governance. Yet the US public goes along with it. I think part of the reason is that they aren’t very aware of it, for which the Democrats and the media share responsibility.

Joshua, in the case I mentioned, I think that the Israelis would find that they, too, are outsiders.

Joshua, in the case I mentioned, I think that the Israelis would find that they, too, are outsiders.

No doubt, but those three German-made diesel subs are quiet in brown-water ops. I don’t believe the US Navy is capable of preventing Israel from credibly threatening to kill fifty million Americans (including most of the world’s surviving Jews, alas) in the aftermath of its own annihilation.

This might make even your hypothetical American lunatic take pause for thought.

Joshua, my lunatics are state-of-the-art high-density cutting edge lunatics.

Hm, I seem to have gone hypothetical myself here. Bad me. (Aren’t you glad I’, not a strategic planner, though?)

The preemptive doctrine would have deemed perfectly legitimate for the US to attack the USSR or vice-versa during the Cold War, at virtually any point in time. By contrast, standard just war criteria would likely not have justified any such attacks.

The government of Iran has stated repeatedly that once they obtain nuclear weapons, they will use them against Israel. They have a huge propaganda campaign designed to ensure their citizens hate Israel.

Israel already has nuclear bombs and has only threatened to use them in retaliation. Iran is seeking nuclear bombs and has threatened to use them as soon as they get them.

This makes the two situations completely asymmetrical. Iran is seeking a goal, at which point it has stated it will initiate a nuclear attack. Israel, being the target of this attack, has every right of defense.

The two types of attacks aren’t even symmetrical. Israel is planning a surgical conventional strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran is planning a nuclear strike against highly populated areas of Iran, or so says the Iranian government.

End of point is the two situations are not symmetrical. Although from Iran’s point of view, it might feel somewhat more symmetrical as they probably fear an invasion. But that isn’t even in the realm of possibility and just part of their madness.

An addendum to my last comment, courtesy of Jet:

Although from the USA’s point of view, it might feel somewhat more symmetrical as they probably fear an invasion–hence the rhetoric of taking the war to the “terrorists” (code-word for Iraqi soon-to-be insurgents) rather than letting the war take place in the US. But that isn’t even in the realm of possibility and just part of their madness.

Pedro,
Is that why there is no Al Queda in Iraq?

Iran is planning a nuclear strike against highly populated areas of Iran(sic)

Oh, really. Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, nor is it close to getting them. There is no evidence that Iran is “planning” an eventual nuclear first strike on Israel, wild statements by a couple of Iranian politicians notwithstanding.

Just to shift the context slightly, and to provide historical perspective, does anyone here think that Israel was “wrong” to destroy the nuiclear facilities in Iraq in the early 1980s?

That is a good question. Saddam is not the kind of guy who should have nuclear weapons. On the other hand, that attack by Israel was part of a pattern of behavior – the flouting of international law – which the US has adopted. This is highly dangerous to the world.

Okay, okay, Jet: fair enough, “terrorists” stands for soon-to-be Iraqi insurgents + true Al Qaeda imports coming to fight the war. So? How does that change anything of substance?

Went to ski for a couple of hours came back and read all this crap here. That was a big mistake – reading the comments in this thread, I mean.

“If you have burned the Jews, why don’t you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel,” Ahmadinejad said.

“Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?”

What’s your answer? Ah, I know – nuke the bastard for saying this.

Jacob: Obviously, the above was a rhetorical question. But thanks for explaining why I was wrong in my understanding of the preemptive doctrine.

Chris wrote:

The point is that a doctrine has been asserted that states that a state that has a well-founded fear that it may be subject to attack at some point in the future has a right pre-emptively to attack the source of the putative future threat. According to that very doctrine, Iran would have the right to attack Israel and the United States since Iran has good reason to believe that both Israel and the United States may attack it in the (near) future.

Chris, I think you are underestimating the degree of contempt with which the current United States administration views international law. I do not believe the administration has clearly asserted any generalized doctrine such as the one you suggest. They have only asserted their own determination to act aggressively to preempt certain perceived threats, in the defense of their nation’s own interests as they see them. As a good liberal, and defender of the rule of law, you possibly assume that no self-respecting modern state would make so bold as to articulate some state security policy without justifying that policy under some accepted or proposed legal principle or norm. But it is not clear the Bush administration sees things that way. Perhaps their view is that they “don’t need no stinking badges.”

Of course, the National Security Strategy does insinuate certain suggestions about how some future understanding of international law might be adapted and modified from the present understanding in order to encompass the new threats the strategy describes. (Given the wording of the stratgy statement, I suspect the change they have in mind would draw on some distinction between “rogue” states and other states, on “adaptations” of the notion of preemption, and between preemptive actions that are genuinely “defensive” and those that are merely “pretexts for aggression”.) But it is no part of the National Security Strategy itself to propose such a modification of the legal principles for action, only to express to the world and the American people the administration’s determination to act in certain ways.

It is true, though, that many of the administration’s staunchest ideological supporters and allies are fond of articulating a variety of interesting legal and moral principles to justify administration policy. They often seem to view the conventional legalistic arguments as suffering from the debilitating defect of “moral equivalence” They ultimately believe in a single supreme principle as the proof and moral measure of all other rules, standards and conventions. The supreme principle is this: the good have the right, and the duty, to defeat the evil; they evil have no corresponding right to defeat or impede the good.

According to that principle, they would say, whether Iran’s fear of US or Israeli attack is well-founded or not is immaterial. Israel and the US are good; and Iran is evil. Israel and the US thus have the right to defeat this evil, while Iran has no right to preempt the interventions of the good.

“the degree of contempt with which the current United States administration views international law”

The point to remember is that this is how all states view international law – i.e. entirely instrumentally and contingently. If other states became powerful, they would also look at international law the same way. It’s the states that can’t act unilaterally that incline towards international law constraints. It’s the states that can act unilaterally (and this varies from issue area to issue area) that offer their best organised lobbies (economic, ethnic or other) the temptation to achieve their goals whether current international law would endorse that policy or not.

Was wondering why it had taken so long for the usual suspect to submit his Israel-is-the-pariah-of-(illegitimate)nations contribution to this thread. Was the skiing enjoyable, Abb1?

Thanks, Jim, skiing was great today.

But really, think about it – that Israel is an illegitimate entity imposed upon native people of the region by the Europeans, US and Soviets – it’s a relatively common view shared by probably a couple of billion people on the planet. The Palestinians call is “catastrophe”, the same word the Jews use to refer to the holocaust. Whether you like it or not – they have a point. What they don’t have is the nukes, so you can ignore it for now, but for how long – who knows.

‘Israel already has nuclear bombs and has only threatened to use them in retaliation.’

This is true (or at least true-ish) but of course the statement is meaningless without clarifying: ‘retalation for WHAT?’.

The implication of course (left hanging) is that Israel would only retaliate with nuclear weapons if attacked with nuclear weapons. But that’s not true, as should be obvious. With the creation of the (meaingless but useful) phrase ‘weapons of mass destruction’, our governments did a lot to help create the myth that chemical, biological and nuclear weapons are all, somehow equal in terms of their potential for death and destruction. But of course that’s not true. Look at one of the few uses of nerve gas in the modern world: the Sarin Tokyo nerve gas attack. This was a terrible act of murder, but ‘only’ 12 people died. Compare that with the death tolls at Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Moreover, only nuclear weapons actually create ‘destruction’ (as opposed to deaths).

Therefore it has become a commonplace that it would be justified to retaliate to a biological or chemical attack with nuclear weapons on the grounds that ‘well they’re really the same thing.’

In fact as this article argues: ‘A recent study highlighted Israel’s extreme vulnerability to a first strike and an accompanying vulnerability even to a false alarm. Syria’s entire defense against Israel seems to rest on chemical weapons and warheads. One scenario involves Syria making a quick incursion into the Golan and then threatening chemical strikes, perhaps with a new, more lethal (protective-mask-penetrable) Russian nerve gas if Israel resists Their use would drive Israel to nuclear use.’

The article continues: ‘Another speculative area concerns Israeli nuclear security and possible misuse. What is the chain of decision and control of Israel’s weapons? How susceptible are they to misuse or theft? With no open, frank, public debate on nuclear issues, there has accordingly been no debate or information on existing safeguards….Could the Gush Emunim, a right wing religious organization, or others, hijack a nuclear device to “liberate” the Temple Mount for the building of the third temple? Chances are small but could increase as radicals decry the peace process. A 1997 article reviewing the Israeli Defense Force repeatedly stressed the possibilities of, and the need to guard against, a religious, right wing military coup, especially as the proportion of religious in the military increases.’.

etc. etc. etc.

My view is that Israel does have a right to exist – inside the 1967 borders and with the refugees problem solved. I’m just saying that Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is not necessarily wacky, at least not in the ME paradigm. It certainly much less wacky than the popular “centrist Sharon” joke.

Sorry Chris, my last contribution the Abb1-initiated OT discussion of Israel’s (il)legitimacy was posted before I read your admonition. I will heed your advice.

From at least one perspective — the Israeli — the issue turns on how seriously to take the Iranian threats. Strategically Iran is the far more powerful force with ten times Israel’s population and its own oil.

So you have to look at “pre-emption” not just at one moment but over some reasonable term. Chris, can you possibly conceive that Israel has long-term plans to invade Iran? The threat from Israel which you suggest might justify Iranian pre-emption are only caused in the first place by Iranian saber-rattling.

Yes, in some cases, “he did it first” really is decisive.

Even wihtout US backing, Israel is a European settler state (yes, like the US, Australia etc) and as such has much better organisation and use of technology etc. As such it can be expected to win conventional military confrontations with Iran and other ME states, just as very small numbers of British troops conquered the Sudan in 1898, as other southern african states could not militarily challenge South Africa (tho it lacked unconditional support from the West), etc etc.

Gotta disagree, abb1.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. No matter how the Holocaust has been abused to justify Israeli misbehavior, we should condemn Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial.

The pre-emptive war doctrine was not promulgated in an attempt to place limits on when war is justified, but in an attempt to remove nearly all such limits. Whenever you feel threatened, you can attack. If Iran feels threatened, they can attack. Of course, such an attack would be a strategic mistake for Iran–but who knows whether or not the Iranian leadership is rational.

Whatever the rationality of the Iranian leadership, however, it is true that the Iranians do have a rational reason to feel threatened. Many pundits in the US seem to be advocating an attack on Iran. The President has labeled Iran part of his “axis of evil,” one nation of which he has already attacked. And the US clearly has WMDs (no UN inspections required) and has used them against its enemies (and their civilian populations) in the past. It is certainly rational for Iran to feel threatened, but (given the vast power difference between the US and Iran) it isn’t rational for them to mount a pre-emptive strike, regardless of the fact that such a strike would be justifiable under the doctrine of pre-emptive war.

I’m sure the hawks don’t agree with you that an attack on Israel by Iran would be criminal. Spectacularly ill-advised, certainly. Morally wrong, possibly, depending on how much you accept the efficacy argument made by Jacob Levy. Generally bad? Sure. But criminal? Not really.

Which only goes to show both the poor state of international law and the wisdom of relying on traditional just-war criteria.

“I take it, Eve, that you’d concede that (at least up to now) pre-emptive self-defence has been allowable where the other side is actually loading its bombers but not in cases where politicians have been shooting their mouths off, wargaming attack scenarios and buying weapons.”

And: “That you can point to such asymmetries doesn’t undermine my argument at all.”

Actually it does. Questions of war and peace are not mere legal games where people get off on technicalities because the cops didn’t fill out the right forms. There are asymmetries all over the place and every one of them speaks to why Israel is justifiably worried about Iran getting nuclear weapons–and worried enough that a limited strike against the nuclear capabilities could be justifiable.

A) Israel is justly more worried about “politicians shooting their mouths off” than lots of other countries because there is a rather noticeable history of people shooting their mouths off about Jews right before trying to kill large numbers of them or wipe them off the map. Iran has no such historical worry vis-a-vis Israel.

B) We aren’t talking about preemptive invasion so much as preemptive destruction of nuclear sites. This is far more analogous to Osirak 1981 or Clinton bombing Iraq 1998 than it is to Bush invading Iraq.

C) Iran’s intense enmity against Israel is not hypothetical and is not limited to mouthing off. Iran is right this very moment funding a proxy war against Israel and has been doing so for more than 20 years. Hezbollah is not a hypothtical.

D) Seeking nuclear weapons changes the calculus of “just war” (though in this case it should be “just strike” since Israel has no intention of taking over or destroying Iran as a nation) especially for a nation as small as Israel. How many cities would you have to nuke to effectively destroy Israel? Three? Four? Presuming a religious reason not to bomb Jerusalem, wouldn’t destroying just Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Be’ersheba pretty much do it? Kill or cause serious harm to 4 million out of a population of about 6 million with the need to only hit three major targets is a pretty serious threat. That isn’t ridiculous considering that Iran seems to be going the plutonium route.

E) Iranian leaders have already publically noted that Israel could not destroy Iran in the same way that Iran could destroy. Repeatedly, high level Iranian leaders have noted that Israel could be totally destroyed while Iran would be sacrificing only a few cities.

F) This points out that a nuclear Iran doesn’t really set up a Mutually Assured Destruction deterrence (not that the left was a fan of MAD deterrence anyway). Is the loss a few cities and the top levels of the Iranian regime (if there isn’t some deniability) worth the destruction of Israel? Some religious zealots might say yes. And in fact some high ranking leaders in Iran have already said yes.

Limited military strikes against Iran’s nuclear capability make a lot of sense when you look at the facts above (even just the first four). Is it ‘preemptive’ strikes or ‘just war’ strikes or ‘preventative’strikes? Call it whatever you want, but the case for the strikes is strong (if not 100% compelling).

Israel isn’t interested in destroying Iran. Iran is interested in destroying Israel.

That is the asymmetry which makes an ass of your argument.

‘Iranian leaders have already publically noted that Israel could not destroy Iran in the same way that Iran could destroy. Repeatedly, high level Iranian leaders have noted that Israel could be totally destroyed while Iran would be sacrificing only a few cities.’

Er…unless I’m missing something here, this claim is obviously and self-evidently false. Israel has up to 200 nuclear weapons. Israel has won every war against its Arabic neighbours that it has ever fought. If a war develops with Iran, it will win that war, too. The possibility of Israel being destroyed, eradicated or ‘driven into the sea’ in the next ten years, 100 years or (probably) 1000 years is precisely zero, and all discussions about Israel’s relations with its neighbours should start with an acknowledgement of that fact.

It follows that point ‘F’ is false too.

Incidentally, ‘Israel isn’t interested in destroying Iran. Iran is interested in destroying Israel.’ is false too and again, very obviously false. Think it through. If it was widely believed in Israel (as it seems to be) that Iran wants to destroy Israel, then the obvious thing for Israelis to think is that Iran must be

a: nuetralised somehow and that if this is not possible

b: destroyed.

Again, all you need to do is follow the logic through. In the case of almost every nuclear power, the possession of these weapons is primarily for political reasons. With Israel one gets the impression (whether rightly or wrongly I don’t know) that she actually would use them, in some circumstances. And if that meant using nuclear weapons against Iran, then so be it.

It need hardly be added that if a nuclear war developed then Israel would be backed by the United States. The US has 7000 operational nuclear warheads. Iran has none.

I agree with Brendan that MAD would probably still be an effective deterrent in the case of Israel and a nuclear armed Iran, especially given that the US would back Israel. But I still agree with Sebastian’s broader point. We are talking about nuclear war here. Israel has won past wars, but what would it mean to emerge as a “winner” from a nuclear exchange with Iran? Furthermore, it is easier for us to us to live with that “probably” than it would be for the Israelis. Ahmadinejad’s calculus in not only strategic, but also, it seems, apocalyptic and therefore less easy to predict by the usual criteria. As for Israel’s wanting to either neutralize or destroy Iran, they have long had the capacity to destroy Iran, as you point out, and have not done so. A strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is the type of neutralization being discussed, so I think Sebastian’s points on that score hold.

‘As for Israel’s wanting to either neutralize or destroy Iran, they have long had the capacity to destroy Iran, as you point out, and have not done so.’

Yeah but they’ve never had the motive to do it either. If, somehow, Iran got hold of a serious nuclear arsenal (something which is, in my opinion, vanishingly unlikely) then it would be very much in Israel’s interests to launch a massive pre-emptive nuclear strike.

‘Ahmadinejad’s calculus in not only strategic, but also, it seems, apocalyptic and therefore less easy to predict by the usual criteria’

Yeah but what are the ‘usual criteria’? Ronald Reagan believed that we were living in ‘end times’. So, apparently, does George Bush. Certainly his rock solid ‘fanbase’, the extremist religious right, support Israel because they believe that its existence fulfils Revelation (or somesuch nonsense). Who (to use an aptly Biblical phrase here) is going to cast the first stone?

Personally, I’m not interested in discussing the strategic merits of launching preemptive strikes on any one nation, but on the adequacy of the preemptive doctrine as the basis for deciding whether certain types of attack are justifiable. Jacob Levy’s contribution seems to point to the following: an attack is deemed just by the preemptive doctrine if the target is rightly perceived to be a threat (not an imminent threat, simply a threat), and if by virtue of such an attack one is able to remove the threat.

Consider an alternate cold-war scenario: the US and URSS can effectively obliterate each other, and they can do so in such an efficient way that they fear not that the other will be able to retaliate. The preemptive doctrine would, in such a scenario, find it perfectly justifiable to obliterate the other.

When the power differential is large, the preemptive doctrine seems to show very troubling features as well. The powerful are justified in preemptively attacking the powerless, if they feel threatened by them, provided the attack is powerful enough that the powerless cannot carry out what the powerful fear. The less powerful cannot ever justify a preemptive strike on the more powerful on the basis that this gives them a chance to gain some strategic footing on the fight, because such an attack does not remove the threat.

In short, the preemptive doctrine seems to be worthy of being expressed thusly: my dick is bigger than yours; therefore, I have the right to attack you if I’m threatened by you, but you have no such right… why? Because my dick is bigger than yours.

Joshua #22: Good post. Conversely, I don’t think Iran would use a nuke on Israel either (if it had one).

Surely the purpose of nukes is that no one uses them, because if someone did, they’d all lose.

hirvi: nukes also have the effect of deterring the powerful from using their “preemptive doctrine”.

I did a 3 second google search with the words “Khiam human rights watch” and found this

http://www.hrw.org/editorials/1999/khiam-prison.htm

Anyway, Hezbollah is no doubt a group with many human rights violations to its “credit”, but then, so is the Israeli government so far as the Lebanese Shiites are concerned. They have no cause to love the Israelis and their torture centers and Iran’s support for Lebanese Shiites is morally equivalent to the US supply of equipment (such as bulldozers and attack helicopters) that have been used by Israel for various human rights violations. The fact that Iran supports unsavory allies engaged in a low-level war with Israel does not prove or even strongly support the notion that they’d engage in a nuclear war with a country that can retaliate with 200 nuclear weapons.

That said, Sebastian’s other points seem stronger to me. I certainly feel uneasy about a government whose President engages in Holocaust denial rhetoric and which is trying to obtain nuclear weapons. I don’t know enough about Iranian politics (note–this is an understatement) to know how seriously to take this-is it hot air or would Iranians with nuclear weapons actually try to use them?

Yes well obviously 7,200 nuclear warheads are no match for ‘highly reproductive arabs’. What was I thinking?

Of course in the real world we all know that when we all die, Israel will still exist. And we do all KNOW that, incidentally.

And Israel did NOT ‘nearly lose’ the 73 war incidentally. Aftter a few early victories (due entirely to the surprise nature of the attack) the Arab military forces were beaten as they always have been (and always will be). In fact, Egypts military forces could easily have been anninhilated had the US not intervened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War

Brendan wrote:

Er…unless I’m missing something here, this claim is obviously and self-evidently false. Israel has up to 200 nuclear weapons. Israel has won every war against its Arabic neighbours that it has ever fought. If a war develops with Iran, it will win that war, too. The possibility of Israel being destroyed, eradicated or ‘driven into the sea’ in the next ten years, 100 years or (probably) 1000 years is precisely zero, and all discussions about Israel’s relations with its neighbours should start with an acknowledgement of that fact.

This doesn’t seem right to me at all. Israel is a very tiny country. If Iran possessed even a relatively small number of medium range nuclear missiles, and the determination to use them, it seems unlikely that Israel could withstand a nuclear first strike. The result would be that the country would be literally destroyed, under any reasonable interpretation of “destroyed”.

Of course, the crucial phrase here is “the determination to use them”. Iran’s willingness at some time in the foreseeable future to launch such a first strike is no doubt exaggerated by Israel and it’s supporters, and the deterrent value of Israel’s own nuclear forces and it’s backing by the United States is similarly underrated by these supporters, but I would certainly place the possibility of a first strike from a nuclear Iran as higher than “precisely zero”.

I would remind you that during the Cold War, there were many military planners in the US and the Soviet Union who were willing to endure quite a large number of casualties in exchange for victory in a first strike against their adversary. That we managed to get through ther period alive, and did not fall under the total control of these people, is a triumph for the forces of sanity. But it was not at all fore-ordained triumph. Whether Iran’s leaders, through either ideology or ambition, would ever be willing to absorb massive civilian casualties and physical destruction in exchange for victory over Israel, is a tough question. I think it really depends on who is in charge, and Iran’s political culture does seem rather unpredicatable. I have to say that the current president, whose ineptitude and crude rhetorical bombs seems to shake up even the mullahs in the Council of Guardians, does not do much to project an image of sanity and temperate behavior for his country. Frankly, he seems like a dangerous and fanatical street punk to me, and I sincerely hope the country is able to return to a more sane and internationallly experienced leadership post haste.

You may be right that Israel would win a one-on-one conventional war with Iran. It is somewhat less clear that it would win a conventional war against Iran and several neighbors. Israel might be prompted to escalate the conflict by using nuclear weapons. And if that happened, all hell would break loose in the region and globally, with results that no one can really predict.

Of course, as Chris points out, Israel is supported militarily by the United States, and that is a powerful deterrent to attack on Israel from its neighbors. But we are witnessing a dynamic period of global realignment and trend toward multipolarity. US action against yet another major oil producing country in the Middle East might very well spark a broader regional conflict, and even a world war. The other large oil consumers in the world cannot afford to stand by forever and watch the US wrest away strategic control of fossil fuel reserves in the region.

I think one should also say that, from the point of view of Israeli long-term planning, the continued unconditional backing of the United States is not at all politically secure. There are lots of Americans (like me) who are convinced that Israel is bent on an expansionist policy of continued settlement and conflict. If it were up to people like me, Israel would be on their own until they withdrew their settlements from the West Bank, ended the occupation, and ceased their gradual annexation of Jerusalem/al-Quds. (On the other hand, if they did wdo those things, then I would accept a new security barrier in roughly the position of the Green Line, and would say that by all means we should have their back.) Israel knows that while people like me are not a majority in the US, their are enough of us to require them to account for us in their strategic calculations. Given the outcome of the Iraq War, it is entirely possible that Americans will grow increasingly weary of our involvement in the Middle East, and out fatal attachment to Israel and its seemingly unshakeable Zionist addiction to continued settlement and conquest.

I wouldn’t put Iran’s military potential in the same category of the 20th century Arab armies defeated by Israel. Iran is a very large, populous and increasingly wealthy country, with much of value to trade in the world markets in exchange for cash and weaponry, including the offer of strategic alliance in a vital region.

Of course, I do agree that with Israel’s nuclear weaponry and strong conventional forces, the chances of Israel being “pushed into the sea” by the Palestinians, or some combined conventional force of Palestinians and local Arab armies and militias, is laughable – and so Israel’s constant wails about “existential threats” from the lowly, weak and defeated Palestinians are disingenuous.

I’ll look into the facts of the ’73 War but my recollection (and I do remember it) is very different from yours. I think it was very nip and tuck until Nixon released more weaponry to Israel.

Chris, don’t you see a difference between foregoing pre-emption and actually being surprised?

I dont think Israel is militarily invincible in terms of conventional forces. I do think that Israel has up to 200 nuclear warheads, putting her light years ahead of any conceivable arabic military power. I also know that she is backed up by the US, the greatest military power the world has ever seen (7000 warheads). I also know she has never lost a battle against the Arabs. What more do you want to know?

The point of dan kervick (that if, somehow, Iran managed to get hold of an equivalent number of nuclear missiles then she could take out Israel in a pre-emptive strike) is true, but that’s why:

a: neither Israel nor the US will ever tolerate Iran having such a number of nuclear weapons (or one, for that matter) and

b: even if she somehow did, Israel would undeniably and unarguably engage in a nuclear first strike and erase Iran (and probably most of the rest of the Arabic states) off the face of the earth.

Hezbollah’s strength and success owes far more to Israel’s actions since 1982 than it does to Iranian support. People don’t like it when their country is occupied and invaded by foreigners. I’d have thought even you would have realized that Sebastian.

A) You are wrong.
B) Even if you were right you missed the point.

Hezbollah does not have the industrial production or economic prodoction capability to make or buy the arms that it uses against Israel. It wouldn’t be nearly as strong if it weren’t being funded with vast amounts of money and arms from places like (and especially) Iran.

Furthermore, however strong Hezbollah would be without Iran’s intervention, unless you ridiculously claim that Iran’s contribution is de minimis the fact that they do help Hezbollah shows that their hatred of Israel is not just found in rhetoric (as you seem to rely on for your argument) but that it extends to the actual killing of people (civilians) inside Israel.

When Eve Garrard and I agree, doesn’t that even give you the slightest pause? Doesn’t it make you want to at least try to engage the argument rather than merely being snarky?

:)

Governments often ignore ideas about international law, and come up with whatever justifications seem plausible for whatever they choose to do. Just like individual people.

The difference is, nations have legal systems and law enforcement to enforce a standard of behavior for individual people (provided the individuals aren’t too important, and aren’t beneath notice). We have a body of international law but we don’t have a lot of enforcement on nations.

So for example, Saddam believed that kuwait was side-drilling to steal iraqi oil and sell it at low prices — which reduced the price for oil that iraq sold too. I’ve heard no one seriously dispute that this happened. Saddam asked them to quit, and they didn’t. In theory he might have taken them to the World Court and gotten a judgement. If the World Court said kuwait owed iraq $X andk had to stop, what would happen if the Emir simply laughed and ignored it? Probably nothing. If Saddam wanted to stop it, he pretty much had to adjust the border. On the other hand, when iraq invaded kuwait there was a lot of confused arguing before the world agreed that we had to invade kuwait to take it back from Saddam, and we wouldn’t accept a negotiated settlement.

Without an enforcement system, international law is mostly useless. We might as well set up a system of international arbitration — find somebody all involved sides are willing to accept a judgement from, and then have worldwide public ridicule for whoever didn’t accept the judgement.

However, the participants in this thread of this blog can figure out how much of a consensus we can get among ourselves about justification for war etc. That’s something.

Are we agreed that nuclear attack is justified as a response to a nuclear attack by somebody else?

Are we agreed that the only other valid use for nuclear attack is to prevent an imminent nuclear attack by someone else?

Some people would say that it’s fine to nuke nations that don’t have nukes themselves, that since we’re the most powerful nation in the world it’s OK for us to do whatever we want to. Apart from those….

So for example israel needs nukes because if they didn’t have nukes some arab nation might get nukes and use them. But of course that isn’t why israel got nukes. They revealed their nukes during the 1973 war, when they were losing. It’s pretty much universally agreed that they threatened egypt with nukes — the story is usually that they threatened to bomb the Aswan dam, releasing a giant wave of radioactive water all down the nile — and when the russians started to supply the egyptians with something that might have been nukes we threatened the russians with MAD madness unless they backed down, and they did. We cared enough about the israelis to kill the russians and ourselves for them, and the russians didn’t care that much for the egyptians. This story is not official but it’s widely believed. A dozen people who were in the US military at the time have told me that we announced a DEFCON 3 to the public but that it was really a DEFCON 1. That seems to me to validate part of the story.

So israel (and presumably others) don’t in practice use nukes just to deter nuclear attack. They also use them to prevent defeat in a conventional war. We publicly discussed using them when we were losing in korea, and we publicly discussed using them when we were losing in vietnam. (We discussed putting enough nuclear waste in the DMZ that anybody who crossed it would die of radiation poisoning, etc.)

It seems to me that the USA could reduce the spread of nuclear weapons by promising each nation that if they get nuked we’ll avenge them. Any nation that believes our promise doesn’t need nukes to deter nuclear attack. They only need nukes to smuggle into other countries so we won’t know who did it, and nukes to prevent defeat in conventional war.

It wouldn’t work in the middle east. Everybody would think that if israel nuked another country we’d support israel. But it could work elsewhere. It did used to work elsewhere. We had a “nuclear umbrella” and the countries who sheltered under it didn’t need nukes.

I think we should make israel that offer, and require that they dismantle their own nukes and allow thorough inspections. Then if iran or pakistan or whoever nukes them by some overt method like a missile or cruise missile or whatever, we can nuke the countries that did it. So they won’t do it. It’s a lot cheaper for us to do that ourselves than give israel the money and the secrets to do it. They’re better off to start cleaning up their contaminated sites than keep contaminating them worse, too.

One thing that I find puzzling in these ‘who is going to start the Iran war and when and how’ conversations is the lack of any day after planning.

Many would have me believe that Israel would be justified in attacking Irans nuclear sites, and that when this happens other westerners should all be glad of the favour. Just like Osirik.

I appreciate the threat Iran poses to Israel. I understand Israel’s deep misgivings regarding Iranian nukes.I retrospectively support the Osirik raid, and yet I cannot but think that this would be a terrible idea.

It seems that an attack on Iran’s Nuke sites would have a significant (5%? 10%? 20%?) chance of failure. That is, the attacks would fail to stop Iran developing nukes in the medium term. Also we could kiss goodbye to any hope of popular pro-western reform in Iran as the population rallied around the flag. Also and most significantly what would Irans immediate response be to an Israeli attack?

I always find myself, in horror, reflecting on the fact that Iran knows where Israel’s nuclear research labs and reactors are. Are these not in range of an Iranian missile barrage? Why would Iran not retaliate with conventional weapons against Israel’s nuclear reactor(s)?

And this is without considering the shiite Iraqi response, or the ramifications for Iraq in general.

I comfort myself by saying that neither Iranians nor Israelis are as crazy as they make out. But I’ve been proven a fool before.

Re. Iraq, how would Al-Sistani, born in Mashhad, student and scholar at Qom, react to an attack on Iran, whether US-led or US-enabled? Our whole position in Iraq depends on him.

And are journalists asking Iraqi politicians their views on this possibility?

The reference of Sebastian Holsclaw to Hezbollah is puzzling. For one, it is hardly a proxy war. There was and is a real conflict between Libanon/Hezbollah and Israel. That Iran sides with Hezbollah is to be expected given their common religious ideology.

And for choosing lousy allies, Israel has a rather poorer track record in Libanon.

From the Kahane report:

In 1982, soldiers of both Major Haddad [SLA] and the Phalangists wore uniforms provided by Israel – and similar to those worn by the I.D.F.

But “Just Strike” is a nice euphemism. Funny that the first line in the linked Wiki entry refers to doublespeak.

Hamid Reza Asefi, the foreign ministry spokesman, told a weekly news conference on Sunday that his country was ready to resume research on Monday.

“We will remove the seals and we have announced that we are ready to start research from tomorrow,” Asefi said.
————

As McDuff said, “International law is a flimsy, shoddy little thing with no real enforcement prospects.”

Sebastian, do you actually know anything at all about Hezbollah?

Chris,
By your terms there is never any legitimate anticipatory self-defense. No? One has to be oh-so-perfect and get the timing just right in order to be accepted by your high moralism.

in Israel’s case one really has to await until the Iranian missles are in the air before one can strike? Is that accurate? When in your mind is Israel allowed to act? And Iran for that matter?

But there is such an obvious difference in the intent of the parties which provides a clear dividing line i.e. an Israeli attack would NOT be designed to destroy Iran but only its nuclear capability. (I would change my entire stance should the Israeli strike be at Iran’s existence.) But Iran’s purpose is to destroy Israel completely.I am surprised that you can’t see this simple disticntion — the PURPOSE and INTENT of the attack.

“He’s just fallen into this fallacy where most of the opposition to Israel is motivated by anti-Semitism”

You’ve fallen into the fallacy that Iranian anti-Semitism is impossible at motivating them.

Chris,
I am puzzled that you persist in ignoring distictions of INTENT, which are fundamental in life generally and in criminal law particularly. You appear to me to be making the problem more difficult than it is. Your last comment is just so confusing — perhaps yout are trying to abstract the issue too much?

Chris, the argument you present in comment 127 is really quite different from the attempted reductio in your original post. There are also various problems with this claim, one being that what counts as being on the very brink of aggression is going to depend partly on the nature of the technology. Another is a problem which Sebastian and others have already emphasised, namely that Israel has good reason to take genocidal threats against it seriously, a reason you belittle when you talk so comfortably and dismissively of ‘wild words’ and a ‘generally hostile disposition’.

Indeed it is, but we’re looking for plausible ones Dan.

Plausible to whom? I, for one, consider it perfectly plausible that democratic governments are morally more entitled than dictatorships to judge the appropriate reactions to external threats. Do you have a specific objection to this principle, or are you calling it “implausible” because you don’t have any actual arguments against it?

The logic in #126 doesn’t fit entirely.

The difference between a threat and an imminent threat is what makes the * argument fail.

If you assume an imminent threat as one being no longer dependend on the actions of the opponent, then it cannot be justified by possible actions of that opponent after the imminent threat.

Thus when A poses an imminent threat to B it cannot refer to possible actions of B after that threat as justification for it original threat.

If you remove time from this argument it collapses, but then the difference between ordinary and imminent threats is dependend on time.

“I’m calling it implausible because we need principles that are acceptable not only to democratic states (and who gets to decide who counts as democratic here?) but also to non-democratic ones. Take the United States and China: could China accept that it be held to different standards in its external relations than the United States?”

If you’re setting down as an axiom that China or Iran must agree to the principle, then of course your conclusion that Iran may do anything that it sees as comparable to Israel doing follows trivially. But is that what the argument is about?

In the case at hand, you wish to argue that immunity from attack can be lost merely when someone has acquired the means for attack and is of a generally hostile disposition. But that condition is so readily satisfied, especially when the putative victim is taken to be authoritative about the matter, that it would lead to a massive increase in permissible military action. That’s the problem rather than anything specific about the Israel/Iran case.

AND

We are discussing (I hope) principles governing legitimate acts of self-defence for states. Do you really want to say that Jewish history means that different principles should apply to Israel than those that apply to other states?

Arghh. This is so frustrating because I (and a number of other people) have repeatedly dealt with this issue, and in fact before you even so explicitly raised it.

Iran does NOT have a “generally hostile disposition” with respect to Israel. Iran has massively supported a terrorist organization which publically and expressly is dedicated to the total destruction of Israel. Iranian ministers have REPEATEDLY threatened to destroy Israel if they ever get a chance and EXPLICITLY said they they nuclear weapons would offer such a chance even if it meant that some Iranian cities might get destroyed in retaliation.

If you want to offer concrete reasons why we should ignore all that and more, please do so. But merely pretending that Iran has some mildly unpleasant dislike for Israel is not engaging the argument at all. The “generally hostile disposition” has been addressed, please quit pretending that we have somehow overlooked it.

And it isn’t something special about “Jewish” history that we need to appeal to. We can look at, multiple times in the past 50 years, attempts by its neighbors to completely wipe it off the map. We can look at, right this very moment, Iranian support–in the form of arms and money–for a terrorist organization which is not just dedicated to ridding Israel of some disfavored regime, but of destroying the nation entirely and scattering the Jews which are found in it.

I’m calling it implausible because we need principles that are acceptable not only to democratic states (and who gets to decide who counts as democratic here?) but also to non-democratic ones. Take the United States and China: could China accept that it be held to different standards in its external relations than the United States?

Chris, the Chinese government, like most non-democratic governments, does not “accept” any “standards in its external relations” apart from its own leaders’ cynically calculated interests. It certainly wouldn’t accept my privileging of democracies over dictatorships–but then, neither would it accept any principle that you’d come up with (even if it might on any given day find it expedient to pretend to do so, for show). Nor, for that matter, is it bound by common sense or intellectual honesty (at least as a matter of public positioning) regarding the questions of which countries are democratic, what pre-emptive attacks are just, or even what color the sky is.

Likewise, the government of Iran–to return to your original example–not only wouldn’t “accept that it be held to different standards in its external relations than the United States”; it wouldn’t accept that it not be governed solely by its own vision of Islamic law (perhaps occasionally tempered by self-interest and practical limits on its own power to act). Any “general principle” that you articulate would either treat an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel as justified a priori, or the Iranian government wouldn’t “accept” it.

So if “the Iranians would never accept it” is a legitimate excuse for rejecting general moral principles for international conduct, I’m afraid you can just pack it in right now and stop looking for them–you’ll never, ever find one. But if you’re willing to give up the Iranian veto, I believe you’ll find that the principle that democratic countries are morally entitled to more freedom of action than non-democratic ones has a lot to offer.

Chris,
Intent of Israel in attacking Iran = destruction of nuclear facilities.
Intent of Iran in attacking Israel = destroy Israel.
Get it?

Having taken a deep breath, I see that a big part of the problem is with the self-defense analogy.

Generally we permit just about the same level of self-defense response as is found in the threat. With individuals this can lead to the loss of one of the very few lives involved. If the theat is of death or serious damage, the defense allowed is causing death or serious damage.

That isn’t a good analogy to the question at hand. It is stacking the repeated threat of genocide against the destruction of some buildings which when destroyed may risk perhaps dozens of lives. A risk which could be completely avoided if Iran would quit playing rope-a-dope with European negotiating teams. Your understanding of the righteousness of attacks does nothing to address this.

…apart from its own leaders’ cynically calculated interests…

The famous quote goes: “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders.” Well, I trust you know the rest.

“Dan Simon: both China and Iran are signatories to the UN Charter. Your view about what they do and do not accept is thus at variance with their public commitments. I favour holding them (and everyone else) to those commitments.”

I had a really snarky reply about French diplomats and glaring, but instead:

What does “holding them to those commitments” mean to you?

What precisely are you endorsing in Pohl’s comment?

The idea that we ought to be incapable of morally or leagally distinguising between a strike on the nuclear capabilities of Iran (which has threatened Israel with nuclear genocide) and a strike on the Israeli forces (which have not threatened Iran with nuclear genocide) which would make that strike?

Why should we be incapable of distinguishing between those two cases? Iran’s strike does nothing to prevent a non-threatened genocide. Israel’s strike does something to prevent an explicitly threatened genocide.

The Iranians could have made things more difficult for my argument by keeping their genocidal threats low-key, but they didn’t.

What is this fixation with Westphalia? Anyone who thinks that states even pretended to respect each others’ borders in peacetime between 1648 and 1990 hasn’t heard of (say) the Bulgarian Massacres, Don Pacifico, Jenkins’ Ear, the Protectorate of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, etc etc.

Where did this pernicious meme start?

At the risk of committing blasphemy, might I suggest that looking for ‘intent’ in areas of international politics is a red herring? I understand the analogy with persons, and the difference between an accident (or manslaughter) and murder.

But it is not at all clear to me that states have similar or even vaguely analogous psychological states to those which human beings have. States are run by (outwith Stalinist dictatorships) various people, governments, judges, the people themselves and so forth, who all have their own intentions, thoughts and beliefs.

So I don’t think it is at all clear that to say that Israel ‘intends’ only to destroy nuclear facilities whereas ‘Iran’ has the ‘intent’ to destroy Israel even means anything. What? All Iranians have this intention? At all times? Iran is not a dictatorship you know. It is a ‘quasi-democracy’, with a democratic and theocratic framework existing simultaneously. It has politicians, from different political parties, who have their own feelings intentions and beliefs.

So if that point is ignored then we come back to the question of not who ‘intends’ what, but who does what.

In other words, I am arguing here that if Israel attacked Iran, it should be viewed in precisely the same way as if Iran attacked Israel.

(I also think the idea of creating a ‘two tier’ system, one for democracies and the other for non-democracies is also a non-starter for reasons I’ve stated on other posts).

Isn’t there a plausible reading of international law, based on the UN charter and the intent of those who set it up, that the permanent 5 members of the UN SC do have the right to make war on whomsoever they please?

After all, the UN existed pre-1948, in that was a sometimes-used name for the anti-Axis alliance. Uncle Joe had no intention of signing away the right to invade Finland, or indeed Roosevelt Cuba. Hence the big 5 SC veto.

Certainly the only wholy successful territory-grabbing invasion post-1945 was by a SC member, China. Do any countries maintain formal diplomatic links with a Tibetan government-in-exile? If not, then that invasion seems to have been accepted as de-facto legal.

This is further implied by the non-proliferation treaty, which distinguishes between the then-5 nuclear states and everyone else.

On this reading, neither Israel nor Iran are in that group of 5, so both attacks would be illegitimate. But it would be an example of an asymmetric principle in international law.

soru

‘What is this fixation with Westphalia? Anyone who thinks that states even pretended to respect each others’ borders in peacetime between 1648 and 1990 hasn’t heard of (say) the Bulgarian Massacres, Don Pacifico, Jenkins’ Ear, the Protectorate of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, etc etc.

Where did this pernicious meme start?’

Yeah and what about the so-called ‘law’ against murder? Don’t these people realise that many simply millions of people have been murdered since this law was passed? Clearly we should get rid of it and pass a new law that takes into account the new moral landscape post 9/11.

Sebastian,
Suppose I take your rationale seriously, and suppose I try to follow it as closely as I can. In the 1980, the Soviet officials could have said:

A) That anti-soviet sentiment was rapant in the US.
B) That many high US officials had planned nuclear first-strike against the USSR.
B1) That the US president was regularly expressing statements following this line.
C) That the US had been training and financing a terrorist war against the USSR for almost a decade.
I assume you agree with those facts. I therefore also assume that you would have applauded a limited strike on the US nuclear facilities. Am I correct?

I also assume you recognise to states a right to self-defence. Thus, if Israel did strike nuclear plants in Iran, you would probably enthusiastically support iranian retaliations. Is this the logic you favour? If so, are you satsified with the likely consequences?

I would also like to remark that Chris’ discussion is not at all strictly theoretical.
From Al-Jazeera:
Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani has said on more than one occasion that Tehran will carry out a massive retaliation if Israel attacked Iran. In a recent interview with Aljazeera, Shamkhani warned that his country would not sit down idly awaiting an Israeli strike and would resort to a pre-emptive option against Israel and the US. “The concept of a pre-emptive strike is not an American exclusivity,” he said.
From AFP:”If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear centre, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move,” General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr was quoted as saying in the press.

Brendan, I’m not taking a position here about whether or the ‘respect soveriegnty at all costs’ position is right. As it happens, I’m an internationalist and think it’s bollocks.

What I’m complaining about is that all sorts of people seem to take it as read that between 1648 and c.1990, this position was pre-eminent in international law and precedent, when it clearly wasn’t. I’m a historian, so this winds me up.

ROFLMFAO!

This one was a fun read to begin the week! Really fun. I’ve been reading CT, and the contributors’ articles elsewhere, for well over 2 years now. Regularly. This one needs to go into the Hall of Fame. Really does.

There’s a detailed dissection of purpoted international law, linguistic and lexical debates on definitions as opposed to denotations, connotations being smuggled in to prop by one side of argument and surprise, surprise, this thread is about that handkerchief of a land in the middle of nowhere that is this world.

Insofar as Israel and Iran as concerned, just as friends and relatives in Texas saw the fireworks display from Bhagdad on live TV munching freedom fries and gulping carbonated poison, I foresee some of the respondents in this thread clapping and/or cursing in front of their television screens sipping inspid Chardonay and biting into their canapes. Nothing new. Life goes on.

There is no such thing as International Law. There are only national boundaries, however temporary. No such thing as cross-border terrorism. No such thing as universal rights. Within a geographic territory there is a set of customs and habits. That is all. Outside that, it is free for all.

I think that the the UN Charter is incoherent in stating an absolutist position on sovereignty but also requiring respect for human rights.

According to the UN charter, its main purpose is to maintain international peace and security, to suppress acts of aggression, etc. There is no stated goal there to enforce human rights, only to promote and encourage respect for human rights.

Thus, there is no contradiction; guarantying sovereignty for all states clearly is the overriding concern – as it should be where the goal is to maintain international peace and security.

abb1, I notice that when you’re quoting Ahmadinejad you leave out the one where he called Israel a disgraceful blot that should be wiped off of the map. How much do you support him, Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Somehow that doesn’t seem to jibe with believing in Israel’s right to exist. If you ignore the fact that the goal of each one is to completely destroy Israel how do you or any of the posters here who share your opinion expect to be taken seriously? It makes you seem like delusional Pollyanas who make the worst of what the hyperconservatives say about the other end of the political spectrum all too accurate. As do the people who deny with no clear basis for their opinion the ability of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

It would have been nice to at least see mild evidence about why Chris so completely discounts all Iranian rhetoric and all Iranian actions. Anyone else want to explain it?

P.S. your link to the Joseph Cirincione interview does not talk about Iranian intentions vis-a-vis Israel. And it pretty much confirms Iranian intentions about getting nuclear weapons. What was that link supposed to do to further the discussion?

Well, Jim S, look at it this way: why wouldn’t Israel’s government reassert Israel’s right to exist by unequivocally rejecting expansionist delusions, ending the occupation, compensating and resettling the refugees and other victims and so on.

As soon as it’s done I’ll gladly agree with you that Ahmadinejad is a stooge and a moron. Until then, all you need to know is that Ahmadinejad’s sentiment resonates with a lot of people out there and some of them will be radicalized and might even kill someone, perhaps you or me. And, as far as I am concerned, Israel is to blame for that.

It just so happens that the most monstrously brutal and oppressive regime on the face of the earth that doesn’t bother other states is a much better member of the international community than the most gentle, free and democratic state that bombs, invades and occupies them. Is this really so difficult to understand? Womanizer Clinton is a much better president than born-again Bush? Hello?

“Until then, all you need to know is that Ahmadinejad’s sentiment resonates with a lot of people out there and some of them will be radicalized and might even kill someone, perhaps you or me. And, as far as I am concerned, Israel is to blame for that.”

Yes. Israel can’t be threatened by his statements because of course he doesn’t mean it AND his pro-genocide sentiment resonates with a lot of people who might become terrorists and kill you, for which you blame Israel.

And that’s logic.

“I don’t see how ‘wipe off the map’ is a ‘pro-genocide sentiment’.”

As an isolated statement it is pretty strong. It tends to invoke the destruction of a country rather than the desire to see the end of a regime. For example it is common to talk about the desire for the end of Castro’s regime, but it isn’t common to talk about sending Cuba into the sea.

When taken in context of repeated mentions that nuclear strikes to destroy Israel would be morally or religiously good, the statement becomes even more threatening.

When taken from a regime which does not see large differences between the religously good and the secularly mandated, it becomes even more threatening.

When taken in the context of a regime which actively funds a terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel (not merely the removal of an Israeli regime) it becomes even more threatening.

Since Israel is small enough that hitting only three targets could kill or significantly endanger more than 2/3 of the population it becomes “pro-genocide sentiment”.

“Just curious: is ‘Iran, Iraq and N.Korea is an axis of evil’ a pro-genocide sentiment?”

Nope. It isn’t nearly as explicit as the above and the solutions proposed are not nearly as drastic as threatening to destroy 2/3 or more of the population in a nuclear strike. (Or if we are feeling generous just 1/3 of the population if Tel Aviv were targeted).

“I don’t see how ‘wipe off the map’ is a ‘pro-genocide sentiment’. ”

Weird indeed.

“If countries trust that there is some kind of framework of mutual agreement not to violate sovereignty, they are less likely to launch pre-emptive strikes on their neighbors.”

If true, this clearly has very little to do with Israel. There is not mutual agreement not violate sovereignty when at least 3 nearby countries are funding multiple organizations dedicated to wiping Israel off the map and when Iran–a semi-theocracy–repeatedly (and through multiple high-level leaders) alludes to the idea that using nuclear weapons to rid the Middle East of its Jewish problem would be a religiously sanctified good.

“To wipe a state off the map means ‘genocide’ to you?”

Yup. Someone is doing it _to_ a particular state. The Soviet Union was not — by any intelligent use of the language — “wiped off the man.” It fell apart from its own internal weakness. (Reagan may have give it a nudge but it was a sick puppy.) A state never wipes itself off the map — that’s simply not correct usage. It is wiped off the map _by_ an external force. If the state andf the people within are closely identified with each other, I think it’s fair to call that gemocide.

Sebastian, you have an absurdly tendentious understanding of Iran, a country that’s making almost continual _fundamental_ changes to its society, progressive changes, at the same time as the US continues to retreat into a reactionary liberalism infatuated with the rectitude of its sclerotic hardening. History will disappoint you propagandists greatly, I fear.

abb1, I notice that you don’t address my entire post. I agree completely that the Israelis aren’t handling things as well as they ought to. But you also don’t address this basic question. What facts do you and those who agree with you possess that makes you think that the attitudes of Iran, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a multitude of other extremist Muslims would change if every Israeli settlement on the West Bank was dismantled? The 1967 borders aren’t what they claim as their goal. The only goal they all claim is the elimination of Israel. How do you reasonably expect the Israelis to expect to be able to make peace with groups with that attitude? It certainly seems that Hamas has more influence than the P.A. in Palestinian communities at this point.

Not only 1967 borders, but also resettlement of the Palestinians, compensation, etc. Israel needed to be accepted (needed, because I think it’s probably too late now) as an integral part of the region. Of course there would’ve been extremists anyway, but nothing like the overwhelming rejection and hostility we see now. Then the politicians (on the Ahmadinejad’s level anyway) would’ve had no reason to play this card.

Ah, Sebastian, your tone takes me back. Unlike you (I’m 100% certain) I’ve actually sat down and had meals with members of Hezbollah. And you sound so much like them it’s uncanny. They would get just as mad, and in exactly the same way, when I compared them to people like you.

I really must go now, but thanks for the memories ;-)

And people wonder where leftists get the reputation for being insufferably smug. Thanks for engaging the ideas boys.

And people wonder where leftists get the reputation for being insufferably smug. Thanks for engaging the ideas boys.

Fantastic! I really should go now, but Sebastian’s an even better candidate for Hezbollah than I thought. This is one of their perennial grumbles in Lebanese politics — that Lebanese leftists are smug, unwilling to engage with Hezbollah’s “ideas,” and so forth.

And who knows? Perhaps they’re right, to exactly the same degree Sebastian is right.

Anyway, congratulations to Sebastian. A truly outstanding performance.

“Anyway, congratulations to Sebastian. A truly outstanding performance.”

No problem. Congratulations are in order to you as well–for producing four completely insulting yet intellectually content-free posts in a row.

We don’t get into serious wars with anybody who can be reasoned with. Every one of our serious enemies is an insane criminal with no morals whatsoever who wants us dead. Somehow it just works out that way.

What’s amazing is, the exact same thing is true for all of Hezbollah’s enemies! It’s really an incredible coincidence that both we and Hezbollah have PRECISELY the same type of foes!

Of course, if you point this out to Hezbollah and make fun of them for it, they’ll get very confused and angry and tell you what you said is “completely insulting yet intellectually content-free.”

;-)

Let’s get this straight, abb1. You want Israel to give the Palestinians everything they want, no exceptions. Is that right? A full right of return for all the Palestinians to their former family homes in Israel? That is what resettlement means among the Palestinians, so far as I know. If that isn’t it, please be more specific. Because you do know that doing that means the end of Israel, don’t you?

Also, let’s be honest. It was too late for Israel to be accepted by its neighbors the day it came into existence. How long did it take for its neighbors to attack? How many times have they attacked Israel? How many terrorists have they sponsored? And yes, those wonderful folks who blow themselves up in crowds of civilians are terrorists whose actions cannot be excused by anything. Period.

Ahmadinejad are totally worrisome — one wonders, nostalgically, what would have happened if Clinton had defied the conservatives in D.C. and engaged in Detente when there was a moderate in power. But just as those conservatives pointed out that Khatami wasn’t “really” in power, so, too, one should point out that the response to Ahmadinejad in Iran has been, so far, to strip him of many of his traditional powers. Iran has just made huge deals with India and China, which is a much better guarantee of good behavior — behavior that won’t lead to nuclear exchanges — than anything else.

This seems so obvious that I wonder why it isn’t being pointed out more strongly. To my mind, Ahmadinejad is certainly a danger, a man of limited experience who might be willing to put his country on the path to martyrdom — but the proper U.S. response to him should be to make connections with more reasonable parts of the Iranian ruling class, who have every reason to ally against the guy.

Eventually, one hopes that regional peace talks would lead to the take down of the Israeli nuclear capability and the blocking of Iran’s.

Well, grh, I just tried walking him through it. We’ll see what happens.

Well, what happens is that I call the both of you intellectual cowards. Yes, the Israelis have done contemptuous things in their fear for their survival. And make no mistake, they do feel that their survival is at stake. You, on the other hand, duck and evade. I specifically asked if you supported the straightforward right of return as most Palestinians want it to play out. That is, the return of all or at least the vast majority of Palestinians to their property within the current state of Israel. I’ve watched interviews with Palestinians waving their titles and other proofs of ownership of property in Israel saying that there is no adequate compensation, that they must get their ancestral homes back. Is that what you support? Simple question. Or are you willing to support some compromise that involves more compensation than return? Given the relative population sizes how do you think the state of Israel could survive the return of most of the Palestinians currently scattered across the Middle East? It would be a sort of elimination by election. And once that election was won what would be the fate of the Jews in the state formerly known as Israel, now called Palestine? Or do you have some other scenario that might work out and bears some resemblance to reality as opposed to relying on Palestinian sainthood?

As far as the cowardice is concerned I’ve noticed that not once have you actually responded to one of my main points. In the here and now, not in 1948, not in 1967 or any other time in the past there is still a major political force in Palestinian circles that does not call simply for the end of occupation of the West Bank and Gaza but for the complete elimination of Israel and for the Jewish population currently living there to be driven out or killed. Are the crimes of 1948 and the period immediately following justification for that desire? Because Hamas and Islamic Jihad between them have the support of far more than a tiny fraction of the Palestinian populace and that is their stated goal, in no way moderated in recent years. Not once have either of you replied to that point except to engage in a “The Israelis are bad too!” exercise.

I don’t think either side is proposing anything that will solve any problems. The Israeli West Bank settlements are an apparently intractable problem to peace and frankly I do support the idea of us withholding our aid to the Israelis if they refuse to see reason. A workable two state solution is the only thing that might bring peace but I don’t think it will satisfy Hamas or their supporters, including, apparently some of the posters here.

The ‘right of return’ as such is more or less an abstract concept, formal admission of moral responsibility by Israel.

The actual number of Palestinians who would want to actually move to Israel is a different matter. They can be offered other more attractive alternatives, if that’s so important.

I already answered your right of return question, Jim S. I wouldn’t support it because I suspect the fanatics on both sides would promptly start a civil war. I’ll be expecting a medal for intellectual courage from you any moment now.

As for Hamas, they’re the rough equivalent of the settler movement, which clearly sees the Palestinians as subhuman obstacles to their ambitions. Hamas is more popular because the Palestinians live under much worse conditions than the Israelis. One can afford to be “generous” if you’re living a prosperous life and you think giving up some settlements (i.e., stolen property) might reduce the chance of terror attacks. Much of the support for terrorism that you find on the Palestinian side is, obviously, the result of the fact that Israel has forced Palestinians to live under a form of apartheid. Talk of wanting peace probably wears thin. Also, when Israel withdraws from territory unilaterally and not as the result of peace negotiations with a just solution spelled out and soon to follow, it gives the some Palestinians the impression that violence is the only thing that brings results. Not all Palestinian support for terrorism can be blamed on such factors. There is a hardcore element that wants an Islamic state over Israel and the occupied territories. Whatever the reasons, nothing excuses suicide bombing, but if you bother to read the reports of the human rights organizations such as Human RIghts Watch, Amnesty International, or B’Tselem you’d know that the majority of civilians killed in this conflict have been killed by Israel. Neither side has anything to be proud of, morally speaking. And there’s the problem with the rhetoric of a lot of Israel-supporters, Jim S. One hears a lot about the total inexcusability of terror, but it’s always about the inexcusability of Palestinian terror, not the inexcusability of terror in general. Plus history only seems to matter when we’re talking about the history of Arab attacks on Israel–bring up the other side of the story and all of a sudden stuff that happened 30 or 50 years ago (or a few months back) is just old news.

Now as for Iran, that’s another story. It makes me nervous when the head of a country trying to acquire nuclear weapons makes stupid, irresponsible, warmongering statements. I haven’t said anything about what to do about that, because I don’t know.

“Yes, the Israelis have done contemptuous things in their fear for their survival. And make no mistake, they do feel that their survival is at stake.”

As did the nazis. They strongly felt their survival was at stake, and they had no choice but to do contemptuous things. Quantitatively I’d say the nazis had slightly less reason to worry for their survival, and the things they did were worse. No qualitative difference, though.

But this sort of talk does no good whatsoever. It merely inflames passions, it persuades people who vicariously feel the israelis’ terror not to listen. It confirms them in their long-term-suicidal beliefs.

If we look at the question in terms of who’s justified and who isn’t, we cannot possibly get any result better than genocide. While the israeli responses are not justified by any rational standard, still many of them feel a religious obligation to hold that land. They could not move to, say, alabama even if the USA gave it to them. And since they have to stay, they feel a natural obligation to survive. So they will respond with utter viciousness to any threat. We can expect this to continue until all but one side to the conflict has been genocided. This is the result we should expect from the approach of deciding who’s right and who’s wrong.

We need to look at it without morality. Regardless of right and wrong, the israelis are there and they aren’t going away, and they aren’t going to accept palestinian neighbors. Regardless of right and wrong, they are a deep embarrassment to the USA in the world community and particularly the arab and muslim worlds. The USA is better off if neither israelis nor arabs get genocided. The USA is better off if nobody in the middle east or anywhere else gets nuked. We are better off if something good happens for palestinians that doesn’t anger israelis enough that they sabotage it. And any solution or even palliative would have to be imposed from outside.

I think we should develop the political will in the USA to ask the palestinians if they’re willing to become a protectorate of the USA. If they vote for it, they get a deal something on the order of guam or puerto rico. The IAF is no longer allowed to do airstrikes. Probably we’d better set up a no-fly zone over israel and palestine, and the israelis could sell us their planes. We’d open the border to jordan — israel can’t afford to do that because their first priority is making sure that palestinians never get an army, but with the US army occupying the place that wouldn’t be an issue. With things like that we *would* be liberators for them, and with any luck our army would really be welcomed. Our soldiers wouldn’t be trying to police them, they’d be primarily protecting them from israelis.

We would build sewage treatment plants for the palestinians. Currently palestinians can’t afford to build their own, and the israelis of course won’t spend the money for dirty arabs, and so palestinian sewage is contaminating israeli groundwater.

If palestinians could travel with US passports like citizens of guam and puerto rico, that would change things around some. Most palestinians don’t have the money to leave, but also if they did leave they might not be allowed back. If they knew they *could* come home, more of them could go be guest workers elsewhere and send money home. That would reduce the water shortage.

There’s the question where the border should be. One good rule would be, follow the 1967 border except where israelis have a population density above 5000 per square mile. Let israel keep those areas but swap worthless land elsewhere for them. we’d want to build some sort of wall or somesuch that defends in both directions.

In the short run, israel wouldn’t be “negotiating” water rights with palestinians, they’d be dealing with us. We would have a goal to reduce the number of permanent residents of both israel and palestine — there simply is not enough water. It’s absurd to have so many people trying to live there.

No solution can come from justifications about who’s wronger. Any solution must be imposed from outside, and should focus on finding things people can live with despite the old and continuing injustices.