Sure it does. If it’s viable to attack and Israel can withstand the counter attack, if Israel has tacit support from America and if containment has nearly failed and it’s the last opportunity for Israel to act, then Israel will act. That’s a red line, admittedly with caveats and variables, but a red line none the less.
They sure seem to. Read over the FAS article. The Israeli faction which supports that red line appears to have the ability to implement policy despite internal dissent.
(Emphasis added.) Right, but I thought that what RedFury was talking about was an Israeli “red line” in the sense of a unilateral commitment to act.
That is, the Israeli administration has not “committ[ed] Israel to waging war” over any particular action on the part of Iran, unless the US gives it the green light.
They won’t attack without US support but they’re complaining that the US won’t guarantee to support them. They want the US to set the “red line” for them.
However, I cannot speak for RedFury and don’t know if that was the point he was making.
Still not seeing a “red-line” set by Israel in anything you posted.
At any rate, I see your dated pdf and raise it with a current one: Weighing the Benefits and Costs of Military Action against Iran
A break-down of which can be read here: U.S. Shouldn’t Be Complicit With Netanyahu’s Folly
– bolding mine.
You may or may not like what these experts have to say, but what’s beyond a shadow of a doubt is that yours is not the sole and right view on a possible attack on Iran.
And with that, I am done with you. As I said before the reader can decide which of the two sides presented they agree with.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Correct. In short, no one’s stopping Netanyahu from doing the very thing he is asking the US to do. And yet he hasn’t.
Either one of us is wrong or you are using a much broader definition of terrorism than I am.
Care to share with us what this is a sign of?
BTW, what are you talking about? What fiction do I consider fact? What chronology have I gotten wrong?
So you’re on my case because the “incubation period” was 45 years and not 30 years?
Wait.. WHAT!?!?!
So, an angry mob murders dozens of Jews over false rumors that Jews have been murdering arabs during a period of riot and civil unrest is terrorism; but a calculated attack in an attempt to change the foreign policy of the UK by blowing up the King David Hotel isn’t terrorism? Why? Because 13 of the 91 people killed were soldiers (I think they could more accurately be described as security than military?
I never said that there was NO terrorism in the middle east before the creation of the state of israel. Nor do i say taht there would be no terrorism coming out of that region but for Israel. And I certainly never said that the middle east is the only place that has ever expereienced terrorism. In fact you respond to some of my posts that should make this clear. But I understand that its easier to argue against the things you wished I had said rather than address what I actually said. You keep doing this, why is that?
For example, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15478638&postcount=237
Also I don’t know why you and Finn can’t agree on something so basic as whether or not the King David hotel was terrorism or not. Is he horribly horribly wrong too or are critics of israel the only ones capable of error?
It sounds like it was the Brit’s fault.
Thats like three degrees of separation from carving up the Ottoman empire to terrorism. You ever hear of proximate cause?
Why not blame the Roman Empire or Adam and Eve? I think we’d better leave it to the Brits screwing up and laying the groundwork for the creation of a Jewish state in arab land.
And again I ask, why is the rift between Obama and Netenyahu always Obama’s fault?
You are certainly asking the wrong person. But I am sure someone will come along shortly and set you straight on the matter.
This is an odd comment. Different posters have differnt views of various topics. Trying to compel everyone who disagrees with you to also agree with each other is pretty close to a straw man argument in which you invent a position for them to hold and then challenge them when they fail to hold the position to which you have assigned them.
I’d say you should probably drop this line of questions.
Yes, stating that the last moment when Iran can be stopped and right before containment is no loner viable is not a red line at all. It’s a hey look over there!!! As for claiming that March 28, 2012 is particularly dated? Nice try. As is your claim that your cite can be described as “U.S. shouldn’t be complicit with Netanyahu’s folly”. Had you read it, you’d have noticed that the very first thing it says is, with my emphasis
Of course, it goes on to say:
It then goes on to describe how there are significant potential benefits and drawbacks to US or Israeli military action, many of which can only be estimated, and many of which depend on multiple variables. Instead of providing an analysis in your own words, you have again cited someone who isn’t you, isn’t a Doper, isn’t here to answer challenges, and you are still refusing to actually debate your position. The fact that you’ve now bowed out after yet again providing an argument that’s pretty much totally someone else’s words, verbatim, suggests that you will not be attempting to support your position with your own words, at any point.
I’d ask what on Earth you think my view even is, but given your reliance on strawmen in this thread alone, it’s probably not worth asking you to dream up some view that you can claim I hold. Given that in the past I’ve stated that all US aid to Israel should be suspended if settlement growth isn’t suspended and in the same thread you’ve responded that I’ve argued that “Israel can do not wrong”, well… I don’t have high hopes for the accuracy of whatever you believe my claim to be, is all I’m sayin’.
If Red is talking about that, then he’s using an idiosyncratic definition that Netanyahu isn’t using. Bibi’s talking about the point past which Iran would be told that military action is in the cards. And as I’ve cited, it was made clear that the last possible point at which containment would work is the red line he set. That the calculus is that Israel could not act on that red line without the US condoning it is immaterial to the fact that he did indeed set a red line, and Red’s anger is borne out of ignorance, in the most charitable interpretation.
No, they do not. They want the US to state its own red line so that they’ll know when they have authorization to act. Israel has stated what its red line is, and is asking for permission to act on that line. That is wholly different than Red’s claim that it is somehow proper to be angry at Israel for ‘not setting a red line itself’, or whatever the nonsense was that he claimed.
Yes, yes it is.
Try harder.
Promises, promises.
Of course, as the whole concept of a “red line” is the point past which military force would be seen as being appropriate, and Bibi has stated what point that is and is now asking for authorization, your claim that reality should be ignored in favor of your claims is still unpersuasive. Bibi has quite clearly stated a red line, and is now asking the US for its red line.
Your Argument From Nuh Uhnh is not a substitute for actually debating, let alone admitting that you were wrong. In reality, Bibi has stated at which point his administration believes military force would be justified. Also known as a “red line”.
Can that happen? Would any U.S. administration actually disclose it’s “go/no-go” criteria? “If they launch a missile at you, you have to wait. If they launch fifty missiles at you, you may strike back. If they launch five hundred missiles at you, you may strike back with nuclear weapons.” It’s always seemed to me that diplomacy is conducted in code words – “We respect the right of Israel to protect its own borders” – for instance, implies “Don’t go out and strike someone else’s territory.” “All options are on the table” is about as close to a full-blown threat as anyone is ever going to issue.
If Israel launches a strike, and it fails miserably, the U.S. can say, “We never authorized that.” If they do and it’s a sterling success, we can say something delicate, approving without seeming to approve. The President doesn’t want to get caught with his pants down, having disapproved a brilliant strike, or having approved a failed one.
As I understand it, diplomacy involves playing a lot of guessing games…even with your closest allies.
It seems that Bibi wants a commitment from the US for a UNSC veto if/when Iran is about to get a nuke and Israel attacks. That that’d happen sure doesn’t look likely currently.
I have to say this a rather interesting and creative dressing up of the old anti-Semitic stereotypes, but it collapses upon close examination.
Leaving aside the rather silly notion that New York City is the de facto Jewish homeland, which strikes as being horrifically Americo-centric as well as being potentially anti-Semitic, and would shock the residents of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, your belief that the US government has always supported Israel based on some fear of these menacing New York Jews(or non-Jews who for some reason which you don’t reveal are strongly supportive of Israel) collapses under the slightest scratching.
For starters, anyone familiar with the founding of Israel would recognize that had Roosevelt not died in 1944 and been President in 1947, he might very well have voted against recognizing Israel, much of the West would have followed suit and that would have been the end to the idea of an independent Jewish state within Palestine. He was known as being fairly pro-Arab and not terribly sympathetic to the Zionist cause, which he held a dim view of considering how many were radical socialists.
For any who’ve forgotten, he was not only from New York, but the former governor of New York.
By contrast, his successor, Harry Truman in the end decided, against advice, to recognize Israel, but, according to all his biographers, didn’t do so because of some powerful wealthy New Yorkers, either Jewish or gentile, but because of the pleading of one of his good friends from Missouri.
During the Sinai-Suez War, when Israel smacked around the Egyptians with the backing of France and the UK, the Eisenhower administration sided not with the Israelis(whom according to your thesis they would have had to due to the power of “New Yorkers”) sided with the Egyptians and told the Israelis to get the fuck out of Egypt ASAP.
Eisenhower of course was not destroyed or slandered for doing this as the fools who grossly overestimate the power of the mythical “Israeli lobby” but retired as a fairly popular President and, if anything, has gained greater respect since then.
Similarly, prior to the Six Day War, the Israelis begged the US to intervene if their was an attack on Israel by Jordan or Syria, but LBJ refused to even pressure King Hussein into not attacking.
Also, during the Yom Kippur War/Ramadan War/October War, as Israel was fighting for it’s survival and in danger of being overrun and obliterated by the Egyptians and the Israeli Defense Minister had a melt-down in front of the press, Kissinger(a New Yorker) and Nixon rather than doing what the supposedly all-powerful mythical New Yorkers would have wanted them to do, squeezed Israel by the nads and promised them weapons to protect themselves from the pro-Soviet Arabs but imposed a number of conditions on them, most notable preventing them from taking excess territory.
Carter would of course continue this tradition of not doing what the supposedly all-powerful ultra-Zionist New Yorkers would have him do, and forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon following their invasion and promised Sadat that in his second term he would make the Israelis make concessions regarding the West Bank.
Reagan of course was more pro-Israel than Carter(though New Yorkers still told him to fuck off in 1980) and even he told Israel to get the fuck out of Lebanon and had an extremely personal conversation with Menachem Begin where he referred to Israel’s invasion as “a Holocaust”(it should be noted that Menachem Begin was quite possibly the last human being on Earth you’d want to make such an argument towards).
I could go on, but those were just a few examples that popped into my head of American Presidents not kow-towing to the supposedly all-powerful Zionist New Yorkers, but bringing up Bush Sr., Clinton and Obama would be shooting fish in a barrel.
“What does the U.S. get out of its alliance with Israel?”
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Not at all. I’m saying that the “conflict” started well before there even was a state of Israel. The formation of that state was not the beginning of the conflict. In many ways the formation of the state was the result of the already-existing conflict, with the Brits pulling out because they were weary of being caught in the middle of an underground war.
Moreover, the conflict between Arabs and Jews was only part of an overall picture. There were conflicts all over the middle east, as nacient nationalisms, spurred on by contraditory promises made by european imperialists, fought their foreign overlords and each other.
So it is very historically short-sighted to put the blame for the conflict on the formation of the state. Its existence predates the state. The state was a result of the conflict, not the other way around.
I’m kind of stuck arguing both sides of an argument. One side claims that King David was not terrorism (in an attempt to exonerate Zionists of their terrorist roots), the other side uses the King David Hotel to prove that terrorism was alive and well before the creation of the state of Israel.
I happen to agree that King David was terrorism and that terrorism existed before and independently from Israel. My point has never been that no terrorism would exist but for Israel. My position is that Israel is a focal point and aggravating factor for terrorism in the middle east. And it isn’t just limited to terrorism against Israel, it has metastasized outwards.
You can’t just focus on the parts of a terrorist’s credo that talks about arab sovereignty and pretend that the stuff about Israel is really just a vestigial afterthought that they aren’t really serious about.
As a native New Yorker, I can say that a Jew can feel fairly comfortable in most parts of NYC. There are some parts of NYC, where you would feel more comfortable as a jew than a gentile and there are ethnic ghettos (Bensonhurst comes to mind) where you wouldn’t feel comfortable unless you last name matched the last names on the street signs.
I did not know this. How does this square with the notion that Israel created itself and owes none of its existence to the assent of the rest of the world?
If AIPAC isn’t the Israeli lobby then what is it?
Whatever their influence has been in the past, it is significant now.
What about Bush Jr.? I think a lot of the current anti-Israeli sentiment on the left these days can be traced back to the perceived influence ardent Israel supporters in his administration.
I’m not saying it was. I’m saying it was an important event that created more conflict.
The conflict was largely the result of zionism wasn’t it? Or would there have been just as much conflict and asshattery if zionists decided that South America looked good and never formed in Israel?
Lather, rinse, repeat:
– bolding mine.
No, he has not.
I’ve provided copious cites to back my premise. Once more it is up to the reader to decide who has the better argument between the two of us.
Words per post do not an argument make. Neither does repetition.
Once more with feeling: please provide a direct quote from Netanyahu where he gives Iran a definitive “red line.” You keep skirting the issue with endless repetive prose but the fact is the above phrase is meaningless. It can be read as saying attack today as in two years – in short, attack when they fuckin’ feel like it. And he’d like for the US to make the same announcement*.
Or let’s try a different tack and see how you trim your sails.
In light of the fact that the US was just involved in an protracted and extremely bloody preventive campaign in Iraq, do you think it is in America’s best interest to lock itself into a date-certain war with Iran? A war that has the potential of destroying two nations in the area (three if Palestine figures at all in your thinking) and possibly lead us into WW-III?
*I think all parties involved and the rest of the world know that the US can and has launched wars “when they fuckin’ feel like it” before (see Vietnam, Grenada & Iraq). Didn’t exactly cover itself in glory by doing so. Blood, mostly foreign & spent treasure most certainly. Pretty sure the Mullah’s are aware of the fact.
From a prior post:
– bolding mine.
A-Again, meaningless gibberish doesn’t matter how many times you repeat it.
B-I am neither “angry” nor “ignorant” no matter how many times you attempt to be derisive and mock me.
– highlights mine.
A-So it turns out poor itty bitty Israel is asking Big Brother whether it can go ape-shit on Iran…just in case it bit more than it could chew? Otherwise why the need for permission? Here I thought if there was a sovereign State in the world, that was Israel.
B-Sigh. This one-note response continues to be an ignorant statement at best, disingenuous at worst. Because no matter how you attempt to twist things, no red line has been set by Israel!
C-Cite where I’ve said anything like that in this thread. I’ve stated a number of times that no one’s is stopping Israel from unilaterally setting their own red line. “Angry” doesn’t have anything to do with said statement.
A sunny day to you, Finn.
Speaking of stuck on spin cycle, you’re trying to use the Argument From Nuhn Uhhnh! again. And again. And again. Netanyahu clearly stated a red line beyond which point military force would be considered justified by his administration. You’ve done little other than say variations on ‘no no no no no no!’.
You’re still wrong, and now evidently you’re confused and think that I didn’t provide a direct quote from Netanyahu. I understand that you’re not a native English speaker, but Netanyahu was quite clear and calling it “gibberish” speaks to your comprehension, not his statement. As you still can’t actually explain how it doesn’t qualify as a red line. Rather clearly, a statement about how if Iran goes past a certain point, military action is then in the cards? Well, rather clearly that’s a red line.
You may feel free to respond with “Nuhn uhhhnh!” if you insist.
Mmm hmmm, not angry rhetoric at all.
As for why a nation might want assurances from a UNSC permanent member with veto power before it started a premptive war? As you’ve been saying (after you made me the kind promise that you wouldn’t post at me anymore), I think that I can let folks reading along wonder why a Security Council veto might be a good thing to have.
And now you’re honestly asking me to cite anywhere that you you were angry at Israel for allegedly not setting a red line but requesting that America set one? Are you serious? Okay.
From my objective view on the matter, I think it is pretty clear the RedFury has spotted a fault in Bibi’s rhetoric that is difficult to cover. Besides this vagueness in Bibi’s rhetoric, there is the fact that Bibi or his administration has threatened an attack at various times this year alone, but not acted on them.
This leads me to believe that he is exaggerating the threat, or the Israeli military feels it impossible to successfully attack without regional or American assistance. Or they expect us to just do it for them.
No matter what the intention, the only immediate goal this rhetoric serves is to continue the narrative that Obama is somehow not supportive of Israel. This message works with some voting blocs in the US and he must be hoping to influence them. Otherwise he’d have no reason to speak at all.
Is there an election in Israel he is playing to atm?
I just read Finn’s post more clearly and now I wonder: How do you prevent a war that is not going to happen? If Iran gets nukes there won’t be a war.
:rolleyes: Let me get this straight: you are positing I can’t find something “absurd” w/out being “angry”? That’s pretty desperate of you, Finn – you’re clearly smarter than that. Or at least I thought so.
In fact, if anyone here is coming across as “angry” it definitely wouldn’t be me. As in I am not the one launching into dismissive tirades and resorting to mocking as opposed to presenting an argument and the cites to back it – all the while cool as a cucumber.
Cheers.