Well, there is a necessary degree of vagueness which would be determined by ‘facts on the ground’ as well as operational details. Remember, the red line that Bibi stated included two prongs.
All other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort.
It is this the last opportunity for an attack.
But the actual level of vagueness is very minimal. The red line is, clearly, the point at which containment is no longer viable and there is no longer any time to delay before Iran gets nukes. While there is a small degree of vagueness inherent in those metrics, it’s not particularly confusing.
Or you’re ignoring a very important third possibility that’s even more obvious and much more rational. Control-F for “UNSC”.
Red? You’re now simply tossing out ad hom bullshit at me, still refusing to actually provide any reasoned argument for your claim that a clear red line isn’t one, other than the Argument From Nuhn Uhnnh!, and you’re now claiming that I haven’t presented an argument or citations?
Kay.
Nope. I was simply disabusing you of the notion that calling something “absurd” has anything to do with being “angry.” Any ad homs in this thread have been directed at me – the latest calling into question my ability to understand and/or comprehend the English language. Note as well that your incessant mocking continues.
What you are missing (very fundamentally) is that there is all sorts of ethnic and religious conflict in the ME that has absolutely nothing to do with Jews or Israel - and there always has been, since the area ceased to be part of an all-encompassing Turkish Empire.
The fall of the Ottomans coincided with the rise of ethno-nationalism (and other political theories and movements) throughout the area, which combined in violent ways with pre-existing ethnic and confessional differences. Zionism is one example of ethno-nationalism based on a confessional/ethnic population, but it is hardly the only such example - they are endemic.
Take a look, for example, at any of Israel’s neighbouring countries. Each and every one of them has a lengthy history of serious problems caused by various combinations of confessional differences, ethno-nationalism, religious extremism, etc. It is absurd to blame this all on Israel - while naturally enough Israel is involved in these various disputes, they would have existed even if Israel never did (or as in your hypothetical was founded in South America).
To provide just one example, the current violence going on in Syria has little to do with the existence of Israel. It is not Israel that pits the Alawite and Sh’ite minorities against the Sunni. The sole reason that the Israeli situation is given the prominence it has, is because of relative ignorance of the history (even current events) in the rest of the ME.
In summary, Israeli situation is part of a larger pattern. Remove Israel, and the history of the area would of course be very different, but the overall pattern would be similar. What makes Israel unique is not that it is uniquely the focus of violence, but that it has uniquely for the area been able to create a first-world economy not based on oil, and the unique level of interest in the rest of the world over everything that occurs involving Israel, which tends to exaggerate the level of violence that actually goes on there. Last time the Syrian government murdered from 10 - 40,000 of its own civilian population, in 1981, hardly anyone in the West even noticed. Just imagine the world reaction if Israel murderd 10- 40,000 Palestinians.
They want us to commit ourselves to covering their ass after they attack Iran and THIS is how they ask?
I don’t want any sort of nuclear proliferation especially in the hands of theocrats but I am having a little bit of trouble figuring out why a nuclear Iran is so much worse than a nuclear Pakistan or North Korea.
Don’t you think that Netenyahu, not Obama, might be the problem here.
Yeah I get that part. There were going to be rivalries and tensions regardless of where Israel was set up. I’m not denying that. I’m not laying it all at Israel’s feet.
Isn’t it the only one that encouraged mass immigration from outside the region?
Why do people keep thinking I am saying this? I’m not laying all at Israel’s feet. I’m saying that Israel is a significant aggravating factor. You seem to be saying that there would be no difference. Its all hypothetical but I don’t see how that could possibly be the case.
The ones involving Israel wouldn’t have existed. I’m not saying the Iran Iraq war wouldn’t have happened without Israel or that there aren’t problems with drawing national boundaries using lines that look good on a map (see Africa), but I am saying that a lot of the crap that goes on there is focused around Israel.
And why do you think there is this extra sensitivity to violence involving Israel? We are pretty good at ignoring atrocities that don’t affect us. Has the Syrian massacre of its own citizens led to airplanes blowing up over Lockerbie?
Yet additional evidence – not that it was needed for most people reading along – that Netanyahu has yet to set the very red lines he is asking the US to make:
This is an extremely foolish statement since the Lockerbie bombing had nothing to do with Israel but was Qaddafi’s revenge for US strikes on Libya.
Similarly, neither bombing of the World Trade Center(neither the one under Clinton nor 911) had anything to do with Israel, but was due to the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of the Mecca and Medina, which is what cause Osama Bin Laden to declare War on the US.
I’m not sure at this point of what point you are making to be honest. Would you say that Syria is “an aggravating factor”? Or Lebanon? Or Iran? Or Iraq? Or Lybia?
Of course history would be very different if Israel did not exist. What would not be different, is that the ME would still be full of conflicts.
The perception far outstrips reality. Certainly Israel has been the focus of several major conflicts. So have other countries in the region. In terms of numbers dead, the Iran-Iraq war was far, far more significant that the Arab-Israeli wars, for example. The estimated fatalities for that conflict range from 670,000- 1,295,000.
By contrast, the entire history of Arab-Israeli wars have a grand total of 74,000 military deaths, 18,000 civilian deaths (1945–1995), or 92,000 - a factor of 10 smaller.
The Lebanese Civil War killed more people than all the Arab-Israeli wars combined - an estimated 120,000 - an lead to a “mass exodus” of one million persons from Lebanon.
In fact, more Palestinians have been killed in fighting other Arabs than in fighting Israelis - allegedly, up to 20,000 by the Jordanians alone:
Compare with an estimated 14,000 for the entire history of Palestinian-Israeli conflict:
In summary, a little context would demonstrate that the Israeli history, while violent, is nothing unusual in the region - in fact, it is less violent than most.
Interesting you should mention Lockerbie - as that is a perfect example of terrorism having nothing whatsoever to do with Israel. It was the Lybian government, allegedly retaliating against the US for actions against it.
As to why there is an extra sensitivity, there are a number of reasons.
Israel is a first-world nation. Stuff that happens to involve first-world people is inherently more newsworthy than stuff that happens to third-world people (unfortunate but true).
Israel has Jerusalem, one of the world’s major holy sites, which has been the focus of world attention for a thousand years at least.
Israel has become a cause celebre for the confrontation between the West and the rest, for variously termed ‘anti-colonialists’.
Israel is mainly composed of Jews, which creates issues for both Christians and Muslims.
Christians because some Christians have a strange, ambivalent relationship with Jews - a long history of anti-Semitism combined with considerable fascination and all sorts of religious issues (for example, some Christian sects believe that the gathering together of Jews prefigures the end of the world and the second comming of Christ).
Muslims because they too share a history of anti-Semitism (albeit not as violent as that of Christians) and being repeatedly beaten in war by Jews strikes many as uniquely humiliating - the stereotype of the Jew east and west, prior to the Arab-Israeli conflict, was distinctly un-martial.
To be beaten is bad enough. To be beaten by a minority previously despised as (not to put a fine point on it) “wimpy” is even worse.
And how do we know this? Because Libya told us so, that it was all about US strikes in Libya and had nothing to do with Israel’s shooting of a Libyan airplane. Right? We take a terrorists’ word for for what motivates their terrorism it when it exonerates Israel. But wait…
When terrorists say that their terrorist attacks are related to Israel among other things, we just ignore the part where they talk about Israel and claim that we know what they were actually thinking.
You can argue that Israel is not “but for” causation. You can argue that even if Israel was carved out of Austria. 9/11 would still have occurred because Saddam Hussein would still have invaded Kuwait and we would still have used Saudi Arabia as a base of operations to push Hussein back and then to enforce the no fly zone.
You know the area better than me but don’t you think that these people were primed to be offended by the 5000 US troops (a pittance compared to the size of our bases elsewhere) by our support for Israel during several wars during which Israel humiliated the arab world?
If the Chinese built a military base with 5000 troops int he middle of the dessert, do you think they would have been as upset?
I’m sorry, but argument is utterly silly. The airliner that you’re referring to was shot down in 1973, roughly 15 years before. The Israelis admitted it was a tragic accident and had paid compensation to the victims families. To the best of my knowledge no serious person has ever suggested that it was the reason for Lockerbie.
Beyond that, I’m really shocked by your suggestion. Were you unaware that the US had bombed Libya just two years earlier, going so far as to attempt to kill the Colonel and killing his adopted daughter Hanna?
Were you also aware that even before that Qaddafi had targeted the US with bombings, most notably the infamous Berlin Disco bombing and had developed a rather deep personal hatred of Ronald Reagan, going so far as to have a ceremony where a cow was slaughtered and people dipped their hands in the blood to show how they would deal with “the Cowboy Reagan.”
Sigh. I forgot that you have repeatedly declared that you will not read anything about the conflict and have said that you feel that wikipedia should be enough.
I’d recommend you rethink this and actually read up on the conflict, or actually visit the region. It’ll help you out. If you don’t trust Jewish authors(I merely ask because I remember you demanding of posters if they were Jewish and it’s not meant as an insult), I can recommend some good gentiles.
Nothing in either article disputes that Osama Bin Laden declared war on the US not because of the US’s support for Israel, which had been going on for decades prior to him declaring war, but due to the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia during Gulf War I.
Had the first President Bush not sent troops to Saudi Arabia it’s quite possible Al Quaeda never would have declared war on the US.
I’d recommend reading Lawrence Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning That Looming Tower, which chronicles the reason for the attack as well as other biographies of Bin Laden. It’s vastly more reliable than some article cobbled together by activists with axes to grind and who’s final compilation will be whichever activists won the edit war.
Wright points out that Bin Laden rarely if even mentioned the Palestinian cause until after the 2001 bombing and only did so to try and bolster support not because he really cared that much about them.
In fact, I’m not sure if Al Quaeda has even attacked any Israeli targets.
If you don’t understand the nuance of the words, most native English speakers should be able to explain the difference to you between “evidence” and “one person’s interpretation of evidence.”
You still have not even attempted to begin to create an argument for why all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat being exhausted, and there being no further opportunity for an attack, is not a red line. It quite clearly states a point at which military action would be in the cards. This is a red line.
You are either unable or unwilling to provide your own words and create your own argument for how it’s somehow not stating a point at which military action would be in the cards. As it clearly does exactly that, your avoidance of actual analysis and simple repetition of ‘no it aint!!!’ simply drives home the point that you have no logical counter. None at all.
Look, I think you really ought to read up on Islam, the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and Osama Bin Laden. The answer is yes, he certainly would have been as upset. Saudi Arabia wasn’t “a desert” to Bin Laden, but the home of Mecca and Medina, and as all his biographers are in agreement about, the stationing of “infidel boots” on the soil of the home of Islam’s two holiest cities drove him nuts.
So yes, had China done that, he’d have been just as outraged.
They were infidels and he hated all infidels, not just infidels that supported the Israelis. You’ll notice that the Soviets were extremely hostile to the Israelis and, if anything, he hated them far more than he hated the US prior to the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia. In fact, he clearly considered the US vastly less evil than the USSR at a time when the US was supporting Israel far more than they are today while the Soviets were opposing Israel.
Its not that I don’t trust Jewish authors, I didn’t ask that poster if he was Jewish because I don’t trust Jews, I asked him because he accused me of having some sort of agenda and I have no axe to grind or connection with the area. I’m an American born Asian who has never been to that part of the world but the person who accused me of having an agenda was clearly motivated by some degree of nationalism or tribalism.
But on that other point. I am not likely to read a book about it unless someone like Dan Brown can work the relevant historical facts into a some sort of book I can read on the beach. HEY!!! I got an idea for you to make some money!!! You could get Tom Hanks to play the lead in the movie.
OK so it sounds like you are saying that Israel is not a but for cause of al qaeda activity but the military presence in Suadi Arabia was a but for cause of al Qaeda activity.
It sounds like you are saying that al Qaeda adopted the anti-Israel rhetoric in much the same way that Saddam Hussein started adopting the anti-Israel rhetoric, to get more grassroots support and to broaden his base. That despite everything I read in wikipedia, there is objective evidence (and not mindreading) that undermines the notion that 9/11 was motivated by any concerns over our support of Israel.
People have told me that folks in the US tend to view the middle east through the prism of our relationship with Israel because they have been the focal point of our middle east policy (or at least that’s the way it seems to the hoi polloi).
So I think the first chapter of the book should start with the crusades and some mystical artifact or tome that changes hands over the centuries and drives geopolitical events.
I think it’s really dumb, but I’ve certainly met many people who tend to distrust all sorts of scholars due to their ethnicity and no, not just Jews, and it’s very common when discussing the Middle East.
It’s one of the reasons that many Armenian scholars, such as Vartan Gregorian, the former President of Brown University, refuse to touch the question of the Armenian tragedy with a ten foot pole.
Similarly, many Turkish scholars operating in America tend to avoid the same subject and many Arab and Jewish scholars when writing on their subjects have freely said they feel like they’re walking on eggshells.
Yes.
Yes, I agree. In fact, I think it’s one of the things that members of both sides(though not all members of both sides) tend to try and do. The fact is far fewer Arabs and Muslims care about either the Israelis or the Palestinians than they like to admit.
How odd, still no logical counter.
Obviously, that’s because you actually do have a logical, cogent refutation that you could post and hey look over there!!!
And still no attempt from you to craft a logical counter argument. Don’t worry, I’m sure if you continue with vacuous snarking, people reading the thread won’t notice that you have never once attempted to explain why a set of conditions which would allow military action aren’t a set of conditions which would allow military action.
If your next post consists only of “U R rong!!!” your argument will obviously reach the high standards of cogency and relevancy which have eluded it all through this thread.
You’ve been rebutted a long time ago, Finn. Not my fault you don’t appear to pay attention to what others write – or simply quote something out of context, a word and/or phrase in a post and then proceed to rail against it with all sorts of implicit and explicit insults.
Beyond that, as I said then, I repeat now. Tedious repetition of fallacious arguments do not get better each time you re-post them.