August 15, 2008
Israel, Georgia, Russia, Iran, and the US
Here's an interesting tidbit: Israel, which has long been a major supplier of weapons to Georgia, cut off shipments before the current crisis, hoping for reciprocity from Russia on sales to Iran. That has got to make neocon heads explode. Israel, naturally, puts Israeli interests first, ahead of U.S. interests. But of course that's flatly contrary to the idea that Israeli interests and American interests are always identical.
More to the point, it shows the box the neocons are in. They cut their political teeth on baiting the Russian bear, but they've been slavering for war with Iran. The Israelis know that you can't have both, and they've made their choice. The neocons will probably just pretend they can have both, and call for both, and keep right on collecting their wingnut welfare.
My view is that our true policy toward Iran is to cultivate our popularity there and hope that the peaceful regime change that is surely coming to Iran will come sooner rather than later. From that perspective, an attack on Iran is sheer madness.
Any sort of pressure we put on Iran — diplomatic, economic, or military — requires Russian support, or at least Russian acquiescence. Our chances of getting that just went from slim to none. So the Bush Administration may be forced by events into adopting what I think is the more sensible softer line toward Iran.
That's the one good result I see so far from the mess in Georgia; an attack on Iran, which always seemed like a far-fetched idea but which might not have been too far-fetched for the Bush cabal in its dying days, is now definitely off the table.
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