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Turning the Screws on Iran
On Sunday, Joe Biden told George Stephanopoulos that if Israel wants to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, they can just go right ahead:
Look, Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation — what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.
Both Robert Farley and Matt Yglesias read this as Biden distancing the administration from any possible attack. I have a hard time interpreting it that way, especially when Stephanopoulos asked for and got this clarification:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to
take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?
BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.
The normal response from Biden would have been simply to repeat the administration's standard position: we don't expect Israel to attack, we wouldn't countenance an attack, and beyond that we won't engage in hypotheticals. But for some reason that's not what Biden did, and the change in tone was pretty clearly in the direction of not standing in Israel's way if they decide to do something.
My guess: this is mainly intended to put a little bit of public pressure on Iran. Everyone understands that Israel would have to overfly Iraq to get to Iran, and everyone understands that they could only do this with American permission — tacit or otherwise. Nothing has changed in this regard. America is plainly on the hook as a co-conspirator if Israel does anything, and always has been.
Rhetorically, though, this amps things up. Biden is basically saying that Israel really might launch an attack, and the best way to avoid that is for Tehran to start dealing seriously with the United States. "If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage," he said carrotishly — and if they don't, well, there's not much we can do to stop our crazy cousin. You know how he is. You're better off dealing with us.
Hard to say if this will work. But that seems to be what's going on. This isn't distancing, it's pressure to quit screwing around and instead sit down and talk.
What a hack post. If this
What a hack post. If this were VP Cheney, you would be write a furious 10,000 word post on the irresponsible, cowboy, war-mongering, evil Bush administration. Now it's merely "turning screws," and trying to get Iran to "sit down and talk." When Israel does up and bomb Iran, I flly expect you to applaud the courageous and noble Obama administration for their excellent diplomacy.
Brad...
Sit back, relax. Here, I have a cookie for you: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/marijuana-and-me#comment-1...
Yep
I agree, Kevin. I was left thunder struck, as in - WTF? I like Joe, but sweet Moses that was just not right.
Biden knows McNamara was never punished for his crimes
Biden knows McNamara was never punished for his crimes. Biden does not expect to be punished for his past, present and future crimes. He expects to be rewarded.
Rhetorically, though, this
I don't know about that; Biden was basically responding to the scenario put forth by Stephanopoulos.
That said, Biden probably would have been better off if he had refused to engage the hypothetical entirely (as he did later in the exchange, when asked about allowing Israel to use Iraqi airspace).
I agree with kevin but with the caveat that it was Biden
making the statement and we all know he's notorious for misspeaking and even contradicting the official message coming out of the whitehouse. It seems that most pundits have not made a big deal of Biden's statement, but if they do we might have to see him or the press secretary walk it back as they have in the past.
Foot in mouth disease, or something else?
I dunno if he had been able to think about this ahead of time. IMO this is borderline batpoop insane. Here we have an Iranian regime, which has just delegitimized itself in the eyes of the majority of its population. And its last best hope to survive is to play the ultranationalist card against the opposition. This clearly plays into the hands of the hardliners.
I'm not so sure if they have to cross Iraqi airspace. I thought I read they had Saudi concurrence. That could provide them with another means of approach (across SA, and the Gulf). We do have warships in the Gulf, but the time for jets to cross it is only a few minutes, and since they aren't threatening the warships....
Its hard for me to imagine any scenario where such an attack wouldn't just harden the Iranians nuclear ambitions. In fact they probably don't have a weapons program -but you can bet that if such an attack were carries out, that they would start one the next day. This strikes me as the playing out of an all too common occurrence (the self-fulfilling nightmare). Party A is scared to death that party B will do something. So out of fear party A takes an action which is seen as so outrageous to B, that B see's no choice but to take the feared action.
2003 still has not sunk in?
Are we really going to repeat the Irak prequel. Remember, in 2003 the UN weapons inspectors said that there was no evidence of reconstituted WMD programs in Irak. Yet the drums of war by the Bush and the Blair administrations drowned that out.
The newly elected head of the IAEA recently stated, just as has done his predecessor and just as was the consensus opinion of the US intelligence services, that there is no evidence for Iran having a nuclear weapons program. Yet the VP of the US finds it appropriate to ratchet up the sounds of the drums of war.
There are what may appear to be small events in history that, if connected to war, end up having rather more dramatic effects than anybody expects. Things like the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo 1914 come to mind in this regard.
Israel and Iran
Well, shit. If this is intended to be interpreted as some kind of wink and nod to the right wing assholes in Tel Aviv to bomb Iran, then 1) Joe is an asshole 2) Obama is an asshole 3) I'll never vote for another democrat.
Crazy Joe doesn't take a
Crazy Joe doesn't take a plan without a dump son.
I should learn to read JuanCole before commenting.
In this case Juan believes Biden is being seriously misunderstood:
"So what Biden was really saying is that the Obama administration intends to engage Iran diplomatically, and that if anyone wants Iran attacked they will have to do it themselves. This is not a green light to the Israelis, who hardly need one. It is a tough message to the right wing of the Israel lobbies that the Obama administration is not going to launch any hostilities with Iran, even after the hard line power grab of three weeks ago"
Read it for yourself:
informed comment
so go ahead and attack Iran
What it sounded like to me was 'go ahead, attack Iran, then the only thing we can do to cool things off will be to put your whole military out to pasture and establish a great big army in the West Bank to protect the West Bank from crazy Israelis, so go ahead and attack Iran.'
Biden interview
It was not my impression Biden was giving Israel the go-ahead to do anything at all; the next thing he said was that the United States was also free to act in self-interest, the implication being that the US has the power to stop flights over Iraq, can withhold funds, can refuse to not supply weapons. It means Israel would be on its own. Israel is not going to do that. Wake up you all.
I also took the comments as
tagged as:- solution
- result
I also took the comments as the US (being a sovereign nation) might decide that its in its own interest to STOP Israel from attacking Iran at such a sensitive time. I in no way read (actually watched them) those comments as a free pass or encouragement for an attack. I think he made it explicitly clear we have to respect other country's decisions whether it be Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc....however, the US can and will do what's best for itself. And that may potentially mean stopping Israel from bombing Iran.
Strange how so many people are interpreting and/or writing headlines talking of Biden ok'ing an attack.
Subliminal signals
Kinda hard to keep the Obama administration distanced from Israel when the name on the second jet from the front says, in transliterated Hebrew, "Barak".
Middle East diplomacy pattern
Anybody else think that Obama administration is making a habit of making these non-committal, interpret-any-way-you-want statements on Middle East? Last time Brits tried it, result was 60+ year war between Jews and Arabs....
Everyone understands that
Everyone understands that Israel would have to overfly Iraq to get to Iran
Israel does not need to over-fly Iraq to get to Iran. They can fly over Saudi Arabia -- note the news on that point this weekend -- or over Turkey, which they've done before. Flying over Saudi Arabia may be shorter depending on which targets they wish to strike inside Iran. Flying over Turkey is longer, but Israel supposedly has even used Turkish air bases in the past to stage tanker aircraft.
I don't think it will work
I don't think it will work because we aren't about to stop Israel. It might make ME smile if we shot down Israeli planes violating Iraqi airspace on the way to bomb Iran, but it's not going to happen and everyone knows it.
I was thinking it could also
I was thinking it could also be an off-hand way of suggesting that the US is also free to decide whether continuing to support Israel financially and militarily is in its best interests.
The US aircraft carriers in
The US aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf should be used to protect Iran from Israel.
Israel can't bomb Iran
without our help.
Too far away.
Easy for Biden to say.
Biden, Israel and Iran
Kevin,
You have this 100% wrong. You missed the clear and emphatic message of the interview. I will paraphrase. "Israel can determine what is in its national interest. We will make our own determination." That phrase was repeated, more or less word-for-word, twice. It means, Isreal can decide whether attacking Iran is in their best interest. We can decide whether letting them do so is in ours. Regardless of how the interview was read in the Israeli or Arab press, this statement amounts to a bright red line. I am surprised that most commentary missed this. The language, "We can't decide for another nation [Israel] how it should protect its national interests" is diplomatic boilerplate, and has been repeated--in this administration and the several previous--thousands of times. The explicit statement that Israel's interests may not be our interests is a real departure from the past--a wedge wider than anything since Bush I/Baker. I am sure the foreign policy establishment in Israel doesn't share the "Green Light" press view.
Biden is a moron and
Biden is a moron and ignoramus. We all know it and this is all that needs to be said to put this matter to bed.
A more serious issue is: who picked the moronic ignoramus to be VP?
I certainly hope Israel
I certainly hope Israel bombs the bejabbers out of Iran. First off, the Iranian military leadership has said many times that they don't believe the Holocaust happened, and that they want to make it happen again. No one ought to be shocked when a belligerent nation, nuking up like crazy, threatening repeatedly to wipe a tiny, distant nation off the map, gets taken seriously and gets bombed to smithereens.
Second, Iran is our enemy, even Clinton's DOJ admitted it wrt IRGC masterminding Khobar Towers, and many other terrorist attacks. Payback has been a long time coming, and Iran's leaders deserve it. Nailing Iran, good and hard, could also topple the Nutjob-Khameni regime, even the Qom Mullahs called the election a fraud. Just like losing the Falklands War got rid of the Argentine Military dictatorship.
Third, yeah right, Obama and the HArd Left anti-American loonies would love to put the US Navy into service of our enemies. He'd probably like to do so, but would get impeached. Even Reid would vote for it.
Fourth, the Saudis, who hate and fear the Iranians a lot more than the Israelis, have given overflight permission. The Israelis will probably wait awhile, to see what happens with the struggle to overthrow Nutjob, but won't wait forever.
That's the price of nukes. Move to having them, and repeat for years that you want to wipe out someone, and you'll get a first strike by a nation that prefers to live rather than die.
One question -- why aren't you guys blogrolling with Stormfront? Really, you'd all get along quite well.
The US should defend the
The US should defend the outside of Israel's borders as generously and as vigorously as it defends the inside of Israel's borders.