Well, I guess there is no personal, political downside for Netanyahu. The political opposition in Israel already wants his blood so he's counting on his coalition together, and the end of fighting is more likely to result is any blossoming of disagreement in his coalition than the continued fighting. [One possible exception, if the back and forth with Iran resulted in committing Israel to ongoing infantry ground combat with Hezbollah that required a reconsideration and ending of religious draft exemptions - Bibi may underweight this risk.]
Otherwise - regionalized fighting means as you said a shift in focus a bit from bad realities and optics in Gaza itself. Continued fighting is bad for Biden, and Bibi is in the tank for Republicans and Trump. He could reasonably guess Trump would be an entirely uncritical supporter. Also, while Trump has no professed interest in Middle East ground wars, he is one of the few electable politicians who would seriously contemplate not just acquiescing in an Israeli nuclear preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear program, other "supporting targets" - which could be stretched enormously, and Iranian-related regional targets, but possibly *reinforce* it with US ICBMs to thoroughly turn Iran and perhaps other parts of the Middle East Shia crescent into glass. MAGA wouldn't blink at Israeli-American nuclear genocide of Iran, in literal terms. And Trump wouldn't believe Putin or Xi if they even said explicitly, they couldn't leave that unanswered, so don't count on that as the out.
I agree that Biden & company don't know what to do in the ME, but do you? Does anyone--other than Trump, who'll just cheer Israel on? This isn't 1956. Israel has the resources to keep on going in Gaza, doesn't it? If I'm right, I think the real question is why it hasn't, at least not yet. Does IDF leadership have second thoughts? Does anyone anywhere think the US will somehow punish Israel if another 10-15K civilians die in Gaza?
I agree that Biden & company don't know what to do in the ME, but do you?
American neocons, the closest thing to American champions of regime change/destruction in Iran, had the governing trifecta under Bush-Cheney from 2003-2006, and didn't get it done. In 2007-2008 it had bled out popular and legislative support, but still had ultimate executive power to use against Iran (or incidentally Syria, which had a nuclear reactor whacked in 2007 by Israel if you remember)
Obama had a diplomatic strategy to work on the nuclear file, and it worked on the nuclear file for what we could get. It did not work on any other Iran "files" proxy warfare, terrorism, human rights, certainly not any regime liberalization, Americans might have cared about. Problem was - there probably was no bargain to be had on any of those other matters, and the way to get results on those if at all, more likely lay through incentives rather than further punishment. And JCPOA was as far as Obama could take things politically.
Problem with a diplomatic approach to Iran is we have elections in America, parties alternate in power, and they like to undo what the last one did. So American diplomacy is broken and unsustainable, because America can't keep promises anymore. And, to be fair, JCPOA was due to run until 2025, and we don't know if a renewal would have been in the cards even under the best of regional and global circumstances.
And Israel, with or without the help of America and some of the Gulf States, had window of opportunity to substantially break a major link in the Iranian region proxy network, Syria, when the Asad regime was in its most vulnerable, from 2012 until September 2015, when the Russians intervened. The overthrow of Asad would have disrupted a key link in the Iran-Hezbollah proxy chain and direct territorial connections via Iraq, and pushed Hezbollah back on Lebanese resources and sea and air transport alone. Israel could have contributed to that overthrow, probably with greatest chance of success by indirect methods of helping the Gulfies supporting the opposition. The alternative for Syria, or most of it would have been a yucky Sunni extremist state, but it probably wouldn't have been Iran's friend. But Israel (and others) missed the chance. And it was never clear to me that Israel thought all the way through to whether it wanted Asad to fall or not.
So, the United States is lacking tools to use in counter-Iran strategies, even when allowing for extreme or creative options. So is Israel.
"Does anyone--other than Trump, who'll just cheer Israel on?"
I agree with that, I've also stated my that Trump wouldn't do a ground war/invasion.....Though he could find our scattered regional forces on the receiving end of one. But, he would be willing to do unlimited stand-off missile escalation, and see Israel do the same. And that goes up to nuclear, for both Israel and America.
"Israel has the resources to keep on going in Gaza, doesn't it? If I'm right, I think the real question is why it hasn't" Hasn't what? In what way aren't they continuing?
"Israel’s unilateral decision to treat the Iranian consulate as not, like, a real consulate seems to have been the big error."
In fairness to Israel, Iran were (allegedly) the first ones not to treat it as a real consulate by using it as a military base (not that Iran has ever had much track record of respecting consulates to begin with).
Except that it does? Diplomats are expelled and outposts are shuttered constantly based on allegations they are being used as fronts for espionage, and intelligence agencies regularly attempt to penetrate embassies in third party countries because they know that non-diplomatic operations are being conducted.
I've never actually heard of an embassy or consulate being used as essentially a forward military command post of the sort Iran allegedly was here, but based on how intelligence activities are treated its absolutely analogous to treat them as fair game if so; or do you believe Israel would be prohibited from firing back if Iran started lobbing shells from its embassy in Beirut?
Not from firing back if lobbing shells, or being tactically used, of course that wouldn't be prohibited. But that wasn't the case here, right, the allegation was this was a meeting place, you could call it a "command center" but every country issue instructions that are basically like commands from their military officers and diplomats in residence from embassy compounds.
"Diplomats are expelled and outposts are shuttered constantly based on allegations they are being used as fronts for espionage, and intelligence agencies regularly attempt to penetrate embassies in third party countries because they know that non-diplomatic operations are being conducted."
Expelling diplomats, closing an Embassy, spying on embassy, or raiding one and arresting people there is all very different from a stand-off attack. And these instances you're referring to are all done by a host country to an embassy being abused within the host country's larger territory against the host country.
Since Syria is allied to Iran and welcomes Iranians there, this is more equivalent to Russia lobbing missiles at the American Embassy Warsaw, Kyiv, London, Qatar, or any number of places, or Iran lobbing a missile at Israeli embassy Cairo or Amman.
"And yet, this is a problem that is going to persist. Suzanne Maloney’s latest in Foreign Affairs makes it clear that Iran is going to be a growing and not ebbing problem:"
Well, it's clear if you assume that Suzanne Maloney is omniscient, but why would you do that? Her "analysis" is simply a string of ponderous assertions unbuttressed by anything as mundane as "evidence". It's easy to criticize Biden for having no Iranian policy, but he certainly did--a sort of anti-Iran league based on an agreement between Israel and the Saudis--before Hamas blew it up--thanks, largely, to Bibi Netanyahu's incompetence. Iran doesn't trust us, and there is no reason why they should, and it is politically impossible for any American president to attempt to gain Iran's confidence, thanks to the anti-Iran hatred baked into the American military intellectual complex. The U.S. has maintained Iran as Enemy No. 1 for decades, largely because foreign policy "experts" and the military want an enemy. We had diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R. throughout the Cold War. We still don't have them with Iran--because the U.S. doesn't want to reach an agreement. The U.S. wants hostility or surrender, and the Iranians don't feel like surrendering.
"Biden urgently needs to articulate and then implement a clear strategy to protect Palestinian civilians" Biden has all the influence of a pro wrestling ref. He can wave his arms all he wants, but proof is in actions. The media plays along, but anyone with a heart isn't fooled.
Speaking of pro-wrestling - while Iran has inflicted, by proxy and not as the sole cause, real damages on Israel and the United States over the years. It's built a range of real capabilities it can dial up substantially more than it has exercised. Likewise, Israel has inflicted real, but not at all decisive, damage on Iranian proxies, and selected Iranian VIPs and property, and has the capacity, unused, to do vastly more. But the direct blows Iran has thrown at the USA, and the USA and Israel have thrown at Iran, have never been go for broke, pull-out-all-the stops, body blows and knock-out blows, shooting to kill and keep doing until one side runs out of ammo or bodies. -- So, in that sense, it has been like pro-wrestling, very demonstrative, a whole lot of kayfabe. For substantial numbers of ordinary human beings, the Gaza fight, much more than Iran v. Israel, is *real*, not demonstrative and World Wrestling "Entertainment," like the latter.
You're all over the place. First, my comment was about Palestinian civilians. So skipping down the the end of your response, "the Gaza fight... is *real*, not demonstrative and World Wrestling "Entertainment". I never said Gaza was entertainment. What a warped reading of my comment! I said "Biden has all the influence of a pro wrestling ref", and I stand by this.
My comment is tangential to yours, not at all any sort of argument against yours or a disagreement with yours.
A simpler version of my comment - The Gaza conflict over the last months [and times before at varying intensity levels], huge human costs, continuing through today. The Iran-Israel direct conflict, despite some real lives lost and property damage, is mainly theater, BS, and trash talk, like a pro-Wrestling match.
I woke up this morning with the pro-wrestling/WWE metaphor for Iran's bull$hit strategy of occasionally shooting, but shooting mostly to miss, in my head. You were the first "victim" of the metaphor because you happened to say pro-wrestling coach, so sorry.
It's my cynical opinion that Bibi attacked the embassy to change to the global conversation from Gaza to preventing an Iran/Israel war.
The NYT is treating this as a miscalculation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/world/middleeast/iran-israel-attack.html
This is a classic case of giving Bibi the benefit of incompetence as opposed to malevolence
In other words, judging a causa belli as an oppsie.
Well, I guess there is no personal, political downside for Netanyahu. The political opposition in Israel already wants his blood so he's counting on his coalition together, and the end of fighting is more likely to result is any blossoming of disagreement in his coalition than the continued fighting. [One possible exception, if the back and forth with Iran resulted in committing Israel to ongoing infantry ground combat with Hezbollah that required a reconsideration and ending of religious draft exemptions - Bibi may underweight this risk.]
Otherwise - regionalized fighting means as you said a shift in focus a bit from bad realities and optics in Gaza itself. Continued fighting is bad for Biden, and Bibi is in the tank for Republicans and Trump. He could reasonably guess Trump would be an entirely uncritical supporter. Also, while Trump has no professed interest in Middle East ground wars, he is one of the few electable politicians who would seriously contemplate not just acquiescing in an Israeli nuclear preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear program, other "supporting targets" - which could be stretched enormously, and Iranian-related regional targets, but possibly *reinforce* it with US ICBMs to thoroughly turn Iran and perhaps other parts of the Middle East Shia crescent into glass. MAGA wouldn't blink at Israeli-American nuclear genocide of Iran, in literal terms. And Trump wouldn't believe Putin or Xi if they even said explicitly, they couldn't leave that unanswered, so don't count on that as the out.
Lol. You say this like the New York Times doesn’t whitewash or *give the benefit of the doubt to* a different horrible person at least once a week.
I agree that Biden & company don't know what to do in the ME, but do you? Does anyone--other than Trump, who'll just cheer Israel on? This isn't 1956. Israel has the resources to keep on going in Gaza, doesn't it? If I'm right, I think the real question is why it hasn't, at least not yet. Does IDF leadership have second thoughts? Does anyone anywhere think the US will somehow punish Israel if another 10-15K civilians die in Gaza?
I agree that Biden & company don't know what to do in the ME, but do you?
American neocons, the closest thing to American champions of regime change/destruction in Iran, had the governing trifecta under Bush-Cheney from 2003-2006, and didn't get it done. In 2007-2008 it had bled out popular and legislative support, but still had ultimate executive power to use against Iran (or incidentally Syria, which had a nuclear reactor whacked in 2007 by Israel if you remember)
Obama had a diplomatic strategy to work on the nuclear file, and it worked on the nuclear file for what we could get. It did not work on any other Iran "files" proxy warfare, terrorism, human rights, certainly not any regime liberalization, Americans might have cared about. Problem was - there probably was no bargain to be had on any of those other matters, and the way to get results on those if at all, more likely lay through incentives rather than further punishment. And JCPOA was as far as Obama could take things politically.
Problem with a diplomatic approach to Iran is we have elections in America, parties alternate in power, and they like to undo what the last one did. So American diplomacy is broken and unsustainable, because America can't keep promises anymore. And, to be fair, JCPOA was due to run until 2025, and we don't know if a renewal would have been in the cards even under the best of regional and global circumstances.
And Israel, with or without the help of America and some of the Gulf States, had window of opportunity to substantially break a major link in the Iranian region proxy network, Syria, when the Asad regime was in its most vulnerable, from 2012 until September 2015, when the Russians intervened. The overthrow of Asad would have disrupted a key link in the Iran-Hezbollah proxy chain and direct territorial connections via Iraq, and pushed Hezbollah back on Lebanese resources and sea and air transport alone. Israel could have contributed to that overthrow, probably with greatest chance of success by indirect methods of helping the Gulfies supporting the opposition. The alternative for Syria, or most of it would have been a yucky Sunni extremist state, but it probably wouldn't have been Iran's friend. But Israel (and others) missed the chance. And it was never clear to me that Israel thought all the way through to whether it wanted Asad to fall or not.
So, the United States is lacking tools to use in counter-Iran strategies, even when allowing for extreme or creative options. So is Israel.
"Does anyone--other than Trump, who'll just cheer Israel on?"
I agree with that, I've also stated my that Trump wouldn't do a ground war/invasion.....Though he could find our scattered regional forces on the receiving end of one. But, he would be willing to do unlimited stand-off missile escalation, and see Israel do the same. And that goes up to nuclear, for both Israel and America.
Thank you for elaborating on what I posted & providing a lot of background.
"Israel has the resources to keep on going in Gaza, doesn't it? If I'm right, I think the real question is why it hasn't" Hasn't what? In what way aren't they continuing?
I thought they hadn't yet begun their assault on Rafah. If I'm wrong, I apologize.
They're assaulting Rafah, and the entire Strip. Just not with bombs. Deaths might even accelerate.
I didn't know. Thank you. I've seen nothing in the news. Sadly, a lot of people are going to die.
google Gaza humanitarian crisis. It's all over the MSM
That I know. Sad go say, it was inevitable the moment Israel decided to destroy Hamas.
"Israel’s unilateral decision to treat the Iranian consulate as not, like, a real consulate seems to have been the big error."
In fairness to Israel, Iran were (allegedly) the first ones not to treat it as a real consulate by using it as a military base (not that Iran has ever had much track record of respecting consulates to begin with).
Everybody uses embassies for military, paramilitary, intel purposes. That doesn't take away their immunity.
During a war, really? Okay. Good apologia for the IRGC there.
Except that it does? Diplomats are expelled and outposts are shuttered constantly based on allegations they are being used as fronts for espionage, and intelligence agencies regularly attempt to penetrate embassies in third party countries because they know that non-diplomatic operations are being conducted.
I've never actually heard of an embassy or consulate being used as essentially a forward military command post of the sort Iran allegedly was here, but based on how intelligence activities are treated its absolutely analogous to treat them as fair game if so; or do you believe Israel would be prohibited from firing back if Iran started lobbing shells from its embassy in Beirut?
Not from firing back if lobbing shells, or being tactically used, of course that wouldn't be prohibited. But that wasn't the case here, right, the allegation was this was a meeting place, you could call it a "command center" but every country issue instructions that are basically like commands from their military officers and diplomats in residence from embassy compounds.
"Diplomats are expelled and outposts are shuttered constantly based on allegations they are being used as fronts for espionage, and intelligence agencies regularly attempt to penetrate embassies in third party countries because they know that non-diplomatic operations are being conducted."
Expelling diplomats, closing an Embassy, spying on embassy, or raiding one and arresting people there is all very different from a stand-off attack. And these instances you're referring to are all done by a host country to an embassy being abused within the host country's larger territory against the host country.
Since Syria is allied to Iran and welcomes Iranians there, this is more equivalent to Russia lobbing missiles at the American Embassy Warsaw, Kyiv, London, Qatar, or any number of places, or Iran lobbing a missile at Israeli embassy Cairo or Amman.
"And yet, this is a problem that is going to persist. Suzanne Maloney’s latest in Foreign Affairs makes it clear that Iran is going to be a growing and not ebbing problem:"
Well, it's clear if you assume that Suzanne Maloney is omniscient, but why would you do that? Her "analysis" is simply a string of ponderous assertions unbuttressed by anything as mundane as "evidence". It's easy to criticize Biden for having no Iranian policy, but he certainly did--a sort of anti-Iran league based on an agreement between Israel and the Saudis--before Hamas blew it up--thanks, largely, to Bibi Netanyahu's incompetence. Iran doesn't trust us, and there is no reason why they should, and it is politically impossible for any American president to attempt to gain Iran's confidence, thanks to the anti-Iran hatred baked into the American military intellectual complex. The U.S. has maintained Iran as Enemy No. 1 for decades, largely because foreign policy "experts" and the military want an enemy. We had diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R. throughout the Cold War. We still don't have them with Iran--because the U.S. doesn't want to reach an agreement. The U.S. wants hostility or surrender, and the Iranians don't feel like surrendering.
"Biden urgently needs to articulate and then implement a clear strategy to protect Palestinian civilians" Biden has all the influence of a pro wrestling ref. He can wave his arms all he wants, but proof is in actions. The media plays along, but anyone with a heart isn't fooled.
Speaking of pro-wrestling - while Iran has inflicted, by proxy and not as the sole cause, real damages on Israel and the United States over the years. It's built a range of real capabilities it can dial up substantially more than it has exercised. Likewise, Israel has inflicted real, but not at all decisive, damage on Iranian proxies, and selected Iranian VIPs and property, and has the capacity, unused, to do vastly more. But the direct blows Iran has thrown at the USA, and the USA and Israel have thrown at Iran, have never been go for broke, pull-out-all-the stops, body blows and knock-out blows, shooting to kill and keep doing until one side runs out of ammo or bodies. -- So, in that sense, it has been like pro-wrestling, very demonstrative, a whole lot of kayfabe. For substantial numbers of ordinary human beings, the Gaza fight, much more than Iran v. Israel, is *real*, not demonstrative and World Wrestling "Entertainment," like the latter.
You're all over the place. First, my comment was about Palestinian civilians. So skipping down the the end of your response, "the Gaza fight... is *real*, not demonstrative and World Wrestling "Entertainment". I never said Gaza was entertainment. What a warped reading of my comment! I said "Biden has all the influence of a pro wrestling ref", and I stand by this.
My comment is tangential to yours, not at all any sort of argument against yours or a disagreement with yours.
A simpler version of my comment - The Gaza conflict over the last months [and times before at varying intensity levels], huge human costs, continuing through today. The Iran-Israel direct conflict, despite some real lives lost and property damage, is mainly theater, BS, and trash talk, like a pro-Wrestling match.
I woke up this morning with the pro-wrestling/WWE metaphor for Iran's bull$hit strategy of occasionally shooting, but shooting mostly to miss, in my head. You were the first "victim" of the metaphor because you happened to say pro-wrestling coach, so sorry.