Monday, May 7, 2018

Can the Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis Prevent All-out War Between Israel and Iran?


Steven Klein, haaretz.com

Unlike JFK and McNamara, Israel sees Iran as solely a military problem, not a political one. Netanyahu is backing Tehran into a corner that leaves them with no way out except striking back


Image from article, with caption: An Israeli mobile artillery drives through sandy terrain during a military exercise in the Golan Heights, north of Israel. September 19, 2012

Excerpt:
On the military front, Israel has allegedly hit numerous weapon depots and military sites in Syria associated with the Iranian regime, most recently hitting a base and 200 missiles, killing 11 Iranian military officers. On the public diplomacy [JB emphasis]front, Prime Minister Netanyahu has gone on a PR campaign to kill the deal with Iran.

Netanyahu’s actions indicate that he views Iran as a military problem to be dealt with by coercion, and not a political one, which requires diplomacy to resolve. That’s dangerous – and wrong.

In Netanyahu’s zero-sum view of the conflict, the Islamic regime must go at all costs because the alternative is Israel's destruction. He believes its belligerent rhetoric and rejects its public commitments. Thus, he employed the Mossad to raid the Iranian archives for the political purpose of proving Iran had lied about its nuclear ambitions prior to the nuclear deal. It doesn’t matter that he provided no proof that Iran has violated the JCPOA. [See] ...

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