We know the Biden administration is not up for the task and has shown (And continues to show) weakness at every step. Unfortunately a Trump administration is likely to be no better - just for different reasons.
A very thoughtful article. A few comments from an Israeli (me) perspective:
a) I don't see the Abraham Accords fading so fast, even vis a vis the Saudis signing on after a decent interval passes from the destruction of Hamas. None of the signatories have left and off the record (according to a friend -- also Israeli -- who has extensive business contacts THROUGHOUT the Persian / Arabian Gulf and elsewhere in the Arab world) they want to see Hamas and Hezbollah destroyed. The former because it is the Palestinian incarnation of the Muslim Brotherhood and the latter because of its ties to Iran and the destruction it wrought on Lebanon.
b) As the inestimable Dan Senor has repeatedly noted in his absolutely superb podcast "Call Me Back" (highly recommended for anyone interested in following and understanding Israel and the current war in Gaza) Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler MBS, needs access to Israeli hi-tech in order to wean his country off of its dependence on oil revenues, an oft stated goals of his. Likewise (to varying degrees) for the other Arab countries who are members or wannabes of the Abraham Accords. They don’t want their futures tethered to what they see as the intractable Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The only thing that Iran has to offer them are pistachios.
c) Iran’s nuclear goals can be understood from two opposing perspectives, both right. On the one hand having nukes allows Iran to spread a nuclear umbrella over its client states and proxies that would allow them to launch small and medium size conflicts with Israel that while not defeating Israel directly, will render the country unlivable especially as population becomes more middle class and less tolerant of a constant need to defend itself. As a result the elites will leave the country
On the other hand, as was noted by the late unlamented Iranian president Ayatollah Ali Rafsanjani, Israel is a “one bomb country”. In other words, one large, well placed nuke could effectively end Israel as an independent state. Yes many Muslims would be killed in the process but “Allah knows his own” and would take care of them in the Islamic Nirvana. As such he mused, it might be worth it for Iran to nuke Israel even at the cost of losing a third of its own population and / or livable land mass in an Israeli second strike (Israel is widely believed to have subs with nuclear tipped missiles) just to end the Zionist insult to Muslim world.
BTW, the ostensibly omniscient NY Times labelled Rafsanjani a “moderate”.
d) Although 90% U-235 enrichment is considered optimal for a fission nuke, it’s not absolutely necessary. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima netted out at 85% enrichment and used a very primitive “rifle” mechanism as compared to modern nukes. As such only a fraction of the U-235 charge actually participated in the fission reaction. Nonetheless, the rest is history.
Very good and unfortunately depressing post . However regarding nuclear deterrence, Iran surely know that Israel constantly has two nuclear submarines at sea that have enough nuclear heads to entirely destroy Iran. The problem is that they don’t think as we do. Entirely destroyng Israel in their crazy minds might be worth the price, i e martyrdom of its whole population . What do you think?
Iran has big problems...That won't go away. Geography doesn't favor the Iranians. Israel and Iran don't share a border. Iran's proxies (Syria, Lebanon, etc.) are weak states. We you want Yemen (and only part) as your friend?
No mention of the attacks happening inside Iran that speak of an active resistance, which may also help destabilize the legitimacy and influence of the current regime. Iran has its hands full within and without.
While I remain a little more hopeful than Mr. Gerecht, especially in terms of the Abraham Accords and the Saudis, it does seem clear that without cutting off the head of the snake that is Iran, we will continue to be bit. It is only a matter of time that this Iranian government will need to be "dealt" with. Why wait? They will only get more radical as they near nuclear capabilities. Very tough sanctions that cut off the financial flow to Iran that then ends up funding their extremist proxies is a necessary start. But in the end, Israel, the U.S. maybe Britain?, the Iranian people themselves and the Saudis?? (I know, but one can wish) can remove the snake's head and stop this war against the West from taking more lives. What Israel is experiencing is waiting for all of us in the West if we do nothing.
This is why the Jews must take aggressive action immediately. It is time to end Iranian influence in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Kurdistan. Israel can easily accomplish this with their current forces.
MD, American Jews MUST take progressive action in November, and STOP voting Democrat! The Democrat Party today is NOT the Party of our grandparents, or even our parents!
Today’s WOKE Left Progressive Democrats are more concerned with DEI, CRT, BLM, LGBTQ alphabet X, PRONOUNS, etc., and whether our military has comfortable uniforms for pregnant fighter pilots. In fact, their main focus seems to be training our soldiers how to be more concerned with WOKE ideology than a strong military defense force to be reckoned with on the world stage.
I agree, but it takes guts and American Jews are a squishy bunch. They desperately want acceptance and they want to believe in utopian fantasies of total equality.. . They experienced the Nazis from a distance, and they never experienced the Soviet antisemitism, or the Muslim version. You must remember that 70% of Isralie Jews are not of european origin, and they have a much more conservative and cynical,attitude.. They come from North African, or the Arab countries or Ethiopia, or IRAN or the central Asian republics and Russia. This population, understands the traditional Muslim mentality and treatment towards any kind of descent or opposition. This is why they will fight to the death for their freedom to worship and to live in a liberal democratic. and tolerant society..
I hope you are right. However I had the impression that the majority of today’s american jews were born from parents having left Europe and the soviet union after the end of the wae
You are right about the western origin of American Jews. These mainly arrived in the 1800’s, from central and Western Europe, including Germany, Poland, Austro - Hungarian empire, Portugal and Spain, long before WW1. Thus , well before the British and French mandates over Palestine were established. Israelite Jews are mostly native to Israel or refugees from other places that used to be part of Ottoman, Russian, and Persian empires. These include the Greece, the Turkic speaking Central Asian republics, such as Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, and also North African Magreb countries, Morocco and Egypt. Plus, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other states in Arabic speakingMiddle East. There are even significant numbers from Ethiopia and Yemen. Thus the Jews of Israel are quite distinct and diverse, at least compared to those of N America.
Yes. However in 1939 three quarters of the world jewish population was in Europe and the majority of these were in USSR. After the end of WW2, the jews who had survived the holocaust went to America and western Europe , especially to France like myself in 1948 as a political refugee with my parents.
But there were small jewish communities scattered in the Ottoman Empire. Many came from Spain and Portugal after 1492
Don’t forget, the Jews that were stuck in Europe after the first war were all killed off. Only a few ever made it to Israel. There descendants are still around but they have a low birth rate and are vastly outnumbered .
The fundamental mistake in this article is that the authors seem to believe that Biden and the Democratic leadership want Iran to fail in this mission. They paint Biden as a bumbling fool with a poor strategy.
I don't think Biden is really in charge of foreign policy at this point. I'm not sure he can do much more than read a script. But it's clear that the people behind him are very much against Israel's survival.
More concerning... if, as the authors note, Iran activates Hezbollah and rockets reach Tel Aviv, we don't know how Israel will react. With Biden playing for Team Iran, this could escalate quickly. Isolating Israel is not the same as isolating North Korea.
Jim, I agree, Biden is a puppet and the Puppet Handlers are in control. Obama has made his support of Iran well known. He also showed his true colors against Israel when it took him 2 or 3 (?) days to speak out against the Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7th., and again when he said / blamed Israel AND the US, “We all have blood on our hands”
FYI, Biden IS A BUMBLING FOOL, and he CANNOT even read a teleprompter!
One thing Iran hasn't experienced, is a flat out loss among its proxies.
In Yemen, the houthi won. In Lebanon, hezbollah largely does whatever it wants. They've also won.
In Iraq, Iran holds substantial influence and they dominate Syria. Even in Ukraine, they've played a role.
Defeating hamas in Gaza, wiping out their entire leadership and most of hamas' people, would be a win in what's been a string of losses and draws for US and US allies. Add in the loss in Afghanistan and the mixed bag results in Libya, and you begin to realize just how badly the US needs Israel to win this.
Only winning creates deterrence. Something which hasn't happened in a long time.
Right. Important to bring up Afghanistan. Americans seem to have forgotten the catastrophic pullout and ignore whatever misery Afghanis now suffer. But let us tell you what to do in Gaza…
I'm going to say it, even though I don't really mean it: Bomb the damn place back to the 7th century when Mohammed appeared with his religion of peace. Maybe next go around they can get the "peace' part right.
Mohammed appeared in Arabia. Iran used to be Persia--an ancient nation that had been civilized for a couple of thousand years before Islam. Even when the forces of Islam conquered the country, they held back on the "convert or die" message for quite a while, because a whole lot of highly civilized, reluctant converts could have wreaked havoc on Muslim Arab control of the country. It took generations for Islam to become the primary religion of Persian society.
Thank you for your lovely discourse. I actually know somewhat more about ancient Persia, at least I did 45 years ago while in college, than my inartful post would indicate. I was simply ranting and raging: something I'm doing all too often in my old age.
The U.S. has been appeasing Iran since the Iranian hostage crises in 1979. We should have bombed Iran then and we most certainly should have bombed Iran out of existence after 9/11. The only thing Iran and its proxies will understand is a decisive dramatic defeat. They hate the west and everything it stands for.
This is classic ignorance of history and belief in the religion of “deescalation at all costs,” which normally results in appeasement. History is filled with examples of supposedly strong nations not confronting a bully until it is too late. It’s all about PowerPoint and “conflict management,” but what the heirs of McNamara’s whiz kids still don’t understand is that the bad guys always get a vote.
“You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”- Ayn Rand.
“Stupid people can create problems, but it often takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe.”- Thomas Sowell.
This may be unpopular to say, and I know this is my hobby-horse, but rising women's equality has made it more difficult to be aggressive toward our enemies, IMO. Women tend to want a compromise solution, and we're in reaction against the overly aggressive stance of men, who tend to overuse violence. But women underuse it. We're so wary of it being used against us that we want to believe we can totally eliminate it, which is not possible in the world as it stands. We want to believe that no one is actually our enemy but simply misunderstood or I am afraid of Trump because his aggression is so scattershot, but I understand its usefulness against our enemies.
I keep coming back to the same question. Why is the US acting like we are a tribute paying state to the Iranians and the Chinese? We, and our allies, have nothing to gain from it. We are the world's superpower and we act like the Iranians and the Chinese are in charge. So demeaning and frustrating, our leaders clearly haven't read history.
You're right, but power comes in many different packages. Our economy is also part of our power, in fact it is the foundation for much of our power. I would add that our fleet is smaller than China's, but we also need to look at the types of ships that comprise their fleet. The main determiners of power though is the will to use it and the size of the military. In terms of will, I believe the Chinese are stronger than we are because our current crop of leaders don't appear to have the will to wield power or use our military as a deterrent. Sad to say.
We know the Biden administration is not up for the task and has shown (And continues to show) weakness at every step. Unfortunately a Trump administration is likely to be no better - just for different reasons.
A very thoughtful article. A few comments from an Israeli (me) perspective:
a) I don't see the Abraham Accords fading so fast, even vis a vis the Saudis signing on after a decent interval passes from the destruction of Hamas. None of the signatories have left and off the record (according to a friend -- also Israeli -- who has extensive business contacts THROUGHOUT the Persian / Arabian Gulf and elsewhere in the Arab world) they want to see Hamas and Hezbollah destroyed. The former because it is the Palestinian incarnation of the Muslim Brotherhood and the latter because of its ties to Iran and the destruction it wrought on Lebanon.
b) As the inestimable Dan Senor has repeatedly noted in his absolutely superb podcast "Call Me Back" (highly recommended for anyone interested in following and understanding Israel and the current war in Gaza) Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler MBS, needs access to Israeli hi-tech in order to wean his country off of its dependence on oil revenues, an oft stated goals of his. Likewise (to varying degrees) for the other Arab countries who are members or wannabes of the Abraham Accords. They don’t want their futures tethered to what they see as the intractable Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The only thing that Iran has to offer them are pistachios.
c) Iran’s nuclear goals can be understood from two opposing perspectives, both right. On the one hand having nukes allows Iran to spread a nuclear umbrella over its client states and proxies that would allow them to launch small and medium size conflicts with Israel that while not defeating Israel directly, will render the country unlivable especially as population becomes more middle class and less tolerant of a constant need to defend itself. As a result the elites will leave the country
On the other hand, as was noted by the late unlamented Iranian president Ayatollah Ali Rafsanjani, Israel is a “one bomb country”. In other words, one large, well placed nuke could effectively end Israel as an independent state. Yes many Muslims would be killed in the process but “Allah knows his own” and would take care of them in the Islamic Nirvana. As such he mused, it might be worth it for Iran to nuke Israel even at the cost of losing a third of its own population and / or livable land mass in an Israeli second strike (Israel is widely believed to have subs with nuclear tipped missiles) just to end the Zionist insult to Muslim world.
BTW, the ostensibly omniscient NY Times labelled Rafsanjani a “moderate”.
d) Although 90% U-235 enrichment is considered optimal for a fission nuke, it’s not absolutely necessary. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima netted out at 85% enrichment and used a very primitive “rifle” mechanism as compared to modern nukes. As such only a fraction of the U-235 charge actually participated in the fission reaction. Nonetheless, the rest is history.
hg
Efrat, Israel
Very good and unfortunately depressing post . However regarding nuclear deterrence, Iran surely know that Israel constantly has two nuclear submarines at sea that have enough nuclear heads to entirely destroy Iran. The problem is that they don’t think as we do. Entirely destroyng Israel in their crazy minds might be worth the price, i e martyrdom of its whole population . What do you think?
Iran has big problems...That won't go away. Geography doesn't favor the Iranians. Israel and Iran don't share a border. Iran's proxies (Syria, Lebanon, etc.) are weak states. We you want Yemen (and only part) as your friend?
No mention of the attacks happening inside Iran that speak of an active resistance, which may also help destabilize the legitimacy and influence of the current regime. Iran has its hands full within and without.
Would love an article on why Biden and Blinken have unlocked billions in frozen assets for Iran.
So they would stop attacking US assets in Iraq?
Blinken has climbed so far up his Iran-can-be-appeased tree that even if he realizes it’s wrong he can’t back down.
Don't know if Iran is "winning" or not.
Do know that Israel messed around and killed some white folks.
THAT is gonna cause a problem.
Maybe if we send them a few more billion they'll begin to warm up to us.
While I remain a little more hopeful than Mr. Gerecht, especially in terms of the Abraham Accords and the Saudis, it does seem clear that without cutting off the head of the snake that is Iran, we will continue to be bit. It is only a matter of time that this Iranian government will need to be "dealt" with. Why wait? They will only get more radical as they near nuclear capabilities. Very tough sanctions that cut off the financial flow to Iran that then ends up funding their extremist proxies is a necessary start. But in the end, Israel, the U.S. maybe Britain?, the Iranian people themselves and the Saudis?? (I know, but one can wish) can remove the snake's head and stop this war against the West from taking more lives. What Israel is experiencing is waiting for all of us in the West if we do nothing.
This is why the Jews must take aggressive action immediately. It is time to end Iranian influence in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Kurdistan. Israel can easily accomplish this with their current forces.
MD, American Jews MUST take progressive action in November, and STOP voting Democrat! The Democrat Party today is NOT the Party of our grandparents, or even our parents!
Today’s WOKE Left Progressive Democrats are more concerned with DEI, CRT, BLM, LGBTQ alphabet X, PRONOUNS, etc., and whether our military has comfortable uniforms for pregnant fighter pilots. In fact, their main focus seems to be training our soldiers how to be more concerned with WOKE ideology than a strong military defense force to be reckoned with on the world stage.
I agree, but it takes guts and American Jews are a squishy bunch. They desperately want acceptance and they want to believe in utopian fantasies of total equality.. . They experienced the Nazis from a distance, and they never experienced the Soviet antisemitism, or the Muslim version. You must remember that 70% of Isralie Jews are not of european origin, and they have a much more conservative and cynical,attitude.. They come from North African, or the Arab countries or Ethiopia, or IRAN or the central Asian republics and Russia. This population, understands the traditional Muslim mentality and treatment towards any kind of descent or opposition. This is why they will fight to the death for their freedom to worship and to live in a liberal democratic. and tolerant society..
I hope you are right. However I had the impression that the majority of today’s american jews were born from parents having left Europe and the soviet union after the end of the wae
You are right about the western origin of American Jews. These mainly arrived in the 1800’s, from central and Western Europe, including Germany, Poland, Austro - Hungarian empire, Portugal and Spain, long before WW1. Thus , well before the British and French mandates over Palestine were established. Israelite Jews are mostly native to Israel or refugees from other places that used to be part of Ottoman, Russian, and Persian empires. These include the Greece, the Turkic speaking Central Asian republics, such as Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, and also North African Magreb countries, Morocco and Egypt. Plus, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other states in Arabic speakingMiddle East. There are even significant numbers from Ethiopia and Yemen. Thus the Jews of Israel are quite distinct and diverse, at least compared to those of N America.
Yes. However in 1939 three quarters of the world jewish population was in Europe and the majority of these were in USSR. After the end of WW2, the jews who had survived the holocaust went to America and western Europe , especially to France like myself in 1948 as a political refugee with my parents.
But there were small jewish communities scattered in the Ottoman Empire. Many came from Spain and Portugal after 1492
Don’t forget, the Jews that were stuck in Europe after the first war were all killed off. Only a few ever made it to Israel. There descendants are still around but they have a low birth rate and are vastly outnumbered .
The fundamental mistake in this article is that the authors seem to believe that Biden and the Democratic leadership want Iran to fail in this mission. They paint Biden as a bumbling fool with a poor strategy.
I don't think Biden is really in charge of foreign policy at this point. I'm not sure he can do much more than read a script. But it's clear that the people behind him are very much against Israel's survival.
More concerning... if, as the authors note, Iran activates Hezbollah and rockets reach Tel Aviv, we don't know how Israel will react. With Biden playing for Team Iran, this could escalate quickly. Isolating Israel is not the same as isolating North Korea.
Jim, I agree, Biden is a puppet and the Puppet Handlers are in control. Obama has made his support of Iran well known. He also showed his true colors against Israel when it took him 2 or 3 (?) days to speak out against the Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7th., and again when he said / blamed Israel AND the US, “We all have blood on our hands”
FYI, Biden IS A BUMBLING FOOL, and he CANNOT even read a teleprompter!
One thing Iran hasn't experienced, is a flat out loss among its proxies.
In Yemen, the houthi won. In Lebanon, hezbollah largely does whatever it wants. They've also won.
In Iraq, Iran holds substantial influence and they dominate Syria. Even in Ukraine, they've played a role.
Defeating hamas in Gaza, wiping out their entire leadership and most of hamas' people, would be a win in what's been a string of losses and draws for US and US allies. Add in the loss in Afghanistan and the mixed bag results in Libya, and you begin to realize just how badly the US needs Israel to win this.
Only winning creates deterrence. Something which hasn't happened in a long time.
Right. Important to bring up Afghanistan. Americans seem to have forgotten the catastrophic pullout and ignore whatever misery Afghanis now suffer. But let us tell you what to do in Gaza…
I'm going to say it, even though I don't really mean it: Bomb the damn place back to the 7th century when Mohammed appeared with his religion of peace. Maybe next go around they can get the "peace' part right.
Mohammed appeared in Arabia. Iran used to be Persia--an ancient nation that had been civilized for a couple of thousand years before Islam. Even when the forces of Islam conquered the country, they held back on the "convert or die" message for quite a while, because a whole lot of highly civilized, reluctant converts could have wreaked havoc on Muslim Arab control of the country. It took generations for Islam to become the primary religion of Persian society.
Good returns to basics. That might be why there is such a deep resentment in Iran’ population against the mollahs
Thank you for your lovely discourse. I actually know somewhat more about ancient Persia, at least I did 45 years ago while in college, than my inartful post would indicate. I was simply ranting and raging: something I'm doing all too often in my old age.
The U.S. has been appeasing Iran since the Iranian hostage crises in 1979. We should have bombed Iran then and we most certainly should have bombed Iran out of existence after 9/11. The only thing Iran and its proxies will understand is a decisive dramatic defeat. They hate the west and everything it stands for.
This is classic ignorance of history and belief in the religion of “deescalation at all costs,” which normally results in appeasement. History is filled with examples of supposedly strong nations not confronting a bully until it is too late. It’s all about PowerPoint and “conflict management,” but what the heirs of McNamara’s whiz kids still don’t understand is that the bad guys always get a vote.
“You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”- Ayn Rand.
“Stupid people can create problems, but it often takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe.”- Thomas Sowell.
This may be unpopular to say, and I know this is my hobby-horse, but rising women's equality has made it more difficult to be aggressive toward our enemies, IMO. Women tend to want a compromise solution, and we're in reaction against the overly aggressive stance of men, who tend to overuse violence. But women underuse it. We're so wary of it being used against us that we want to believe we can totally eliminate it, which is not possible in the world as it stands. We want to believe that no one is actually our enemy but simply misunderstood or I am afraid of Trump because his aggression is so scattershot, but I understand its usefulness against our enemies.
I keep coming back to the same question. Why is the US acting like we are a tribute paying state to the Iranians and the Chinese? We, and our allies, have nothing to gain from it. We are the world's superpower and we act like the Iranians and the Chinese are in charge. So demeaning and frustrating, our leaders clearly haven't read history.
If super power is measured by the power of the naval fleet, then it's China who is the super power.
You're right, but power comes in many different packages. Our economy is also part of our power, in fact it is the foundation for much of our power. I would add that our fleet is smaller than China's, but we also need to look at the types of ships that comprise their fleet. The main determiners of power though is the will to use it and the size of the military. In terms of will, I believe the Chinese are stronger than we are because our current crop of leaders don't appear to have the will to wield power or use our military as a deterrent. Sad to say.