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P.M. Carpenter's avatar

If you're really wanting a war, take heart. The NY Times: "Benny Gantz, a centrist minister and one of three voting members of the war cabinet, said that Israel should exact a price from Iran, but only 'in a way and at a time that suits us.' Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right minister, then criticized Mr. Gantz for his perceived moderation, arguing that Israel should deter Iran by going 'crazy.'"

So a centrist minister wants to "exact a price" when it's convenient and a far-right minister advocates leadership's complete mental breakdown and some military lunacy to match. Split that difference and you get a modestly fast retaliation just short of leveling Tehran.

If these were last night's hopeful indications (as The Times wrote), I'd not care to read the frightful ones.

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Terry Hilldale's avatar

A retaliation to Iran's retaliation that by all all accounts was mostly ineffective anyway. Now we see why the Israel-Palestine conflict is so intractable. Same dynamic.

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JohnCitizen (Adam Saxe)'s avatar

The Iranians aren't Palestinian last time I checked. They joined--and escalated--a conflict that logically they have no business in. Not to be a smartass, but the conflict between the Jews and Arabs of what was once British Mandatory Palestine is tough enough without Persians joining in! It's not their war!

It's going to be all but impossible to reach any settlement between Israelis and Palestinians as long as outsiders like Iran sponsor radical, violent groups that openly--proudly--declare their opposition to any settlement between Israelis and Palestinians!

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Terry Hilldale's avatar

I never claimed that the Iranians are Palestinians, but you knew that. Retaliation begets retaliation which beget retaliation, and it never ends. so you get intractable conflicts like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict regardless of proxies. We see it again, with Republicans saying Israel should retaliate against Iran's (as some one else said) squirt gun retaliation against an Israeli attack which you say was retaliation for a an Iranian proxy attack. It is all wrong-headed and counter-productive. If Israel and (in the most current case) Hamas want a solution, they would find a solution. Strong factions on both sides take the most extreme interpretation of from the river to the sea (which by the way originally appeared in the 1972 Likud party platform.

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JohnCitizen (Adam Saxe)'s avatar

Ha, wonderfully written BTW. You make quite the point w/ your impressive use of language.

I've mentioned this in other posts, but one thing very different between Israel & the US is that (almost) all Israelis serve in the military. As a result, (most) of their people are less starry-eyed about war than most Americans. In the All-Volunteer Force era, most Americans seem to lean towards absolutist views on war & peace--i.e., "kill 'em all & let God sort 'em out" (at no cost to us) or that any conflict is a likely bloodsucking quagmire at best, a world war at worst.

Reasonable people can disagree on what the US and/or Israel should do next. That said, "going crazy" by design is also, by definition, *not reasonable.* Ironically, the failure of Iran's weekend attack may drive them to restart a nuclear weapon project, even as some more hawkish Americans & Israelis start talking as if they currently have the bomb or are its doorstep. Iran doesn't and isn't--but could get to a theoretically working (but untested) bomb soon.

Just when you thought we'd learned everything from Iraq, it would be epic tragedy to get in a shooting war w/ Iran over a hypothetical. An Israeli response "in a way and at a time that suits us" sounds like a sober-minded approach to inflicting a punishment to (hopefully) ensure Iran realizes there will *always* be consequences for its aggression. It's true that Israel's once supposedly awesome deterrent effect has been degraded. Putting aside any moral questions about Gaza, Israel's response there can be seen as part of an effort to rejuvenate the deterrent. Now something must be done to get Iran to respect said rejuvenated deterrent.

I'd normally say its a straw man argument to say the only alternative is a "neocon" all-out war against Iran; that is, the choices are *not* black & white--a muscular, but smart, approach to Iran is possible. I hope I'm not proved wrong.

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Terry Hilldale's avatar

But never mind that in this case the Iranian "aggression" was against the Israeli aggression of attacking their embassy in Syria. This ever-escalating back and forth is at the root of what make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so intractable.

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