Senate Iran — now discussing the nuclear deal and Congress

Pat Buchanan is crazy when it comes to domestic politics, but he's often right on the mark with foreign policy: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/rejecting-the-iran-deal-would-be-gop-suicide/

It's a great summation for the agreement that also serves as an indictment of Republican nonsense about it.

 

British Foreign Minister, when addressing the Commons, intriguingly spoke how all parties had "a duty to ensure their respected institutions accepted the deal" - i.e don't **** this up, Congress.

 

I don't know, one thing I've noticed is that "us vs the world" makes people stubborn, especially Americans.

 

Which Americans, though? I'm not sure non-conservatives would really go for it.

 

Unfortunately, that's out of our hands.

 

The Diane Rehm show on NPR had a pretty good panel discussion about the nuclear agreement soon after it was reached, a little over a month ago. I just listened to it today, though. Link here. In it, supporters of the agreement that is reached addressed all the concerns that were brought up by the critics and, IMO, made a foolproof case for the deal. Recommended listen if you have the time, but it's about 45 minutes.

If not, this interview on Australian ABC News is a little under 10 minutes and can more or less serve as a summary of the above discussion, with a little filler at the start.

 

Israel cannot tolerate a country that is part of the Arab-Islamic world obtaining nukes. Iran isn't ethnically Arab but it aligns itself politically with the Arab-Islamic world and like most of the Arab-Islamic countries, has vowed Israel's destruction. Islamic tradition sees the world community of Muslims, the Umma, as a single entity, and all the lands inhabited by Muslims as their inalienable patrimony. Muslim tradition, for example, still mourns the loss of Islamic Spain in the 15th century. Arab anti-Zionism is also a reflection of the politics of the Arab states. Most Arab governments since the end of colonial rule have been feudal Islamic monarchies or oppressive secular dictatorships. Although oil wealth has given prosperity to the smaller Gulf states, most Arab regimes have conspicuously failed to provide either material well-being or political progress to their large and rapidly expanding populations. Diverting popular anger towards Israel and its western sponsors has thus served as a useful safety-valve for the Arab regimes. Even in countries like Egypt which have formally recognised Israel, the regime encourages its frustrated intellectual and political class to indulge in anti-Zionist rhetoric as a means of drawing attention from domestic political issues.

 

Syria, Iraq and Hezbollah are about it (due to being Shi'a) as far as I know. Hussein's Iraq fought an ethnically and religiously charged war with Iran in the 1980's, and one reason people are afraid of Iran getting nukes is that it would compel Saudi Arabia, Turkey and/or Egypt to get them.

 

Your point being?

 

Nothing, I'm sorry. Just a little tired and cynical about the tactical alliances between the anti-Zionist western left and the Islamists... you know, those same people who are happy to kill leftists and progressives in Islamic world countries. I guess that the Islamists figure that you can't spell slaughter without laughter.

 

Have you considered that, alternatively, there is no "tactical alliance" at all, and that this deal is a result of mainstream, non-bigoted left conceding the fact that people only agree to deals if both sides benefit, which necessarily implies that one side that is not "liked" very well may nonetheless have some partially positive outcome? Because that's sort of fundamental to the concept of diplomacy.

 

Zionism is the movement that wants to establish Greater Israel.This includes the West Bank and all of Jerusalem.
So I should hope your government is anti-Zionist. But I'm not convinced.

 

There are several issues with your post.

1) First off, Iran doesn't "align itself with the Arab world." As Darth Guy stated, it has a couple of allies. The Arab Word mostly opposes Iran. You know who is aligned with the Arab-Islamic world? The US. Secondly, there is a country that is aligned with the Arab-Islamic world: Pakistan. What's Israel gonna do about that? Cause based on your comment, it's already too late.

2) There is no singular "Islamic tradition." Islam varies greatly from country to country.

3) Don't you start on Middle Eastern countries diverting anger to America. Because you know who did that most recently? Netanyahu accusing the US of getting Arab-Israelis to vote.

4) There's nothing wrong with anti-Zionism. Plenty of people here are anti-Zionist.

 

I support a two-state solution, but I have no doubt whatever that a Palestinian state would be a corrupt, violent, oppressive and dysfunctional state, just like the rest of the Arab world, and I fully understand why Israel is extremely reluctant to have such a state as a neighbour - particularly seeing what happened when Israel withdrew their occupation forces from Gaza. The Palestinians are living in a fantasyland of denial about the realities of their situation, and to the extent that "friends of Palestine" like yourself encourage them in their delusion that they can somehow defeat Israel, or have a state without recognising the permanent and legitimate existence of Israel, you share the responsibility for their continuing miserable situation. The Palestinians need friends who will tell them the truth, and I don't see any evidence in this thread that you are willing to be one of those friends. Which is a pity, because you are very well placed to be one.

 

There were and still are a lot of Jews who are anti-zionist, and who opposed the creation of Israel.

 

Looks like this will be the second time you're beaten to the punch: Israel already has dysfunctional countries as neighbors. You really need to get with the program here. Also, if Israel is reluctant to have such a neighbor, they can always do the other option: annex the West Bank and Gaza and make the Palestinians full citizens with all the rights and responsibilities that come with it. But the current status, where the Palestinians have no state representation is criminal. It's a shame you aren't advocating for it. After all, you wouldn't want to "share responsibility" for their continuing miserable situation, right?

 

Everything the Palestinians have done since 1967 - every plane they have hijacked, every bomb they have set, every deluded teenager who has blown himself up, every offer they have rejected, every stone they have thrown - has only served to make their situation worse. If their friends don't stop encouraging them in their delusions, and most importantly don't stop subsidising their irresponsibility, they will sit in their wretched camps for another half century.

 

Ah, it's all their fault. What nonsense. Don't expect that to sell here, except to a few longtime fellow distributors.

 

"The active expression of western anti-Zionism has tended to ebb and flow in relation to events in the Middle East. When developments seem positive, such as during the period of the Oslo Accords and the prime ministership of Yitzhak Rabin, and again during the Barak-Arafat negotiations in 1999-2000, western opinion, even on the anti-Zionist left, welcomes the reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians. When events turn out badly, such as after the assassination of Rabin and again with the launching of the second intifada and the election of the Sharon government, western anti-Zionism flares up again. Nevertheless, most of this sentiment is "soft anti-Zionism." Few western intellectuals actively desire the physical destruction of Israel, and most would welcome any settlement if it was acceptable to the Palestinians."

 

Do you plan to actually respond to people's rebuttals or just soapbox?

 

What rebuttals?

I've already pointed out that terrorism and intifadas gets the Arabs precisely nowhere as Israel holds all the cards, including militarily and doesn't have to do anything.

The Irish reunification-ists eventually accepted that their terrorism campaign had failed and opened direct negotiations with the Unionists and the British, leading to the Good Friday Agreement,

When the Arabs call off the terrorist campaign, they will similarly find the Israeli public willing to be generous, as they were at the time of the Oslo Accords.

 

So, what does Israel do when Jews become a minority in Israel? How will that affect relations with surrounding countries and the establishment of a Palestinian state?

EJS: You're basically posting nothing but propaganda. You are not making an substantive posts. Just repeating talking points that were old a long time ago.

 

Arab talking points are propaganda as well.

 

You didn't answer my question.

 

With millions of Jews being driven from other places such as Europe by rising antisemitism, I doubt there will be much of a minority problem for a while. And, anyway, Israel is very different to the Christian kingdoms of the crusades.