"Netanyahu discusses Iran with Cheney"Booman Tribune cites Jerusalem Post (Nexis only), June 18, 2006:
Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu met with US Vice President Dick Cheney at the American Enterprise Institute World Forum at Beaver Creek in Colorado on Friday.
During the meeting Netanyahu spoke mainly about the threat of the Iranian nuclear program. According to Netanyahu's spokesman Cheney complimented him on the results of his fiscal policies as finance minister in the Sharon government."
Compare with:
In a victory speech of sorts on Inauguration Day in January 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney warned bluntly that Iran was "right at the top" of the administration's list of "trouble spots"?and that Israel "might well decide to act first" by attacking Iran. The Israelis, Cheney added in an obvious swipe at moderates in the State Department, would "let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterward."J. Bramford, Rolling Stone, July 24, 2006
4 comments:
Wow. A little scary, if a bit too conspiratorial. Of course high level contacts and consultations occur between Israel and the United States. That's no different from our relationship to Britain.
One worrisome aspect of all this is I suppose the willingness of the administration to use Israel as a proxy in wider war, which, in some sense protects the US from some of the political fallout. My understanding of all previous administrations and their relationship to the region (and I guess most of these had the cold war and thus the soviets to help out in this respect) is that at all fucking costs we want stability. Sure we want pro-US regimes in place, but we'll deal with an anti-us Iran by sanctioning them and generally ignoring them. A stable anti-US regime is better than a cluster fuck. I mean, I guess that's realpolitik 101. Kissenger, etc.
So are we back to hubris and Imperial overstretch. In light of Rice's cancelation of the trip to Lebanon, is this right? Is she staying in Israel to get them to fucking quit bombing indiscriminately or because the bombing of Quan is just the beginning, and so, she's been held back by the right, that is Cheney, etc. Ahh.
Qana not Quan
Bamford, not Bramford.
Oh, and at the very least the Israeli-announced "temporary ceasefire" that has followed suggests that the Lebanon operation, whatever its primary aims, has largely failed. Weeding out entrenched Hizbollah fighters has been anything but easy and costless, and the number of rocket attacks increase not decrease almost daily. This is a ceasefire that provides them time to think about how to escape, not advance.
But one step back so that you can take two steps forward is classic military strategy.
Prediction:
Two weeks from now: despite small cross-border skirmishes, Israeli troops will continue to remain largely on Israel's side of the border, following the moral highground of ceasefire.
Three weeks from now: the first suicide bomber crosses the border or strikes Haifa, Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Then the push for Beruit can begin in earnest.
Right, the cease fire that really isn't. There have been at least two air strikes since they declared the 48 hour unilateral cease fire. I agree, this gives them time to call together the cabinet and see if a. they want to return to pressing ahead with a land war, which really is the only chance for really even weakening Hezbullah, b. continue with pointless airstrikes that kill many civilians and continue to mobilize the world against Israel, or c. (the scenario you describe) wait for something horrible to happen that justifies a full scale war.
And then Newt is right and oil hits 100$/barrel, and I start wishing I had joined the NRA or at least gone hunting before.
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