Iran

Granted there was something about George W Bush that sent plenty of otherwise reasonably normal people a little nuts too and perhaps the nature of politics and technology today is such that this kind of crazy is inevitable regardless of who wins elections. But what, in the name of god, has Obama done to merit this kind of stuff from Glenn Reynolds? Possibly Obama just hates Israel and hates Jews. That’s plausible — certainly nothing in his actions suggests otherwise, really. OK! I guess that White House seder is proof of how deep the conspiracy runs? Evidently the administration is protesting too much. Only a White House riddled with anti-semites

Here’s Tony Blair, speaking at AIPAC yesterday: We should be clear also. 
Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons capability.
 They must know that we will do whatever it takes to stop them getting it.  The danger is if they suspect for a moment we might allow such a thing. Emphasis added. This doesn’t really differ from long-established US policy except that the Americans tend to be a little less vocal when it comes to pledging military action. Then again, they’d be the ones having to take the decision to attack and they, not Blair, would be the ones who’d have to deal with the consequences. Doubtless Blair

I agree with Melanie Phillips that the principle reason there’s no middle-east preace prcess worth the name is the Palestinian’s reluctance to recognise and guarantee Israel’s security. I believe there are other reasons too, mind you, that help to obstruct any path towards a proper and just settlement. Still, since Melanie doesn’t believe there should be a Palestinian state, what does she think should be done? However much some people might wish it, the Palestinians cannot be wished away. They’re not going anywhere. Right? And if this is so, then at some point some kind of a deal will have to be reached. Perhaps not for many years, but sometime

Still, if we want to talk about cynicism I offer you, as Exhibit A, Daniel Pipes who believes, apparently seriously, that Obama can rescue his Presidency by going to war with Iran: He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations. Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapon capacity. […]Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush’s meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama’s feckless first

According to James Carville there’d be 67 Democratic Senators if it weren’t for those ghastly chaps at Fox News. As with everything Carville says this must be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevetheless one need not look too hard to discover evidence of the impact Fox has had on American journalism* in precincts far from and not naturally disposed to take their orders from Roger Ailes’ command-bunker. Why, the very same edition of the New York Times contains an excellent example of how Fox’s “framing” of an issue has leached into the mainstream. In the paper’s Week in Review section Helene Cooper “examines” the burning issue of whether Barack

Well, he’s the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs who is, according to Melanie Phillips, a “fifth columnist” who is “in hock to the Iranian regime”. Melanie suggests that Limbert’s appointment means Tehran “now has its own man running the United States’s policy towards Iran” and asks “Has there ever been a situation where the President of a country delivers his country in this fashion to its mortal enemy?” May I quietly suggest that this is not quite the case? Until recently Limbert was Professor of International Affairs at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. Before that he enjoyed a 33

On the whole, Washington cynicism may be preferable to Washington’s special brand of bemused naivete. Consider Jackson Diehl’s remarkable column in this morning’s Washington Post in which he seems astonished to discover that the Iranian opposition is made up of Iranians, not all of whom share the west’s analysis of what Iran should do next. Fancy that! Ataollah Mohajerani, who has been a spokesman in Europe for presidential candidate-turned-dissident Mehdi Karroubi, came to Washington to address the annual conference of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The mostly pro-Israel crowd was primed to cheer what they expected would be a harsh condemnation of Ahmadinejad and his bellicose rhetoric, and

Robert Kagan worries that Barack Obama isn’t a strong enough poker player to beat Iran. This is probably not much of a surprise. But here’s how Kagan puts it: Many of us worry that, for Obama, engagement is an end in itself, not a means to an end. We worry that every time Iran rejects one proposal, the president will simply resume negotiations on another proposal and that this will continue right up until the day Iran finally tests its first nuclear weapon, at which point the president will simply begin negotiations again to try to persuade Iran to put its nuclear genie back in the bottle… The worst of