Iranian nuclear facilities

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks at the UN General Assembly. (screenshot: YouTube)

It’s stupid, dangerous and wrong to demand Iran’s humiliation

Whatever he tells the UN, Rouhani will not agree to give up nuclear weapons to please his country’s nuclear-armed enemies. And when it’s clear that he won’t, it’s his enemies who will face humiliation. I don’t believe Rouhani means it when he says Iran doesn’t want nuclear weapons. And even if he does, I don’t believe…

By Larry Derfner September 27, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at their joint press conference in Jerusalem (photo: Koby Gidon / Government Press Office)

Obama’s handling of Syria crisis revives Bibi’s hopes of bombing Iran

And this time, it’s hard to see who will be able to stop him. Netanyahu hasn’t said anything publicly, but the consensus here is that the lesson he’s taking from Obama’s refusal to bomb Syria straight away, and instead to turn to Congress for approval, is that the U.S. president can’t be trusted to keep…

By Larry Derfner September 1, 2013

President Kennedy meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the Oval Office. The President knows but does not reveal that he is now aware of the missile build-up. (photo: Wikicommons)

Cuban missile crisis, 50 years later: Lessons for Israel

JFK courted nuclear war with the Soviets, now Israel is courting a confrontation with the Iranians. But how can Israel contemplate starting a war against another country, a war that will not be negligible and could be devastating, for doing the same thing that it has been doing for over 40 years? I love it when…

By Larry Derfner October 21, 2012

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‘In a war, they do not distribute bread and halvah’

Some interesting quotes via the Iranian media roundup at Tehran Bureau (my emphasis). In his sermon for the Eid al-Fitr prayer in Qom, Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, known as a supporter of the Green Movement, addressed the recent reports that Israel may be preparing to attack Iran. “I did not intend to discuss this issue,”…

By Noam Sheizaf August 21, 2012

Blame Israel and AIPAC for a U.S. war in Iran

Israel and its Washington lobby have never dragged the U.S. into a war it didn’t want to fight. Iran would be a first. And if today’s talks fail, the countdown begins. I never went along with the argument that the Israel lobby, taking its directions from Jerusalem, pushed the United States to invade Iraq in 2003. Israel wanted the…

By Larry Derfner June 17, 2012

Sara and Benjamin Netanyahu. Who's in charge? (photo: Flickr / Πρωθυπουργός της Ελλάδας)

Lovely summer for a war

One of these lazy, sunny days, we’re likely to hear on the news that Israel has just bombed Iran. The question of whether Israel will soon attack Iran is one of those things where your senses completely deceive you. The more Israeli politicians and generals talk about it, the closer it seems, and the more fearful you become – but the bombast is…

By Larry Derfner June 15, 2012

More power to Gunter Grass for ‘What must be said’

His poem was especially brave because he’s German and because he’s vulnerable over his past. If I take Gunter Grass’s supposedly anti-Israel, anti-Semitic poem “What must be said” literally, I guess I could quibble with a couple of phrases. He says an Israeli attack on Iran “could erase the Iranian people.” An unknowing reader might think Israel is planning to nuke Iran, which…

By Larry Derfner April 5, 2012

Inside Bibi’s mind is a war waiting to start

Netanyahu (and not just he) seems to have talked himself into believing a war with Iran will be relatively painless The question of whether Israel will attack Iran or not has come down to a guessing game of what’s inside Bibi Netanyahu’s head. He’s certainly given every indication that he wants to do the deed. The idea that he’s bluffing…

By Larry Derfner March 24, 2012

David Grossman against attack on Iran – by Israel or U.S.

In interview published in The Nation online, novelist says starting a war is an even worse option than living with a nuclear Iran In his first public statement on the conflict with Iran, David Grossman, the leading Israeli novelist of the last generation and strongest voice of his country’s moral conscience, told The Nation that he opposed an attack on…

By Larry Derfner March 8, 2012

The myth of the Osirak bombing and the march to Iran

Israeli security god Amos Yadlin’s NY Times op-ed yesterday is an example of why Obama should not believe Netanyahu’s case for war The 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor is believed by Israelis (and not just them) to have been a historic success, a precedent for the use of military force as the ultimate in arms control, most relevantly in Iran. Knowlegeable…

By Larry Derfner March 2, 2012

Poll: Huge majority opposes unilateral Israeli war on Iran

This is the best news on the antiwar front since Meir Dagan went public – a poll published today by Dahaf, Israel’s leading public opinion surveying firm, found that only 19 percent of Israelis are in favor of Israel bombing Iran on its own, which is what most everyone, myself included, is predicting Israel will do. The poll results, though,…

By Larry Derfner March 1, 2012

On Iran, U.S. Jewish leaders will defend Israel down to last drop of our blood

If you think Israeli leaders are hawkish on Iran, listen to what some of these American Jewish leaders had to say at their get-together in Jerusalem. The number one team of machers (big-time operators) in organized American Jewry – the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations – were in Israel this past week, and just for a hate fix, I…

By Larry Derfner February 25, 2012

Five comments on the (troubling) situation

What does the appointment of Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i to ambassador of China really mean? Why is Yair Lapid whining? Which is the most interesting political teaming-up so far? What is one of the main goals of the war on Iran campaign? And what do we know of Netanyahu’s crime solving abilities? Ni…

By Ami Kaufman February 13, 2012