Apparently Bibi Netanyahu really, really wants us to start a war with Iran. That’s the ultimate goal of his little English-language TED talk this past week. As a piece of warmonger propaganda, it was pretty unconvincing, particularly in the post-Iraq war era, so it seems reasonable to assume that he was performing for an audience of one: that one named Trump. Iran lied, says Bibi, so Trump should tear up the JCPOA; tearing up the JCPOA means an end to diplomatic solutions, which means, ultimately, war.

It’s a war that Bibi doesn’t want to fight, and with good reason. Sure, they have undeclared nuclear weapons – hundreds of them – but those are pretty much useless beyond their value as an end-of-the-world threat. The fact is, Israel can’t win a conventional war with Iran, and they know it. Iran would be a difficult adversary, as well as a vast territory to subdue and occupy – it has “strategic depth”, as Col. Lawrence Wilkerson has pointed out. But honestly, when was the last time Israel won an actual war? 1973? Don’t say Lebanon – sure, they drove the PLO out of Beirut (at an enormous cost to the population), but by no means did that end positively for them. Their armed forces have suffered from too much colonial population control – thugging the Palestinians, in essence. But they still want to overthrow the Iranian regime. That’s where we come in.

Bibi and his allies are happy to expend our blood and treasure on an insane war against Iran. Same with Mohammed Bin Salman (or “MBS” as our press affectionately calls him). He very much wants us to neutralize Iran, just as they were supportive of Saddam Hussein when he launched his eight-year war on Iran that ended in a bitter stalemate. You can see him and Bibi sitting in the stands, sharing the same muffler, cheering us on as we take to the field of battle. They’ll be behind us all the way (about five hundred miles behind us). While not formally allies, Saudi and Israel go way back. Israel did the oil kingdom a solid when they destroyed Nassar’s army in 1967. (Mohammed Bin Salman’s progenitors had been engaged in a regional struggle against Arab nationalism for a number of years as it was a direct threat to their illegitimate existence as autocratic rulers.)

Is the JCPOA flawed? Only inasmuch as it’s somewhat unfair to the Iranians. As long as Israel maintains a massive nuclear arsenal, there will be a strong incentive for them to develop a deterrent. That’s the inescapable logic of the nuclear age, whether or not you own up to your H-bombs. That said, the JCPOA is acceptable to Tehran and the rest of the world, so it should stand … regardless of what our “friends” want us to do.

luv u,

jp