"The ------- Lobby"

[A comment by Elkern on SST]

"I really doubt that Israel will bomb Iran in any big way - but I really do think they are trying to get us (US) to do it for them.

Like Turkey, Persian Iran would be a natural ally for Israel, surrounded by Arabs. "The enemy of my enemy is my freind" translates to "the neighbor of my neighbor is my ally".

Israel wouldn't want Iran to be destroyed - like we did to Iraq - but rather, merely "flipped", and this would work a whole lot better for them if we would do the messy part. How many "Regime Changer" missiles do we have stockpiled?

Lacking direct experience in the region, I could be totally wrong here; if so, please correct me. A Koranic sense of Justice would lead Iran to defend Palestinian Muslims; my New Testament ethics lead me to share this sentiment. But I would bet that there's a strong tribal memory among Shiite Persians of persecution at the hands of Sunni Arabs which could pull them in the opposite direction. I would bet a second beer on the proposition that Israeli Jews are more accutely consious of ethnicity even than religion. Furthermore, I'd bet a third (somebody's gonna get fat, dumb & happy off this wager) saying that non-Israeli Jews are even more likely to think this way. Tribal solidarity is the strength and the curse of Judaism; how many will think outside that box?

Actually, I'm pleased to say that several of the clearest voices speaking out against the Israel Lobby in the US are Jewish progressive intellectuals. Sadly, they are often vilified as "self-hating Jews", which could only piss me off more if I was Jewish.
I've recently been worried by the possibility that the Israel Lobby is now willing to risk visibility because the US is pretty much used up, and won't be worth bothering with much longer. But this overreach could also be explained by individual and/or collective hubris.

Still, what I see is a strong contigent of Israelophiles in the US with great (horrible?) bureaucratic infighting skills, pushing the US into conflict with Iran. Babak, the Dispensationalist "Christians" provide cannon-fodder in the voting booth, but not Seals in the bureaucracy.

We must not let this war happen. I just hope that Freeman is correct in choosing to bail out screaming "Lobby", and I hope that Adm. Blair can keep his chair & keep our policy safe & sane.

But maybe it will be more palatable if we don't think of it as fighting 3 wars at once, but rather as one big war streching from the Med to the Himalayas...

Elkern

http://www.jinsa.org/