{"id":18059,"date":"2013-02-04T15:02:37","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T23:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=18059"},"modified":"2013-02-05T05:55:19","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T13:55:19","slug":"apocolyptic-iranians-refuse-assads-request-to-bomb-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/04\/apocolyptic-iranians-refuse-assads-request-to-bomb-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Apocalyptic’ Iranians Refuse Assad’s Request to Bomb Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the US and Israel, there is an obsession with Iran as this grave threat and their secret nuclear weapons program (which doesn’t exist<\/a>) as Israel’s death knell. In order to believe this incredible tale, one must accept the claim that Iran’s leaders are suicidal maniacs who don’t respond to the deterrent factor that has informed every nuclear and non-nuclear state since the end of WWII.<\/p>\n

\"\"As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to Congress last year<\/a>, Iran’s leaders are “apocalyptic” and would drop nuclear bombs on Israel as soon as they have the chance because they’re not scared of the inevitable retaliation.<\/p>\n

Deterrence worked with the Soviets, because every time the Soviets faced a choice between their ideology and their survival, they chose their survival.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But deterrence may not work with the Iranians once they get nuclear weapons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s a great scholar of the Middle East, Prof. Bernard Lewis, who put it best. He said that for the Ayatollahs of Iran, mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent, it\u2019s an inducement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This ignores so much history that it’s hard to know where to start. But here’s one possible starting point:<\/p>\n

The Times of Israel<\/em>:\u00a0Iran reportedly refuses Assad request to hit back at Israel<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Israel preemptively bombed Syria in a dangerous strike that could easily be considered an unprovoked act of war. Iran is Syria’s main ally, but Assad’s request that Iran help retaliate was faced with stiff refusal. Not only does Iran appear deterred by Israel’s (and the US’s) exponentially more capable military, but they are even restrained in cases of Israeli aggression. Never mind an unprovoked Iranian attack at their earliest opportunity to obliterate Israel – Iran won’t even\u00a0retaliate<\/em> when they have the opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the US and Israel, there is an obsession with Iran as this grave threat and their secret nuclear weapons program (which doesn’t exist) as Israel’s death knell. In order to believe this incredible tale, one must accept the claim that Iran’s leaders are suicidal maniacs who don’t respond to the deterrent factor that has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-18059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18059"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18076,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18059\/revisions\/18076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18059"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}