{"id":8343,"date":"2010-10-15T13:33:15","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T21:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8343"},"modified":"2010-10-15T13:33:15","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T21:33:15","slug":"friday-iran-talking-points-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/15\/friday-iran-talking-points-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 15th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

Foreign Policy<\/a><\/em>: David Rothkopf charges that Roger Cohen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent New York Times<\/a><\/em> op-ed totally disregards the threat posed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead, Rothkopf endorses Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s New York Times op-ed demanding Palestinian recognition of Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s identity as a Jewish state. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As unproductive as the Israeli stance on settlements has been, the Palestinian stance on the nature of the Israeli state, and its ability to continue operations as conceived and sanctioned by the United Nations nearly six and a half decades into its modern existence is just as unconstructive and indefensible,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d writes Rothkopf. He concludes with a variation of the debunked reverse-linkage argument<\/a>, arguing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s] grandstanding and inflaming crowds on Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s borders with the language of obliteration is not just rhetoric. It is part of a systematic and thus far effective effort to exacerbate dangers and, not secondarily, to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people whose right to a free, independent state created in their own image is, of course, every bit as great as that of the Israelis.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Washington Times<\/a><\/em>: Eli Lake writes that Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visit to Lebanon adds pressure to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to withdraw his support of a UN investigation to determine who killed his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visit is intended to show support for Hezbollah at a time when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s facing the prospect of indictments in the murder of Hariri and is engaged in a campaign to undermine and derail the tribunal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ash Jain, a visiting fellow<\/a> at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy<\/a>. Lake\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article went to print before it was known whether Ahmadinejad would travel to the Israeli border\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe did not\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut he writes that such a visit \u00e2\u20ac\u0153would signal Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proxies were on Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s border.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

FrumForum<\/a><\/em>: Brad Schaeffer, an energy derivatives broker writing for the blog of neoconservative pundit David Frum<\/a>, lines up three scenarios (best, mid, and worst case) on what could happen to oil prices should Israel attack Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear installations. Best-case results in only a small, temporary spike in prices and the Iranian leadership uses the strike to turn the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153military lemon into PR lemonade\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by playing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153victim\u00e2\u20ac\u009d without retaliation. A mid-level escalation would result in small to medium spikes, for a more sustained period, and attacks against Western forces. Worst case would mean an all out war (and closing the Strait of Hormuz) and the doubling of oil prices from their current levels.<\/p>\n

Time<\/a><\/em>: Tony Karon<\/a> describes Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trip to Lebanon as emblematic of a U.S. policy failure in the region. The visit makes clear three difficult realities the U.S. is facing: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153First, Iran is not nearly as isolated as Washington would like; secondly, the Bush Administration efforts to vanquish Tehran and its allies have failed; and, finally, the balance of forces in the region today prompts even U.S.-allied Arab regimes to engage pragmatically with a greatly expanded Iranian regional role.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ahmadinejad met with Lebanon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Christian president and Saudi-backed Sunni prime minister, notes Karon, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he also appears to be placing a heavy stress on Lebanese unity and the need to avoid division\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d rather than focus solely on Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hezbollah beneficiaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 15th, 2010: Foreign Policy: David Rothkopf charges that Roger Cohen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent New York Times op-ed totally disregards the threat posed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead, Rothkopf endorses Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s New York Times op-ed demanding Palestinian recognition of Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"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-8343","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\/8343","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\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8344,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8343\/revisions\/8344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8343"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}