{"id":8841,"date":"2010-12-17T15:21:38","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T23:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8841"},"modified":"2010-12-17T15:21:38","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T23:21:38","slug":"friday-iran-talking-points-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/17\/friday-iran-talking-points-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 17th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

Weekly Standard<\/a><\/em>: Michael Weiss attacks the concept of ‘linkage<\/a>‘ in a long, convoluted piece on the Standard<\/a><\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blog. Leading off with an overstatement explanation of linkage (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153by resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict most other problems will be resolved\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), Weiss goes on to list statements by some Arab leaders about both Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. \u00e2\u20ac\u009dWhere linkage plainly fails as an interpretive mechanism is in its weighing of Arab motives for making Palestine the Key to All Mythologies for regional harmony,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he writes. Weiss analyzes linkage through the lens of previous Arab support for perpetuating the conflict, rather than the current push to end it. Returning to the straw man version of linkage (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153attribut[ing] immolated churches in Iraq to ongoing Palestinian statelessness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), he concludes by writing: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the end, if Palestinian statehood is achieved it will be largely in spite of, not because of, the self-serving efforts of unelected Arab leaders.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The connection to linkage remains unclear.<\/p>\n

Commentary<\/a><\/em>: Writing on the Contentions blog, Jonathan Tobin says that Australian Foreign Minister Paul Rudd \u00e2\u20ac\u0153blindsides\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Israel when, on a tour of the region, the diplomat said that Israel should be subject to IAEA inspections. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The problem with Rudd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shot fired across Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bow is not so much the request itself but the fact that it represents a tacit acceptance of the main talking point of apologists for Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear ambitions: the positing of a moral equivalence between Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear deterrent and Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire for the ultimate weapon,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d writes Tobin. He says it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a sign of Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s isolation: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153With allies like Australia and Kevin Rudd undermining Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, we must hope that the stories about Stuxnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s devastating impact really are true.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 17th, 2010: Weekly Standard: Michael Weiss attacks the concept of ‘linkage‘ in a long, convoluted piece on the Standard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blog. Leading off with an overstatement explanation of linkage (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153by resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict most other problems will be resolved\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), Weiss goes on to list […]<\/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-8841","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\/8841","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=8841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8842,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8841\/revisions\/8842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8841"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}