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Louis Rene Beres is, in my opinion, a wild-eyed and war-mongering Jew, who shoots off his mouth incessantly on behalf of his unyielding opinion that Iran is about to erase Israel from the face of the earth. He bases that (apparently) solely on the statements of Iran’s current president, a wing-nut by the name of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Wing-nut presidents are not the exclusive province of Iranians. We happen to have one ourselves, who has single-handedly frightened and estranged a larger portion of the world than Iran by at least a power of ten. Home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 4000 BC (Wikipedia), what Iran has not done is attack, preemptively or otherwise, another nation. Would that Israel could say the same.
(The Jewish Press, The True Human Meanings Of A Nuclear Iran, Louis Rene Beres, 8-13-08)
For many years, any talk of preemption against a nuclearizing Iran was certain to elicit primarily harsh and uniform condemnation. In some circles, such talk amounted to nothing less than a shamelessly proposed "aggression.” Other critics, although somewhat more charitable in their particular denunciations, still expressed guarded sentiments that any Israeli or American defensive first-strikes against Iran would be "premature.”
Well yes, that’s true. Until George W. Bush made preemption a method by which he personally saw fit to solve the problems of the world, it was universally abhorred. In the place of preemption, the United States has itself taken the gold medal of abhorrence out of the hands of preemption and hung it around its national neck.
Now, finally, several authoritative figures are speaking plainly about the stark choices still open to Israel: preemption or apocalypse. Early in July, Meir Amit, a former director of Mossad, spoke unambiguously of Israel's imperative to use military force against Iran. Nothing else, said Amit, could any longer stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. In the best of all possible worlds, the United States would already have stepped up to the plate in the matter of Iran, but - for a variety of both political and geostrategic reasons - this did not happen.
Sorry ‘bout that Louie, I know you’re disappointed. Your definition of ‘the best of all possible worlds’ no doubt comes closer to that of the former director of Mossad. You neglect to mention that Amit held that esteemed position for a mere five years (63-68) and that was forty years ago. Eighty-seven now, Amit was a member of Haganah, a terrorist organization in its own right.
A Haganah specialty was the Special Night Squads. Now there’s a name that ought to throw a chill into your heart. According to Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld their training included "... how to kill without compunction, how to interrogate prisoners by shooting every tenth man to make the rest talk; and how to deter future terrorists by pushing the heads of captured ones into pools of oil and then freeing them to tell the story." This guy is one of your ‘authoritative figures?’ Amit’s precursor to waterboarding—oilboarding.
(Wikipedia) Prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1978–79 in Iran, SAVAK (Organization of National Security and Information), the Iranian secret police and intelligence service was created under the guidance of United States and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957 to protect the regime of the shah by arresting, torturing, and executing the dissidents (especially Leftists). After security relations between the United States and Iran grew more distant in the early 1960s which led the CIA training team to leave persia, Mossad became increasingly active in Iran, training SAVAK personnel and carrying out a broad variety of joint operations with SAVAK.
Mossad increasingly active in Amit’s 60s directorship? Meir Amit maybe have a few old scores to settle from those days or does he, as one of several authoritative sources have (in this case) clean hands?
Iran has been around this particular neighborhood in the Middle East for over 6,000 years. Jews trace their ancestral claim to the area on the Old Testament. The ancestry of ancient Persia had already been there for forty centuries. Forty centuries, Louie.
(Beres) Once again, Israel stands alone in the world.
That’s a bit melodramatic, Louie. If ever there was a nation that stood on other nations’ legs, it is modern Israel. This America that you would so quickly engulf in nuclear war, this nation that you would so easily throw away in your petulant, foot-stamping tantrum, has done more to sustain Israel than any other nation on earth. Stand alone. That’s a childish statement on the face of it.
Israel has sown, for eight decades, the seeds of misery, intransigence, terrorism, selfishness and an utter disregard for the people upon whose land it exists. Palestine, had Israel not made of it the scullery-maid for its kitchens, might today find itself proud, wealthy and an accepting neighbor to those who took its lands. Just as America has destroyed and held hostage its native population, so has Israel fallen short of humanity.
(Beres) The matter of Iranian nuclear weapons is not a matter of international "equity.” Israel is not Iran. Israel does not declare itself at war with Iran, or even with any Arab state. From the beginning, Israel has sought only peace.
Israel holds nuclear weapons quietly, unthreateningly, without bravado - and then only to prevent its own catastrophic destruction by altogether likely enemy state aggressions. It is entirely unimaginable that Israel would ever resort to such weapons as an initial move of war. A nuclear Iran, however, would at some point consider atomic first-strike attacks upon Israel with expressly genocidal intent.
Peaceful little move into Lebanon, I guess. Peaceful bulldozing and bombing of Palestinian targets—so peaceful that Israel had on its hands a refusal of duty by Israeli pilots, unwilling to further destroy civilian targets. How do you possibly know (and state as fact) Iran’s at-some-point considerations?
You are a selective historian, a cherry-picker of fact (and fiction) as well as an extremely dangerous loose-cannon of self serving opinion at a time when the world is stretched to its breaking point.
(Beres) We Jews are a covenant people, and also an eternal people. We cannot be destroyed, but the Jewish State does have existential vulnerabilities, and we do have an unending obligation to do whatever is necessary to stay alive. The Jewish State must provide the already-ingathered portion of Jews with both ordinary and extraordinary protections. This is not a negotiable expectation.
Striding across the world stage as those holding a covenant with God, claiming the inevitability of your victory over neighbors and taking to yourselves both ordinary and extraordinary protections that are not negotiable, is a poor way to negotiate. You have outlined your madman best of all possible worlds and it includes the destruction of a society twice the age of your own, killing countless thousands of peaceful Iranians and subjugating the rest to an as yet unknown type of Israeli servitude.
All this from a nation founded on ‘never again.’ I include a link to the full text of your demagoguery in The Jewish Press, in order that I not stand accused of quoting you falsely or out of context. But I digress . . .
. . . there is no appropriate context for your blood thirst.
