As razões de Gideon Levy para dar "razão" a Lieberman.

 

Lieberman was right

www.haaretz.com

Lieberman correctly diagnosed a government that is both an obstacle to peace and corrupt, and urged that it be replaced via elections.

Como se prova ainda há gente de bom senso por Israel.

A crónica de David Grossman, que coloca, entre outras, a interrogação:

"Como nos iremos encarar e aos nossos filhos quando nos perguntarem porque nos mantivemos em silêncio?"

As Netanyahu pushes Israel closer to war with Iran, Israelis cannot keep silent

www.haaretz.com

Why aren't ministers and defense officials standing up right now, when it is still possible, and saying: We will not be a party to this megalomaniacal vision, to this messianic - catastrophic worldview?

Israel continua a preparar-se para atacar o Irão.

Existe um diferendo entre os políticos - Nentanyahu e Barak - e as chefias militares e dos serviços de informação quanto às condições objectivas necessárias para poder desferir um ataque com sucesso.

Os responsáveis militares e dos serviços de informação entendem que seria necessário a participação dos EUA, no mínimo o seu agreement, o que só poderá ocorrer muito depois de 6 de Novembro, após as eleições presidenciais americanas, e que qualquer tentativa para o lançar nas próximas semanas seria um erro crasso.

Mas face a próximas eleições, também em Israel, seria conveniente para Netanyahu apresentar o escalpe do povo do Irão no seu cinto de guerra. Até já estimaram o número de vítimas israelitas de um tal ataque: "só" 300.

Para além de uma tal estimativa não oferecer qualquer credibilidade, mesmo que referida apenas ao território israelita, esqueceram-se ainda de contabilizar o que iria acontecer por esse mundo fora aos judeus e aos interesses judaicos e israelitas.

Heeding Gantz isn't weakness

www.haaretz.com

Accepting Gantz's recommendation to avoid attacking Iran before the U.S. elections will not detract from the government's authority and responsibility.

Is Israel Suicidal? Uma crónica de MJ Rosenberg

Is Israel Suicidal? A man wrote me the other day to complain about something I had written regarding my belief that Israel has every right to exist in peace and security. He responded that Israel should not exist, asserting that Israel is simply a Western colony implanted in the Middle East that is as "authentic as white Rhodesia" was. He argued that every Israeli is from somewhere else and that what we call an "Israeli culture" is really just European culture with influences from Sephardic Israelis, "who are really Arabs," as well as from the indigenous Palestinians. As anti-Israel polemicists often do, he invoked the crusader colony that occupied Palestine for 200 years and then vanished. One way or another, he said, Israel too will disappear, rejected by the region the way a human body rejects an incompatible implant. To me, the whole argument (and the impulse behind it) is laughable and could only be made by someone who has very little knowledge about Israel. Like it or not, Israel is no more a European colony than the United States. While once the various people that compose Israel were simply settlers, being Israeli today is as distinct a nationality as any in the world. Although Jews visiting Israel from the United States or Europe often say, "I feel so at home here," that is only an illusion. Without speaking the Hebrew language and knowing the unique local culture, no one can be at home there. Visitors to Israel often say that it is impossible to tell Israelis from Palestinians. And, with the exception of the ultra-traditional among both peoples, that is true. But no one ever says that about the American, French or Russian Jews until they have been there 20 years or more. An Israeli is an Israeli. It is amazing, but a distinct new nationality was created over the past century. Seven million people speak Hebrew as their day-to-day language; before 1887 not a single person did. The creation of this nation and nationality is a remarkable achievement. Despite all Israel's faults, it is hard to imagine a Jew from previous eras who would not be struck with pride and wonder by the accomplishment. It does seem like a miracle, although it really is the result of hard work by remarkable men and women and a series of historical accidents, some horrendous beyond belief. But now, Israel's current leadership is jeopardizing the whole enterprise. In short, they are behaving in as suicidal a manner as Binyamin Netanyahu claims the Iranian regime behaves. How else to characterize a series of attacks in Iran, coupled with the "crippling sanctions" inflicted on the people of Iran by the United States, under intense and single-minded pressure of AIPAC, the Netanyahu government's lobby? How else to characterize the absolute refusal by the United States, under pressure from the lobby, to engage Iran diplomatically with the goal not merely of preventing an Iranian bomb but of fully normalizing relations (as Iran proposed in 2003)? Any doubt that Netanyahu and the lobby want war can be eliminated not just by this week's assassination of an Iranian scientist in the streets of Tehran, the fifth such killing, but also by an AIPAC-drafted resolution that tells the president that the only way he can deal with a nuclear Iran is through war, not diplomacy. Introduced by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the resolution states that should Iran develop nuclear weapons, the U.S. response must be a military attack, even nuclear war. Read how Sen. Graham explains it: Some have suggested that — should economic and diplomatic pressure fail to force Iran to abandon its pursuit of acquiring nuclear weapons — the next best option is for the United States to accept and then contain a nuclear-armed Iran. That would be a catastrophic mistake. The resolution we intend to introduce will put the Senate on record as opposing containment in the strongest and clearest terms, detailing why the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran cannot be 'contained' like the threat of the Soviet Union. When it comes to addressing the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, all options must be on the table — except for one, and that is containment. ... Containment is failure, and failure cannot be an option. Imagine. The option the lobby-initiated Senate resolution rejects is the very policy that prevented the world from being destroyed during the Cold War. It is also the option the United States applies in the case of every other nation with nuclear weapons, including North Korea. Of course, if the Lieberman-Graham recommendation had the force of law, it would be unconstitutional. Congress cannot prevent the president from engaging in diplomacy. It certainly cannot force the commander in chief to engage in a war that would likely be nuclear. Imagine if Congress could have forced President Kennedy to go to war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis rather than resolve the crisis through diplomacy. If it had, it is quite possible that none of us would be here. Nonetheless, this is what the so-called "pro-Israel" lobby is promoting: ruling out diplomacy in favor of war. It is insane. Surely the Israeli government (if not the lobby) understands that a military attack on Iran would lead to strikes on Israel engineered by Iran, its allies, and its regional proxies. Hezbollah alone has thousands of missiles on Israel's northern border that can reach every inch of Israel. Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, which is hanging by a thread anyway, would be unlikely to withstand popular support for some kind of military response. Hamas, on Israel's southern border, would attack. As for Syria, Bashir Assad might attack Israel just to divert attention from the revolution that seems on the verge of sweeping away his regime. Additionally, the nearly dead peace process would be buried. Israel might survive the war and its aftermath, but it would never achieve peace or security with a Muslim world that would never forgive a "preemptive" attack on a fellow Muslim state. In short, those who are advocating an attack on Iran by either Israel or the United States are cavalierly trifling with the survival of Israel, a nation that was built by dreamers and pioneers who wanted nothing more than a secure spot on earth where Jews would control their own destiny. That vision was achieved, but now it is being jeopardized by those who have a different dream: not the security of a Jewish state but its right to regional hegemony. As Gen. Ephraim Sneh, one of Israel's leading Iran hawks, admits, the rush to war is not about Israel's survival but about its ability to do whatever it wants to do whenever it wants to do it. In Sneh's words, "We cannot afford a nuclear bomb in the hands of our enemies, period. They don't have to use it; the fact that they have it is enough." Enough to risk the annihilation of Israel? Fortunately, America's leaders don't think that way. We have lived under a nuclear threat since Stalin's Soviet Union developed atomic weapons in the late 1940s. In 1965, we had to accept the idea that our worst and most irrational enemy, the nation we then called Red China, had the bomb. And now there are North Korea, the craziest nation on earth, and Pakistan, which openly and defiantly colludes with the world's most anti-American terrorists. We live with that. We choose containment over national suicide. I have no doubt that virtually all Israelis (and Iranians, too) share our penchant for survival. Something is wrong with the Netanyahu government and its cutouts here. They have forgotten the number one injunction of the Torah: "Therefore, choose life." In other words, choose diplomacy, not war. Foreign Policy Matters is updated daily. Check us out HERE. Copyright (C) 2009 Media Matters Action Network All rights reserved.

"The stolen war" de Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery

January 7, 2012

                                               The Stolen War

IS THERE no limit to the villainy of Hamas? Seems there isn’t.

This week, they did something quite unforgivable.

They stole a war.

FOR SOME weeks now, our almost new Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, has been announcing at every possible opportunity that a new war against the Gaza Strip is inevitable. Several commanders of the troops around the Strip have been repeating this dire forecast, as have their camp-followers, a.k.a. military commentators.

One of these comforted us. True, Hamas can now hit Tel Aviv with their rockets, but that will not be so terrible, because it will be a short war. Just three or four days. As one of the generals said, it will be much more “hard and painful” (for the Arabs) than Cast Lead I, so it will not last for three weeks, as that did. We shall all stay in our shelters – those of us who have shelters, anyway – for just a few days.  

Why is the war inevitable? Because of the terrorism, stupid. Hamas is a terrorist organization, isn’t it?

But along comes the supreme Hamas leader, Khaled Mash’al, and declares that Hamas has given up all violent action. From now on it will concentrate on non-violent mass demonstrations, in the spirit of the Arab Spring.

When Hamas forswears terrorism, there is no pretext for an attack on Gaza. 

But is a pretext needed? Our army will not let itself be thwarted by the likes of Mash’al. When the army wants a war, it will have a war. This was proved in 1982, when Ariel Sharon attacked Lebanon, despite the fact that the Lebanese border had been absolutely quiet for 11 months. (After the war, the myth was born that it was preceded by daily shooting. Today, almost every Israeli can “remember” the shooting – an astonishing example of the power of suggestion.

WHY DOES the Chief of Staff want to attack?

A cynic might say that every new Chief of Staff needs a war to call his own. But we are not cynics, are we?

Every few days, a solitary rocket is launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel. It rarely hits anything but an empty field. For months, now, no one has been hurt.

The usual sequence is like this: our air force carries out a “targeted liquidation” of Palestinian militants in the strip. The army claims invariably that these specific “terrorists” had intended to attack Israelis. How did the army know of their intentions? Well, our army is a master thought reader.

After the persons have been killed, their organization considers it its duty to avenge their blood by launching a rocket or a mortar shell, or even two or three. This “cannot be tolerated” by the army, and so it goes on.

After every such episode, the talk about a war starts again. As American politicians put it in their speeches at AIPAC conferences: “No country can tolerate its citizens being exposed to rockets!”

But of course, the reasons for Cast Lead II are more serious. Hamas is being accepted by the international community. Their Prime Minister, Isma’il Haniyeh, is now traveling around the Arab and Muslim world, after being shut in Gaza – a kind of Strip-arrest – for four years. Now he can cross into Egypt because the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ parent organization, has become a major player there.

Even worse, Hamas is about to join the PLO and take part in the Palestinian government. High time to do something about it. Attack Gaza, for example. Compel Hamas to become extremist again.

NOT CONTENT with stealing our war, Mash’al is carrying out a series of more sinister actions.

By joining the PLO, he is committing Hamas to the Oslo agreements and all the other official deals between Israel and the PLO. He has announced that Hamas accepts a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. He has let it be known that Hamas would not contest the Palestinian presidency this year, so that the Fatah candidate – whoever that may be – would be elected practically unopposed and be able to negotiate with Israel.

All this would put the present Israeli government in a difficult position.

Mash’al has some experience in causing trouble for Israel. In 1977, the (first) Netanyahu government decided to get rid of him in Amman. A team of Mossad agents was sent to assassinate him in the street by spraying his ear with an untraceable poison. But instead of doing the decent thing and  dying quietly from a mysterious cause, like Yasser Arafat, he let his bodyguard chase the attackers and catch them.

King Hussein, Israel’s longstanding friend and ally, was hopping mad. He presented Netanyahu with a choice: either the agents would be tried in Jordan and possibly hanged, or the Mossad would immediately send the secret antidote to save Mash’al. Netanyahu capitulated, and here we have Mash’al, very much alive and kicking.

Another curious outcome of this misadventure: the king demanded that the Hamas founder and leader, the paralyzed Sheik Ahmad Yassin, be released from Israeli prison. Netanyahu obliged, Yassin was released and assassinated by Israel seven years later. When his successor, Abd al-Aziz Rantissi, was assassinated soon after, the path was cleared for Mash’al to become the Hamas chief.

And instead of showing his gratitude, he now confronts us with a dire challenge: non-violent action, indirect peace overtures, the two-state solution.

A QUESTION: why does our Chief of Staff long for a little war in Gaza, when he could have all the war he desires in Iran? Not just a little operation, but a big war, a very very big war.   

Well, he knows that he cannot have it.

Some time ago I did something no experienced commentator ever does. I promised that there would be no Israeli military attack on Iran. (Nor, for that matter, an American one.)

An experienced journalist or politician never makes such a prediction without leaving a loophole for himself. He puts in an inconspicuous “unless”. If his forecast goes awry, he points to that loophole.

I do have some experience – some 60 or so years of it – but I did not leave any loophole. I said No War, and now General Gantz says the same in so many words. No Tehran, just poor little Gaza.

 Why? Because of that one word: Hormuz.

Not the ancient Persian god Hormuzd, but the narrow strait that is the entrance and exit of the Persian Gulf, through which 20% of the world’s oil (and 35% of the sea-borne oil) flows. My contention was that no sane (or even mildly insane) leader would risk the closing of the strait, because the economic consequences would be catastrophic, even apocalyptic.

IT SEEMS that the leaders of Iran were not sure that all the world’s leaders read this column, so, just in case, they spelled it out themselves. This week they conducted conspicuous military maneuvers around the Strait of Hormuz, accompanied by the unequivocal threat to close it. 

The US responded with vainglorious counter-threats. The invincible US Navy was ready to open the strait by force, if needed.

How, pray? The mightiest multi-billion aircraft carrier can be easily sunk by a battery of cheap land-to-sea missiles, as well as by small missile-boats.

Let’s assume Iran starts to act out its threats. The whole might of the US air force and navy is brought to bear. Iranian ships will be sunk, missile and army installations bombed. Still the Iranian missiles will come in, making passage through the strait impossible.    

What next? There will be no alternative to “boots on the ground”. The US army will have to land on the shore and occupy all the territory from which missiles can be effectively launched. That would be a major operation. Fierce Iranian resistance must be expected, judging from the experience of the eight-year Iraqi-Iranian war. The oil wells in neighboring Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states will also be hit. 

Such a war would go far beyond the dimensions of the American invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan, perhaps even of Vietnam.

Is the bankrupt US up to it? Economically, politically and in terms of morale?

The closing of the strait is the ultimate weapon. I don’t believe that the Iranians will use it against the imposition of sanctions, severe as they may be, as they have threatened. Only a military attack would warrant such a response.  

If Israel attacks alone – “the most stupid idea I ever heard of,” as our former Mossad chief put it – that will make no difference. Iran will consider it an American action, and close the strait. That’s why the Obama administration put its foot down, and hand-delivered to Netanyahu and Ehud Barak an unequivocal order to abstain from any military action.

That’s where we are now. No war in Iran. Just the prospect of a war in Gaza.

And along comes this evil Mash’al and tries to spoil the chances of that, too.

"Segurem-me senão..." por Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery

November 5, 2011

                                                           “Hold me back!”

EVERYBODY KNOWS the scene from school: a small boy quarrels with a bigger boy. “Hold me back!” he shouts to his comrades, “Before I break his bones!”

Our government seems to be behaving in this way. Every day, via all channels, it shouts that it is going, any minute now, to break the bones of Iran.

Iran is about to produce a nuclear bomb. We cannot allow this. So we shall bomb them to smithereens.

Binyamin Netanyahu says so in every one of his countless speeches, including his opening speech at the winter session of the Knesset. Ditto Ehud Barak. Every self-respecting commentator (has anyone ever seen a non-self-respecting one?)  writes about it. The media amplify the sound and the fury.

“Haaretz” splashed its front page with pictures of the seven most important ministers (the “security septet”) showing three in favor of the attack, four against. 

A GERMAN proverb says: “Revolutions that are announced in advance do not take place.” Same goes for wars.

Nuclear affairs are subject to very strict military censorship. Very very strict indeed.

Yet the censor seems to be smiling benignly. Let the boys, including the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense (the censor's ultimate boss) play their games.

The respected former long-serving chief of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, has publicly warned against the attack, describing it as “the most stupid idea” he has  ever heard”. He explained that he considers it his duty to warn against it, in view of the plans of Netanyahu and Barak. 

On Wednesday, there was a veritable deluge of leaks. Israel tested a missile that can deliver a nuclear bomb more then 5000 km away, beyond you-know-where. And our Air Force has just completed exercises in Sardinia, at a distance larger than you-know-where. And on Thursday, the Home Front Command held training exercises all over Greater Tel Aviv, with sirens screaming away.

All this seems to indicate that the whole hullabaloo is a ploy. Perhaps to frighten and deter the Iranians. Perhaps to push the Americans into more extreme actions. Perhaps coordinated with the Americans in advance. (British sources, too, leaked that the Royal Navy is training to support an American attack on Iran.)

It is an old Israeli tactic to act as if we are going crazy (“The boss has gone mad” is a routine cry in our markets, to suggest that the fruit vendor is selling at a loss.) We shall not listen to the US any more. We shall just bomb and bomb and bomb.

Well, let’s be serious for a moment.

ISRAEL WILL not attack Iran. Period.

Some may think that I am going out on a limb. Shouldn’t I add at least “probably” or “almost certainly”?

No, I won’t. I shall repeat categorically: Israel Will NOT Attack Iran. 

Since the 1956 Suez adventure, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered an ultimatum that stopped the action, Israel has never undertaken any significant military operation without obtaining American consent in advance.

The US is Israel’s only dependable supporter in the world (besides, perhaps, Fiji, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.) To destroy this relationship means cutting our lifeline. To do that, you have to be more than just a little crazy. You have to be raving mad.

Furthermore, Israel cannot fight a war without unlimited American support, because our planes and our bombs come from the US. During a war, we need supplies, spare parts, many sorts of equipment. During the Yom Kippur war, Henry Kissinger had an “air train” supplying us around the clock. And that war would probably look like a picnic compared to a war with Iran.

LET’S LOOK at the map. That, by the way, is always recommended before starting any war.

The first feature that strikes the eye is the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which every third barrel of the worlds seaborne oil supplies flow. Almost the entire output of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Iraq and Iran has to run the gauntlet through this narrow sea lane.

“Narrow” is an understatement. The entire width of this waterway is some 35 km (or 20 miles). That’s about the distance from Gaza to Beer Sheva, which was crossed last week by the primitive rockets of the Islamic Jihad.

When the first Israeli plane enters Iranian airspace, the strait will be closed. The Iranian navy has plenty of missile boats, but they will not be needed. Land-based missiles are enough.

The world is already teetering on the verge of an abyss. Little Greece is threatening to fall and take major chunks of the world economy with her. The elimination of almost a fifth of the industrial nations’ supply of oil would lead to a catastrophe hard even to imagine.

To open the strait by force would require a major military operation (including “putting boots on the ground”) that would overshadow all the US misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can the US afford that? Can NATO? Israel itself is not in the same league.

BUT ISRAEL would be very much involved in the action, if only on the receiving end.

In a rare show of unity, all of Israel’s service chiefs, including the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet, are publicly opposing the whole idea. We can only guess why.

I don’t know whether the operation is possible at all. Iran is a very large country, about the size of Alaska, the nuclear installations are widely dispersed and largely underground. Even with the special deep penetration bombs provided by the US, the operation may stall the Iranian efforts – such as they are - only for a few months. The price may be too high for such meager results.

Moreover, it is quite certain that with the beginning of a war, missiles will rain down on Israel – not only from Iran, but also from Hizbollah, and perhaps also from Hamas. We have no adequate defense for our towns. The amount of death and destruction would be prohibitive.

Suddenly, the media are full of stories about our three submarines, soon to grow to five, or even six, if the Germans are understanding and generous. It is openly said that these give us the capabilities of a nuclear “second strike”, if Iran uses its (still non-existent) nuclear warheads against us. But the Iranians may also use chemical and other weapons of mass destruction. 

Then there is the political price. There are a lot of tensions in the Islamic world. Iran is far from popular in many parts of it. But an Israeli assault on a major Muslim country would instantly unite Sunnis and Shiites, from Egypt and Turkey to Pakistan and beyond. Israel could become a villa in a burning jungle.

BUT THE talk about the war serves many purposes, including domestic, political ones.

Last Saturday, the social protest movement sprang to life again. After a pause of two months, a mass of people assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. This was quite remarkable, because on that very day rockets were falling on the towns near the Gaza Strip. Until now, in such a situation demonstrations have always been canceled. Security problems trump everything else. Not this time.

Also, many people believed that the euphoria of the Gilad Shalit festival had wiped the protest from the public mind. It didn’t.

By the way, something remarkable has happened: the media, after siding with the protest movement for months, have had a change of heart. Suddenly all of them, including Haaretz, are sticking knives in its back. As if by order, all newspapers wrote the next day that “more than 20,000” took part. Well I was there, and I do have some idea of these things. There were at least 100,000 people there, most of them young. I could hardly move.

The protest has not spent itself, as the media assert. Far from it. But what better means for taking people’s minds off social justice than talk of the “existential danger”?

Moreover, the reforms demanded by the protesters would need money. In view of the worldwide financial crisis, the government strenuously objects to increasing the state budget, for fear of damaging our credit rating.

So where could the money come from? There are only three plausible sources: the settlements (who would dare?), the Orthodox (ditto!) and the huge military budget.

But on the eve of the most crucial war in our history, who would touch the armed forces? We need every shekel to buy more planes, more bombs, more submarines. Schools and hospitals must, alas, wait.

So God bless Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Where would we be without him?    

A Suposta Conspiração Iraniana: E de como os Neocons nos imunizaram

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The Supposed Iran Plot: How The Neocons Immunized Us A few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, I attended a big holiday dinner with family and friends. Naturally much of the conversation revolved around the terrorist attacks and the rage and sorrow we all felt. There was also considerable discussion about President George W. Bush's handling of the catastrophe and his decision to send troops to Afghanistan in pursuit of the perpetrators and to eliminate the Taliban regime that was hosting them. Everyone at the table approved of the president's actions and believed that there was no alternative. Moreover, and this was somewhat surprising considering that none of us thought Bush had been legitimately elected, we all believed that he was being honest about the situation the United States faced and the options that were before him. There was, however, one dissenter. My younger son, then in college, was absolutely opposed to going into Afghanistan. He said that there had to be a better way to respond than rushing into a war that, in his opinion, would likely expand and last "forever." Besides, he added, "I don't believe a word that comes out of Bush's mouth." Naturally a brouhaha ensued with everyone (including me) telling the kid how utterly wrong and unpatriotic he was. There was a lot of yelling, but he would not back down. He just kept saying "you'll see." Boy did we. Prodded by his neoconservative advisers and outside cheerleaders eager to pick up where the first Gulf War ended, Bush quickly pivoted from Afghanistan to the calamitous invasion of Iraq. He justified that invasion by insisting that Iraq was implicated in the 9/11 attacks (it wasn't) and that it possessed weapons of mass destruction (it didn't). Both the Bush administration and its faithful ally, the Tony Blair government in the United Kingdom, famously set out to "fix" the intelligence to deceive the people of both nations into an utterly unnecessary and unjustified war, the main accomplishment of which has been to turn Iraq into, of all things, a strong ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Along the way, of course, hundreds of thousands of Americans, Iraqis, Brits and others have died and Iraq has essentially been destroyed. It is against this backdrop that I view the Iranian plot that was announced earlier this week by the Obama administration. At this point, it is impossible to say how serious the plot was and, more importantly, if it even had anything at all to do with the Iranian government. Are we ready to believe that the cold and calculating people who govern Iran are contracting out assassination plots with Mexican drug traffickers or that they would pick Washington as the best place to attack the Saudi ambassador (knowing that being found responsible for a major explosion in Washington would mean war with the Saudi Arabia and United States)? This is not to dismiss the plot as phony or contrived. But after the Iraq war experience, it would be awfully stupid of Americans to simply accept without question anything we are told about nefarious Muslim states that must be stopped before a "mushroom cloud" appears over downtown Washington. The only good news here is that we have past experience to guide us. But for the lies and manufactured evidenced that led us into Iraq we might not have reason to be skeptical about the case the government laid out yesterday and which the usual suspects are already joyously citing as reason to get tough with Iran (as if that country is not under onerous sanctions already). Here is Reuel Mark Gerecht, one of the leading cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, warning that the supposed plot justifies a U.S. attack on Iran. "The White House needs to respond militarily to this outrage. If we don't, we are asking for it," he writes. (Not very different from what he wrote in 2002 when he said that "if President Bush follows his own logic and compels his administration to follow him against Iraq and Iran, then he will sow the seeds for a new, safer, more liberal order in the Middle East.") But for the lies and manufactured evidence that led us into Iraq, we might actually accept the idea that the Iran plot is thoroughly genuine and in no way linked to the determination of so many inside our government and out of it who are hell-bent on war with Iran and who would do anything they can to achieve it. Fortunately, however, and this may be the only fortunate thing about the Iraq war, the Iraq experience taught us to be skeptical, especially of anything and everything championed by the hawks. So let's go slowly here. If the plot turns out to be both real and sanctioned by powerful people in Tehran, a strong response of some kind is warranted. But first let's make sure. The neocons' "drop bombs now and ask questions later" approach has been thoroughly discredited. How stupid would we have to be, then, to allow the same gang to lead us into yet another reckless war, one that would be infinitely more deadly? Count me among the skeptics. Foreign Policy Matters is updated daily. Check us out HERE. Copyright (C) 2009 Media Matters Action Network All rights reserved.