Not feeling at all chastened over his role in pushing the US into war in Iraq based on his lies and those of his neoconservative allies, William Kristol has now taken to the pages of his Weekly Standard to peddle more lies to push Israel into a war of its own. Kristol, whose teeth you can literally hear gnashing in his latest furious missive, is desperately egging Israel on to attack Iran and thereby unleash what will no doubt be mass mayhem and carnage throughout the region, including on Israel itself.
What is driving Kristol mad is that the P5+1 talks with Iran suddenly hold some promise of an agreement being reached this weekend. Foreign ministers from Russia, China, the UK, and elsewhere are flying in to Geneva in anticipation. Kristol suddenly finds himself trapped in a bunker with nothing but a loaded gun of lies and hyperbole — and he is trigger-happy.
The Iranians are being permitted by the Obama administration to cross a “red line” if they are allowed to continue enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, Kristol writes. This is his biggest lie, of course, as under Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Iran has every right to continue enriching uranium to whatever level it wishes as long is none is diverted to arm weapons. That is a right granted to countries that have played by the rules and agreed to the international treaty. In truth, the countries seeking to prevent the exercise of that right that are the ones in violation.
In his article, titled “No Deal,” Kristol writes that he trusts that some Members of Congress will be “made of stern enough stuff to resist the attempted intimidation” of the administration and withstand the slings and arrows of being called “tools of the Israel lobby.” These Members who are brave enough to resist being tarred by association with the “Israel lobby” must “do their utmost to expose and scuttle” the Administration’s attempt to take a first step toward peacefully resolving the 34 year conflict with Iran.
Yet still Kristol is terrified. Even this might not be enough to scuttle the deal, he fears. No, something else must happen — something dramatic — to prevent steps toward a peaceful resolution with Iran. And he knows just the thing: war!
Writes Kristol:
[T]he last, best hope for stopping the Iranian regime from having nuclear weapons may well lie in a deus ex machina (if one may be permitted to use a pagan phrase for a Jewish state). It is Israel, not the great American superpower, that may well have to act to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. And so the democratically elected leader of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will have to weigh his choices, with the burden of history on his mind and the judgment of future generations in his thoughts.
If his own country is too cowardly to launch another war based on lies and manipulation, Kristol avers, then it will have to be up to Israel to alone light the Middle East on fire.
Netanyahu may well judge that he has to act to stop the Iranian regime from getting nuclear weapons. If he does, then Israel will fight. And Israel will be right.
Kristol smugly, from the comfort of his plush, heavily-subsidized magazine office, calls Israel to start a war that will without question result in hundreds of thousands of casualties including in Israel itself. There is no telling what kinds of unconventional, asymmetric retaliation that Israeli civilians would face if Israel listens to the American neocons. But for Kristol war is always the answer — as long as he doesn’t have to do any of the fighting or suffering.
One thing is sure, with friends like William Kristol, Israel doesn’t need enemies…
