Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Yesterday, I read a story in Haaretz which claimed that Israel would introduce next week “unilateral” measures that it wished the U.S. to adopt in its relations with Iran.  Considering that all our efforts are now supposedly being expended to create a multilateral sanctions proposal, I thought it strange that Israel would be introducing any plan that contradicted this.  It just seemed “off message.”

Can Israel devise an Iranian crisis like the Cuban missile crisis?

Now, Didi Remez offers a translation of a Maariv story that unmasks Israel’s intentions.  You remember Cuba?  That country whose government we’ve been trying to overthrow for 50 years without success?  The one we invaded in the Bay of Pigs disaster?  The one about whom Kennedy and McNamara almost got us into a war?  Yup, that’s what Bibi wants–to turn Iran into the next Cuba.  And you know how well our Cuba policy’s turned out, don’t you?

You see, Israel is concerned that Russia and China will turn out to be wusses and either water down or torpedo the sanctions proposal being considered by the Security Council members:

Israel is concerned that the UN Security Council decision on intensifying sanctions against Iran will be postponed, and the Foreign Ministry is already taking steps to prepare an alternative, based on the model of the sanctions imposed by the US administration on Cuba…

If indeed it becomes clear that it will be impossible to impose harsh sanctions by means of the UN Security Council, the idea is that urgent steps will be taken against Iran, similar to those that the White House imposed on Cuba…

So if the west drops out of this plan, Israel wants a fallback.  Maybe Bibi has a thing for ’59 Chevys (like the ones you see driving around Havana thanks to the U.S. embargo).  Or maybe he’s thinking about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when John Kennedy and Robert McNamara came within a hair’s breath of war with the Soviet Union over its missiles in Cuba.  Maybe Bibi is thinking that we would create the same type of embargo around Iran and attack it for attempting to import equipment needed for its nuclear program.

Chief fantacist on behalf of this bold new plan is none other than the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who reveals he knows even less about U.S.-Cuba relations than he knows about Israel-Palestine relations:

We must ask the US to adopt toward Iran the model of embargo on Cuba, which proved to be effective, and which is strong enough to choke Iran and bring down the regime.”

Even though Lieberman is an utter jackass, he can’t possibly believe this shtus, which is why I believe what Israel may really want is another Cuban missile crisis, which would take the U.S. right up to the edge and over into military confrontation, in order to prevent Iran from getting the bomb (or so the Israeli scenario posits) just as Kennedy was prepared to do with the Soviets & Cuba.

Tags: avigdor-lieberman, iran sanctions, United Nations

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 1:47 AM and is filed under Mideast Peace, Politics & Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.