Ulterior Motives

Juan Cole, in his blog Informed Comment, has had a thread of commentaries in the last few weeks which have really helped ground the Israeli vilification of Iran for me. For the sake of explanation, I've changed the timeline of his original posts. First, here are some statistics he posted from Globalfirepower.com:

Population Israel: 7.2 mn. Iran: 70 mn.
Wars launched on neighbors: Israel: 1956, 1967, 1982, 2006, 2008-9 Iran: 0
Nuclear Warheads Israel: ~200 Iran: 0
Military Budgets: Israel: $13.4 bn. Iran: $7.4 bn.
Per capita military expenditure: Israel: $1,805 Iran: $105
Total Aircraft Israel: 1,220 Iran: 84
Active Military and Reserve Personnel Israel: ~600,000 Iran: 875,000
Total land-based weapons: Israel: 14,200 Iran: 5,499

Now, why would a country with an estimated 200 operational nuclear warheads (and the capacity to create many, many more, be worried about a neighbor that is racked with its own internal crises (double-digit inflation (28% in 2008), civil unrest over failed subsidies programs, and due to a lack of refining capacity, has to import gasoline, despite having the 4th largest oil reserves in the world). And, although Iran's active military and reserve personnel outnumber Israel's, Israel has the second most advanced and well-armed military in the world (thanks, in part, to your tax dollars - $3 billion a year, no strings attached), for which Iran's "mangy" army is no great challenge, according to Cole.

Here's where things get interesting. Haggai Ram, professor of Middle East studies at Ben Gurion University in Negev, Israel, and guest blogger on Informed Comment, theorizes that Israel's hyping of the threat posed by Iran is a smokescreen, allowing Israel to break previous agreements and flaunt international laws by continuing to build settlements in the occupied territories. In the words of Israel’s incumbent Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, "What [do] you think is the first most strategic threat to Israel," Lieberman responded: "Iran, Iran, Iran… As long as there’s no solution to the Iranian problem we will deal with neither the settlements nor the settlers... Only after we will have taken care of... Iran it will become possible to talk about... the problem in Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights."

There are only two things the Obama administration can do to stop Israel from thumbing their nose at the U.S. and the rest of the international community. First, tie aid directly to stopping settlement construction and dismantling current illegal settlements. Second, declare that on January 1, 2011, the United States will recognize Palestine as an independent, sovereign nation. These things, alone or in combination, are the only things that will stop Israel from committing more war crimes against the Palestinian people and stop disrupting their lives with so called, "natural expansion".

The fact is, the U.S. has acquiesced to the Israeli leadership and lobbying groups to the point that Israel doesn't have to do anything it doesn't want to. They have the U.S. under their thumbs, and I'm doubtful that we'll grow the stones and really deal with the issue before Israel has completed its goal of wiping the Palestinian people off the map.