Ari Shavit is a left-leaning Israeli journalist at the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz. He is, in his own words, a "critical Zionist" who while supporting Israel's existence as a Jewish state has consistently opposed its policy of settlement in the West Bank, admitted Israel's "sins" (his words) against the Palestinians, and is typical of the sort of Israelis who formed Peace Now. But his take on Iran could not be more different, and while he may be wrong, and you can certainly debate his views, he is not in any sense "not in his right mind."

The Home Stretch by Ari Shavit:

"The basic facts have not changed: Iran is galloping toward nuclear weapons. The Iranian clock is currently ticking at the rate of three kilograms of enriched uranium per day. Despite impressive successes in the realm of prevention, prevention is not preventing the Iranian bomb, it is merely postponing the assembly date. Delay is important, but it is not enough. Fact: Again and again, the Iranians have deceived those who are trying to thwart it. When its storehouses contain enough raw material for 30 nuclear bombs and enough semi-processed material for one bomb, the Shi'ite power is on the threshold. Its distance from full nuclear-power status ranges from one year in the worst-case scenario to three or four years in the best case.

Nor have the strategic implications of the basic facts changed: If one fine day Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces he has a nuclear bomb, the world will be a different world. Morning coffee in Tel Aviv's Florentine neighborhood will not be the same coffee; Kir Royale in the Place de la Bastille will not taste like the same champagne. Even if we assume that Tehran will behave rationally and refrain from using its doomsday weapon directly, the very fact that it has nuclear weapons will cause the entire Middle East to go nuclear. A nuclear Iran will also change the balance of power between Middle Eastern radicals and moderates. It will turn the Middle East into a multipolar nuclear system sitting atop a seething, unstable region.

No Cold War-era situation will resemble the new situation. A nuclear Iran means a nuclear Saudi Arabia, a nuclear Egypt, a nuclear Turkey and a nuclear third world. A nuclear Iran means the 21st century will be the century of terror.

And yet, something fundamental has changed: The events of the past week proved that with regard to Iran, the West of fall 2009 is different from the West of spring 2009. The Pittsburgh declaration issued by Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown was merely the visible tip of the iceberg. Beneath the water, the United States has been engaging in energetic and enthralling diplomacy for the last few months. The fact that the Democratic administration's senior officials feel close to Europe lets them tighten the North Atlantic alliance. Their willingness to woo and appease Russia wins them a measure of cooperation from Moscow. In China, too, the Americans have been doing a good deal of legwork.

Thus, if at the beginning of the summer it was still possible to wonder whether Obama had internalized the Iranian problem, today the picture is clear: Very belatedly, the U.S. president, French president, British prime minister and German chancellor are trying to impose a real diplomatic siege on Iran. They are doing everything that can be done via diplomatic efforts to try to stop the catastrophic centrifuges of Natanz and Qom.

In this situation, there is no genuine fear of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran. There are five reasons why this is so: The optimal moment for a military strike has passed, the last possible moment for a military strike has not yet arrived, the international community is finally waking up, the Iranian regime suffers from deep political and economic weaknesses, and the current Israeli leadership is a responsible leadership that does not rush into battle and is not quick on the trigger.

But the fact that, for now, Israel is showing restraint and even lowering its profile should not mislead anyone. Today, in Geneva, the diplomatic confrontation between the Western world and Iran is entering the home stretch. In previous heats, the Iranian athlete proved he is both faster and more determined than his pampered, lazy opponents. This time, the outcome must be different. The moment the talks have exhausted their usefulness, the Western powers must impose immediate, aggressive sanctions on Tehran. They must exploit the Iranian regime's lack of legitimacy and the Iranian economy's vulnerability to the fullest in order to keep Tehran from producing a nuclear weapon.

If the international community does not employ harsh diplomacy now, it will put itself in an impossible dilemma: an Iranian bomb or bombing Iran. And if that happens, the quartet of Obama, Sarkozy, Brown and Angela Merkel will bear personal responsibility - not only for the emergence of a new Middle East, but for the emergence of a whole new world."

If the international community does not employ harsh diplomacy now, it will put itself in an impossible dilemma: an Iranian bomb or bombing Iran.

How about doing nothing? Why is that off the table again?

The two comments above are somewhat surprising. Tdraicer feels the need to introduce an Israeli journalist as "consistently opposed its policy of settlement in the West Bank, admitted Israel's "sins" (his words) against the Palestinians, and is typical of the sort of Israelis who formed Peace Now." Why is that relevant to Shavit's opinions. Since when analysis depends on the bone fide of the analyzer? We both disagree on settlement (the US, by the way, is one big settlement and I haven't seen to many protests lately), but if a settler presented the same analysis, she would be right (if you accept the analysis).

As for Vastleft "How about doing nothing? Why is that off the table again?" I didn't know that it was on the table ever. As far as I can tell the Iranian potential bomb, and it is a bomb for sure, may not cause the coffee on Florentine to taste differently, but it will threaten the Saudis seriously. Both the US and Europe are very uncomfortable with Shiites in Ryad. I don't believe the Iranians are stupid, they will never use the bomb on Israel because then the Ayatollahs will turn into Israeli produced nuclear clouds.

I consider it a "bad thing" that anybody, including the good ol' U.S. of A, has nukes. Doesn't give anyone a license to play Team America, though. And punishing economic and trade sanctions can kill as surely as a military attack can.

For the record, AFAIK, there's no evidence that Iran has or plans a nuke weapons program, but if they did or someday will, why does almost nobody but Arthur Silber or Chris Floyd ask the obvious question, "So what?"

> Tdraicer feels the need to introduce an Israeli journalist as "consistently opposed its policy of settlement in the West Bank, admitted Israel's "sins" (his words) against the Palestinians, and is typical of the sort of Israelis who formed Peace Now." Why is that relevant to Shavit's opinions.

For two reasons: first, because a common tactic would be dismiss that opinion as coming from an Israeli hardliner, and second because it demonstrates a view held by most Israelis, not just the Israeli Right: that Iran getting the bomb will lead to further nuclear proliferation in an unstable region, among other things threatening Israel's survival. Whether that is true is less significant in the immediate sense than that most Israelis believe it to be true, which is why the most likely alternative to the current western diplomatic activity (and possibly sanctions) is an Israeli airstrike which I think we can all agree is something to be avoided.

>How about doing nothing? Why is that off the table again?

In the short run because if we don't do anything, Israel probably will. In the long run because the idea that Iran getting the bomb will lead to further nuclear proliferation in an unstable region might well be correct.

>Doesn't give anyone a license to play Team America, though

In fact the US is not acting alone (sanctions would have to come through the international community to achieve anything, good or bad).

From my perspective, this is still a world of armed nation states where things like balance of power matters, and change is often violent and hardly always for the better, so that the US as a hyperpower (to use Any Chua's term) has an unavoidable part to play on the world stage (and not taking any action is really another form of action-in this case essentially telling Israel to go it alone). That doesn't mean I support any and all US action-the Bush administration was an example of how a hyperpower should behave if it wants to decline in influence-but neither do I assume that a policy of "doing nothing" will lead to better outcomes. The world is full of dangerous players, and power vacuums are inevitably filled by someone. That the US influence abroad has sometimes led to disaster (for us and others) doesn't mean a. that it always has or b. that the result in our absence would always have been better. Vietnam was worse off for our involvement, but South Korea better off.

In general I don't believe in rules or analogies in foreign policy (it was the false analogy of Vietnam to Korea that was behind much of our folly there) but in careful case by case analysis. On Iran and the bomb, I view our current actions are designed to buy time, and time is always valuable. In the end we (and Israel) may have to live with an Iranian bomb but such a transition is unlikely to be successfully accomplished by simply doing nothing.

But again, I recognize that we are talking very different basic worldviews here, and talking past one another is probably inevitable. I hadn't intended to post again on the subject, but I felt the need to reject the notion that the only way to be "rational" is to share your worldview. Neither of us are crazy-we simply see some basic issues differently.

it's all well and good to hire people to accomplish a task, but when you appoint and staff agencies of any kind with incompetent cronies on a drunken binge to self enrichment on the taxpayer dime, this is what you get.

like other hobbits and DFHs, i agree that we should pretty much just scrap the MIC and start over from scratch. pipe dream, no doubt, but in the end it's going to kill us all. i don't look forward to living under a totalitarian narco-weapons trafficking-slave state in 3rd world conditions, but then again i'm an out liberal, so maybe i'll just be shot early on.

> i don't look forward to living under a totalitarian narco-weapons trafficking-slave state in 3rd world conditions, but then again i'm an out liberal, so maybe i'll just be shot early on.

Is that meant as entertaining hyperbole or do you really believe that description? If so, I suggest some time spent reading American history should help relieve your anxiety. We've never been a democratic utopia or a peaceful nation and like any great power we have plenty of crimes on our record. But we've never been totalitarian either, and the raving of some right-wing cranks notwithstanding, we are unlikely to be in the forseeable future.

Indeed, I would be generally optimistic in assuming we will muddle forward as we have in the past (messily, sometimes bloodily, unevenly, but generally forward) but for the threat of climate change. That is the one variable that could knock over the entire game table.