Monday, December 05, 2011
The big explosions in Iran
Occasionally, there is a bit of news to suggest that both or either of Barack Obama or Benjamin Netanyahu are running smarter foreign policies than their opponents give them credit for doing. See, e.g., this item from the New York Times on the big explosion that seems to have taken out Iran's solid fuel missile facility. I laughed out loud when I read this part: "Both American and Israeli officials, in discussing the explosion in recent days, showed little curiosity about its cause."
Is that how we signal sly complicity these days, by showing "little curiosity"?
In related news, the Wall Street Journal perhaps poorly chose the basis for yesterday's mocking of Joe Biden.
4 Comments:
By 
pam, at
Mon Dec 05, 06:54:00 AM:
I laughed, too. Shrug, shrug. Wink, wink.
By John McCormack, at
Mon Dec 05, 08:52:00 AM:
The WSJ's mocking of Joe Biden only if the US turns out to have had a significant role in he explosions.
I very much doubt the explosions were accidental but Israel seems far more likely than the US to have pulled this off. A joint operation? Just, maybe.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Dec 05, 05:51:00 PM:
You know, there are more than just two players in the Middle East. For instance, there are rebel forces in and around Iran. They bomb things and shoot people semi-regularly. I'm pretty sure they offed a Defense Minister a few years ago. Then there are local intelligence services, Afghan mercenaries and drug gangs, the Russians, etc.
There is also the possibility that the gigantic explosion at a rocket base was, you know, a rocket. They blow up sometimes. Even advanced, technically sophisticated institutions fuck up occasionally. Ref: the Challenger, and how people surmised that that was some super secret Soviet sabotage, and how it turned out to simply be a chain of errors.
But anyway, my point is that just because someone died or exploded in the Middle East doesn't imply that Americans or Israelis had anything to do with it, Arab/Islamist conspiracy theories aside.
By Gary Rosen, at
Tue Dec 06, 02:38:00 AM:
You are right, of course, DF. When this happened Israel made some statements insinuating they had done it while the Iranians said it was an accident. Of course this only tells us that Israel wanted people to think they did it and Iran didn't want people to think Israel did it even though their knee-jerk reaction usually is to blame Israel for everything. Why? You got me there. Wheels within wheels within wheels ...
