The author's premise would be very nice and very sensible, except that after today's election in Israel, it's almost a certainty that Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud party will win.

Netanyahu has never made a secret of his desire to nuke Iran - and the Israeli people know this. Unless they come to their senses, they will hand Netanyahu the mandate to fulfill what he sees as Israel's 'primary obligation' to 'stop the Iranians'.

Netanyahu is one of the most dangerous players in world politics today. If Bush were still in, the Middle East's nuclear fate would almost certainly be sealed.

Now that we have a reasonably sane moderate in the White House, there may be some hope.

Right with you, SJF, America has had an axe to grind with Iran ever since as a bastard neo-colonialist she not only had her Patsy boy Shah thrown out by the Ayotollah, but also had her colonialist Iranian embassy locked up for more than a year.

As if that was not enough to tell her to leave Iran in peace, in 1981 foolish Americana backed Saddam to attack Iran, with Donald Rumsfeld as military adviser.

But after eight long years, many of us clapped our hands as it looked like Saddam's foolish Iraqis would be pushed all the way back to Baghdad before Saddam, despite American aid, asked for an armistice.

Reckon the Iranians have bee heroic to stand up to it all, and who could really blame them for helping Palestine Arabs to hold back an Israel that has had gifted from America not only over a trillion dollars worth of aid, mostly in arms, including nuclear, but certainly American backing if they want to attack Iran.

Cheers, BB, Buntine, WA.

As a US citizen I have objected to my government’s policy of non-recognition of governments that it did not approve of. For years after the Bolshevik takeover the US did not recognize Soviet Russia. For years after the Communist takeover the US did not recognize the People’s Republic of China.

In recognising the USSR and the People’s Republic of China FDR and Nixon furthered the interests of the United States.

Diplomatic recognition should not denote approval of a government. It should have only three conditions.

1. The government of a country controls its territory.

2. The country is not at war with the power recognizing that government.

3. Diplomats are protected.

On 3 November, 1979 Militant Islamic students stormed the US embassy and took more than 90 people hostage. Revolutionary guards and police did nothing to stop the take-over and Iranian television broadcast live pictures of the siege.

Ayatollah Rubollah Khomeini, who assumed control of Iran in February, 1979 supported the occupation.

Before any relations are established Iran must ensure that US diplomats are protected.

The article included the following: “Also, any relationship with America would mean giving up support for Hamas and Hezbollah. At a time when the Israel threat has not been averted, Tehran can ill afford to loose [sic] two allies it could utilise in war, whose support is valuable at a time when Tehran challenges the international community’s efforts to constrain its nuclear program, and whose help is crucial in projecting Iranian power in the region.”

Perhaps Aditya Mehta might reflect that Israel need not be a threat to Iran. Iran supports Hamas and Hezbollah. If Iran did not support Hamas and Hezbollah Israel would have less reason to feel threatened by Iran. The article did not mention peace with Israel. Why not? Why not peace with both the United States and Israel?

I would like to see Iran, the US and Israel having diplomatic relations and at peace with each other.

Perhaps Iran might consider whether it is really in the interests of Iran to have Hamas and Hezbollah as allies.

David F, apparently you did not bother to read my historical piece just above you.

Thus apparently as a historian, who bases his interpretations as fair and middle-road as an umpire in football, I resent
your lack of comments concerning my recent historical piece.

In passing I can only conclude by wishing that Obama changes and sticks to the middle-road that America has lacked so much of in recent years, especially as regards a spoilt upjumped modern Israel.

Obama will does Rham Emanuel tells him to do.

A recycled madman in charge of an insane Israel. Makes sense ... they only ever look backward for their future.

Armaggedon is indeed descending on Israel.

Obama won't have the courage or strenght to use the USA's biggest asset in the mid east ... a democratic secular Iraq.

All that's needed to destabilise Iran and it's madmen is a propaganda war focused on the success of the people of Iraq.

Of course the Israeli madmen can't have that ... it threatens them ... too much an indication of real change and a chance for peace throughout the mid east. Their expansionist aims would be ended.

Obama is too dumb to understand that.

Dear Bushbred,

Certainly I read your piece. Fair and middle of the road as an umpire in football? Naming one side as bastard neo-colonialist or foolish and the other side as heroic merely shows bias. Umpires don't talk that way. Your piece was not an objective account of what happened.

I agree that the US was wrong in backing the Shah and later in backing Hussein. Hamas and Hezbollah had no business shelling Israeli villages. Israel had no business dropping cluster bombs in Lebanon and white phosphorus in Gaza.

Barracking for a side in the Iran-Iraq War? I just saw a stupid war in which humans on both sides were suffering. Iraq attacked. Iran had young Iranians clear mine fields with their bodies. I could not clap my hands as I thought of the human cost. Saddam's 'foolish Iraqis' had about as much choice in being in the army as the intelligent Iranis. Getting even for historical wrongs means more killing. Peace is made with enemies not with friends. One can nurse historical wrongs or try to make peace.

However, in one significant way Israel, Iran and the US are all alike. They each have a population which has elements who are religious fanatics and wish to continue the killing to further the truth of which they believe they have a monopoly. They each have sophisticated educated elements in their population who are tired of militarism and killing and wish to have peace. If Iran wants to have peace it has to stop supporting those who shell Israeli settlements. If Israel wants to have peace it has to get out of the occupied territories and force the Israeli settlers in those territories to evacuate their settlements. If the US wants to have peace it has to cooperate with other nations and support such international instruments as the ICC.

On all sides I see suffering human beings most of whom have had enough of conflict. The way to peace is to talk to each other and try to resolve the conflict.

So SJF tells us Netanyahu has made no secret of his desire to nuke Iran; Bushbred is "right with him" on this. OK twits..show us the quotes or facts to back this up. Get googling! Find some evidence or shut up.

Meanwhile, after they fail..and we can see that these blokes live in la-la land, the real question is why anyone should want to be "friends" with the nutters in Teheran.

David F, though presenting a reasonable summary of the causes of current conflict between the US and Iran, starts off with the puerile assertion that the US fails to recognize governments which it "dislikes", as if it's just a case of "Spain let us down in Iraq by withdrawing; we'll now refuse to recognize them"!

Any country which is not a(liberal?) democracy is an illegitimate state..pure and simple. Any dictatorship (the afore-mentiones governments) which threatens the US does NOT deserve recognition. They are thugs who have taken their whole country hostage..then murder, torture, rape their hapless citizens AND attempt to provoke the US into harming more of these self-same hostage citizens, in wars and through boycotts/embargos.

Honestly..what would any of you apologists for terror (ie govt run internal terror) think if an Australian Govt started rattling sabres..or even sending bombers, to antagonize other countries like China or Indonesia? Would you be cheering them on "Go tweak their noses Kevin "(or "John" in the past)? Or would you be thinking "this bloke is a fool. He's playing with fire..and it's US who'll get burnt" Get real, lefties.

Hero worship of thugs is for corrupt demagogue lovers..not serious bloggers. Which are you? cheers.

As a trained political historian in a modern democracy might ask what is the correct way to analyse today’s political problems, particularly in the Middle East.
There is little doubt that today’s Middle East conflict is nothing like the major cause of both WW1 and WW2, both huge castrophies which rather disgustingly began mainly between two Western nations, Germany and France, finally both bringing in the rest of Europe and Russia, as well as the United states.
Ttoday’s conflict, because it is so religious, is much more worrying because it so lopsided, Western Christianity being gigantic in military capacity, while Islam, comprising the major anti-white Western forces , though huge in people power, is so pitifully low in regular armanents it has to resort to terroism.
The point is how does a trained historian go about this problem, which in some ways resembles my personal problem when I wrote a series on Westralian history called A Land in Need, in which some readers later told me I had been too sympathetic with the murderous Aborigines who in th early days attacked white settlers homes and viilages which were not protected by the military.
To close on Iran, which so many of our OLO’s fully agree with the Bush terminology of Iran as an evil state, while personally I turn to the story two years ago about the Iranian female judge who angrily replied to a suggestion how Iran would be much better learning the American Way to true democracy, to which she hotly replied -
Yes, it is true that we could do with democracy, but certainly not fashioned on the American Way.
Certainly any democratic Aussie political historian should be allowed these days to think the same.
Finally, please to remember that both the US and Australia , one big one tiny, are really both military-industrial complexes which cannot really be regarded as true democracies in today’s bargaining world.

Dear bushbred,

When I read 'heroic Iranians" I thought are the Iraqis cowardly? Which army one is in is mainly a function of where one is in time of war. I was in the US army in WW2. Had I been born Japanese and been there during WW2 I would have been in the Japanese army. Anyhow Thomas Hardy says it well.

The Man He Killed

Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

I shot him dead because--
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like--just as I--
Was out of work--had sold his traps--
No other reason why.

Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half a crown.

Thomas Hardy

punter57

'So SJF tells us Netanyahu has made no secret of his desire to nuke Iran; Bushbred is "right with him" on this. OK twits..show us the quotes or facts to back this up. Get googling! Find some evidence or shut up.'

Tell ya what ... I'll do both. I'll provide some evidence AND I'll shut up. You might consider doing the same.

Quote 1:

'Benjamin Netanyahu, the frontrunner to lead Likud into the elections, said that if Sharon did not act against Iran, “then when I form the new Israeli government, we’ll do what we did in the past against Saddam’s reactor, which gave us 20 years of tranquillity”.'

Source: Times Online, UK, 11 December 2005:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article757224.ece

Quote 2

"'Former Prime Minister Netanyahu, opposition Likud party's hardline chairman who opposes the US-backed Annapolis peace process, reiterated to President Bush his stance, that a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran's nuclear installations was the only way to stop the Islamic nation's nuclear weapons ambitions./"I told him my position and Bush agreed," Netanyahu told Israel Radio [today]."

Source: Veterans for World Peace, 10 January 2008
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=9104

seems 'shutup' works for both sjf and punter57.

Impressive very very impressive.