Old and new: Seville, 1933

Tell me this isn't a wonderful image:

Cartier-Bresson, Seville, 1933

Breathing room on War with Iran

Both the Jerusalem Post (sorta the New York Times equivalent) and Haaretz (thought, wrongly, by some Israelis to favor Palestinians) conclude that Israel is unlikely o Bomb Iran before Israel's September elections and the United States' November elections.

If the papers' guesses are right, there is some breathing room before action.

There is no reason why Israeli politics should be less Byzantine than ours.  A quotation from the Jerusalem Post will illustrate some of the factors.  For me, injury to the Israeli home front is the most critical and perhaps the most underrated in Israel.

On June 7, 1981, Israeli F-16 fighter jets flew to Iraq and bombed the Osirak reactor under construction near Baghdad.

Three weeks later, Israel went to the polls and Menachem Begin’s Likud Party defeated Shimon Peres’s Alignment by half a percentage point despite last minute polls predicting an opposite result.

Was it the successful strike against Iraq’s reactor that gained Begin a second term in office? No one can say for certain, although it would be difficult to imagine that the upcoming elections did not play a role – even if a minute one – in the government’s calculations and considerations before authorizing the risky operation.

Fast-forward 31 years and Israel is once again on its way to elections and possibly to Iran, to bomb its nuclear facilities.

The question now is how and if the upcoming elections factor into Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s calculations regarding Iran and whether they should attack before elections or after elections.

There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument. On the one hand, it is possible that Netanyahu will look to attack Iran before elections with the aim of winning the vote on the heels of a successful strike, as Begin did back in 1981.

This could be a major consideration for Barak, whose Independence Party launched its campaign this week under the slogan “The right man [Barak – Y.K.] for security.”

In the party’s ads, which were published in Thursday’s newspapers, Independence does not have a website or even an official party email address.

The ad refers to Barak’s personal Facebook page and to a Gmail address.

If it wasn’t already clear, all of this together means that the elections are not about getting Independence into the Knesset but rather about ensuring that Barak continues to serve as defense minister, or at least in a position of influence in the next cabinet – maybe as Israel's first “minister for Iran.”

The problem with this argument is that Iran is not Iraq and this time the ayatollahs, together with Hezbollah, Hamas and possibly even Syria, are expected to respond quite aggressively to an Israeli strike. This would mean that even if the original strike against the nuclear facilities is successful, the large number of casualties and extensive devastation to the home front could cost Netanyahu the elections.

On the other hand, it is possible that Netanyahu will anyhow prefer to wait until after elections before deciding to attack Iran. This way, he will solidify his rule – current polls show him leading – with the elections, after which he will attack when he knows that his continued premiership is secure for another few years.  [Emphasis added.]

Note, please, the casual egocentricity of the newspaper's conclusion.  It is not that Israeli people witl be splattered, split up, burned 'till brains boil, nor that there will be great lamentation from the survivors, but premature bombing "could cost Netanyahu the elections".  We think like that, we of the political class, don't we.


If bombs fall in Iran they will likely fall on Bushehr,   

home of the Bushehr nuclear facility.

In that case, Iran's premier football team, Shahin FC.  I mention that only because I am biased in favor of football as a sport, believing that footballers are the best-conditioned men on the planet, though wasting them is no worse, I suppose, that wasting anyone at ll. . . 

. . . and Folk Music endemic to Bushehr and interesting in its own right would likely disappear from the earth.

This photograph, below, perhaps taken by a fan of Vincent van Gogh, is of a major industry in Bushehr.  I don't find information on the expected incidence of radioactivity on the Persian Gulf if Bushehr is bombed.  Perhaps our military contingency plans will take that into account.

. . . though we will likely never know it i they do or don't.

 [Incidentally, Iran won three intrernational freestyle wrestling competitions in Baku, Azerbaijan, this month.

More on that later.]

The high school bully as President?

However many years since you were in high school, is the memory of the high school bully still fresh in your mind?

Five classmates vividly recall that Mitt Romney lead a gang of boys, tackled a kid whose hair offended Romney, held the kid down while he cried for help, tears still in his eyes, while Romney, the Republican nominee for President of the United States, cut the kid's offending hair off  with scissors.

Romney neither confirms nor denies the incident.

The high school bully is unforgettable, at least to the ones he threatened.  I wonder if, after 65 years, it is credible that the Raymondville High School bully, class of 1952,  cannot himself remember what he did to others.

Mr. Romney doesn't remember this incident.  Perhaps it never happened.

Here are some images from bruno b, a gay bondage blog, of other bullies, in presumably consensual situations.

Bullying rouses a rescuing urge in me, and a strong one.   I would d cut Romney's hair, while he cried for mercy, if I could.