I am here to post information. If people reply to me with a question or a challenge, I will reply. That is the purpose of a forum.
I agree, but that is not exactly the point I was making. We’ve had good valuable exchanges previously and we will again, I am sure.
It seems you attempted to deduce tone of speech from written text. I would ask you how one can do that reliably, but you entirely misinterpreted my tone as aggressive and/or argumentative, so perhaps I shouldn't be asking you that.
It is not that hard actually. This is not a point worth discussing though as it is not related to the subject at hand. To the point, to make it short, I respect your opinion as much as I do most of everyone else’s. I just know with a fair degree of certainty (call it gut feeling, if you like, dictated by life experience) when the engagement is no longer positive (at least for me, but often for other forum members reading -> refer to your regular engagement with Ananda, for example) and it is time to move on.
If I was here just for the sake of argument and nothing else, I wouldn't ignore trolls like
@Perun , regardless of how stupid the things they write.
Well… That’s not what I said though. I said you are to prove yourself right, when challenged. What that user posts is not exactly a “challenge”. Anyway, none of it really matters and I doubt people are interested in reading this. I only wrote it because you asked about it (maybe I should have sent you a pm instead).
Further, I am near completely ideologically opposed to the current Israeli government, I vote opposition, and had my fair share of anti-government activism.
So while I do ideologically align with some policy decisions, it is impossible to say that I "extremely strongly align".
This is exactly why I wrote “aligned with
external policies”. I am aware of your feelings towards the current government and its internal politics/policies, which you had expressed in previous posts over time.
You then proceeded to refuse to elaborate, and when pressed further
@koxinga provided an intelligence report by Tulsi Gabbard.
You better check the timeline: I made the post, you asked for citation, koxinga provided it, I moved on because I thought that was sufficient.
Which you seem to trust, but not trust enough to properly understand that it aligns well with Israel's own intelligence report.
I will address this below.
The argument that "there has never been a better time to do so" can be supported by "Trump is more permissive" which you argued. With that I agree.
There is way more than that (and “permissive” is not exactly the right word, in my opinion) and it would be a rather long post. There are various reasons for doing what Israel is doing right now. One is proxies of Iran have been decimated for the time being. Trump is not more permissive, he is the biggest supporter. Furthermore, he doesn’t care about legalities (like striking nuclear facilities, for instance, though the subject is lost on the Germans as well, it seems), collateral damage (and casualties in general). He is also easily manipulated. Moreover, the United States Congress is on his tight leash and the probability of congressional approval of his policies, including going to war with Iran is as high as it’s ever been. Worst comes to worst, if Trump does not feel like he can get the votes on this, he would just give the order to proceed with what he thinks should be done. In other words, there is only one person (this is not exactly true, but projects the point well) that needs to be convinced of the appropriateness of the Israeli actions that require American assistance, the person that is extremely supportive to begin with and can be easily manipulated. To add, this is also the man who unilaterally withdrew the USA from the JCPOA “to protect the America from a bad deal” and other nonessential wording, the decision made with not insignificant influence of Israeli lobby. I can state right away that I know we disagree on this, so pardon my potential excuse for opting not to participate in further discussion of the matter (I would think it was beaten to death before my time on this forum anyway).
There are other reasons as well, but I will stop here.
You then, however, argued that it is also to torpedo US-Iran talks. That is something you actually need to back up. It doesn't stand on its own. It is a feeling, an instinct, not simple logic. A gut feeling.
So one other reason for making it a good timing is exactly that: to torpedo the US-Iran talks. I am really not sure why you see this as anything else but simple logic. Like I said before, the probability of the deal being made between the USA and Iran was not zero. While it wasn’t “more likely than not” scenario, it was a very realistic outcome.
If that were to happen, it would include Iranian enrichment capabilities within some limits. I don’t think this is a point of argument, really. This is a scenario that is unacceptable to Israel and if the deal was made, the “open kinetic action” would no longer be possible for the (likely very long) foreseeable future. Between now and some point in the “foreseeable future”, Hamas (or some other equivalent) and Hezbollah could reinstate its relevancy, the situation in Syria could deteriorate as well (meaning not in Israeli favour, of course), and so on. In other words, there would be a lot of uncertainty introduced into the equation, the uncertainty that can be fully eliminated now.
Furthermore, we can speculate, because that is all we are doing, that Trump was briefed on the potential Israeli actions and he “gives the green light” (Israel didn’t really care, in my opinion) in order to give himself more leverage in the negotiations that he believed (stupidly) were still possible a few days out. Israel eliminates high ranking officials in Iran, including the negotiating team. It’s a done deal at this point. Hence the attack on Iran had to take place before Sunday that had a potential to change the entire calculus for years to come.
Furthermore, I am going to come back to he car salesman and commitment theory that I talked about in the other thread (RU-UA war). While Trump was very committed to Israel to begin with, it was essential to get his commitment to the “kinetic action”. The more and the longer he allows Israel to continue its campaign, the more he gets “boxed in” and is eventually forced to commit to the American bombs being dropped on Iran from the American assets operated by the Americans. This is where the full commitment is achieved.
Is this what is actually happening? Maybe, maybe not. However, this would be a (if not the most) rational scenario from the Israeli perspective. Hence, I previously stated that what Israel is doing is rational.
I can also talk about the beginning of normalization of relationship between Iran and the Arab world. This process goes completely against the Israeli interests. To weaken Iran at the early stages of the process, when the Arabs throw some strong statements out in public, but have a little celebration in private, is another factor that comes into the calculation of acting now. And Israel is certainly willing to sacrifice its own “normalization” with the Saudis et al over this opportunity.
Anyway, like I said, this can be a very long discussion.
