Having spent most of the past year in Israel, overblown doom-mongering about Iran’s military capabilities seem to pass so frequently I have mostly given up on trying to correct people who let their paranoid delusions hold their rational faculties prisoner in this instance. This is why I was pleasantly surprised to see Ehud Barak’s heresy in the Israeli press:
Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted on Thursday as saying he does not view Iran as a threat to Israel’s existence, a view that would seem to depart from Israeli statements of the recent past …“Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel.”
I am reminded of an article in Prospect just as valid as the day it was written:
Now the Mussolini syndrome is at work over Iran. All the symptoms are present, including tabulated lists of Iran’s warships, despite the fact that most are over 30 years old; of combat aircraft, many of which (F-4s, Mirages, F-5s, F-14s) have not flown in years for lack of spare parts; and of divisions and brigades that are so only in name. There are awed descriptions of the Pasdaran revolutionary guards, inevitably described as “elite,” who do indeed strut around as if they have won many a war, but who have actually fought only one—against Iraq, which they lost. As for Iran’s claim to have defeated Israel by Hizbullah proxy in last year’s affray, the publicity was excellent but the substance went the other way, with roughly 25 per cent of the best-trained men dead, which explains the tomb-like silence and immobility of the once rumbustious Hizbullah ever since the ceasefire.
Defense Minister Barak’s moments of sanity should be an example to all . To quote a President, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself”.
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