A man wrote me the other day to complain about something I had written regarding my belief that Israel has every right to exist in peace and security. He responded that Israel should not exist, asserting that Israel is simply a Western colony implanted in the Middle East that is as "authentic as white Rhodesia" was.

He argued that every Israeli is from somewhere else and that what we call an "Israeli culture" is really just European culture with influences from Sephardic Israelis, "who are really Arabs," as well as from the indigenous Palestinians.

As anti-Israel polemicists often do, he invoked the crusader colony that occupied Palestine for 200 years and then vanished. One way or another, he said, Israel too will disappear, rejected by the region the way a human body rejects an incompatible implant.

To me, the whole argument (and the impulse behind it) is laughable and could only be made by someone who has very little knowledge about Israel.

Like it or not, Israel is no more a European colony than the United States. While once the various people that compose Israel were simply settlers, being Israeli today is as distinct a nationality as any in the world.

Although Jews visiting Israel from the United States or Europe often say, "I feel so at home here," that is only an illusion. Without speaking the Hebrew language and knowing the unique local culture, no one can be at home there.

Visitors to Israel often say that it is impossible to tell Israelis from Palestinians. And, with the exception of the ultra-traditional among both peoples, that is true. But no one ever says that about the American, French or Russian Jews until they have been there 20 years or more.

An Israeli is an Israeli. It is amazing, but a distinct new nationality was created over the past century. Seven million people speak Hebrew as their day-to-day language; before 1887 not a single person did.

The creation of this nation and nationality is a remarkable achievement. Despite all Israel's faults, it is hard to imagine a Jew from previous eras who would not be struck with pride and wonder by the accomplishment. It does seem like a miracle, although it really is the result of hard work by remarkable men and women and a series of historical accidents, some horrendous beyond belief.

But now, Israel's current leadership is jeopardizing the whole enterprise.

In short, they are behaving in as suicidal a manner as Binyamin Netanyahu claims the Iranian regime behaves.

How else to characterize a series of attacks in Iran, coupled with the "crippling sanctions" inflicted on the people of Iran by the United States, under intense and single-minded pressure of AIPAC, the Netanyahu government's lobby? How else to characterize the absolute refusal by the United States, under pressure from the lobby, to engage Iran diplomatically with the goal not merely of preventing an Iranian bomb but of fully normalizing relations (as Iran proposed in 2003)?

Any doubt that Netanyahu and the lobby want war can be eliminated not just by this week's assassination of an Iranian scientist in the streets of Tehran, the fifth such killing, but also by an AIPAC-drafted resolution that tells the president that the only way he can deal with a nuclear Iran is through war, not diplomacy.

Introduced by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the resolution states that should Iran develop nuclear weapons, the U.S. response must be a military attack, even nuclear war. Read how Sen. Graham explains it:

Some have suggested that — should economic and diplomatic pressure fail to force Iran to abandon its pursuit of acquiring nuclear weapons — the next best option is for the United States to accept and then contain a nuclear-armed Iran. That would be a catastrophic mistake.

The resolution we intend to introduce will put the Senate on record as opposing containment in the strongest and clearest terms, detailing why the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran cannot be 'contained' like the threat of the Soviet Union.

When it comes to addressing the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, all options must be on the table — except for one, and that is containment. ... Containment is failure, and failure cannot be an option.

Imagine. The option the lobby-initiated Senate resolution rejects is the very policy that prevented the world from being destroyed during the Cold War. It is also the option the United States applies in the case of every other nation with nuclear weapons, including North Korea.

Of course, if the Lieberman-Graham recommendation had the force of law, it would be unconstitutional. Congress cannot prevent the president from engaging in diplomacy. It certainly cannot force the commander in chief to engage in a war that would likely be nuclear.

Imagine if Congress could have forced President Kennedy to go to war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis rather than resolve the crisis through diplomacy. If it had, it is quite possible that none of us would be here.

Nonetheless, this is what the so-called "pro-Israel" lobby is promoting: ruling out diplomacy in favor of war.

It is insane.

Surely the Israeli government (if not the lobby) understands that a military attack on Iran would lead to strikes on Israel engineered by Iran, its allies, and its regional proxies.

Hezbollah alone has thousands of missiles on Israel's northern border that can reach every inch of Israel. Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, which is hanging by a thread anyway, would be unlikely to withstand popular support for some kind of military response. Hamas, on Israel's southern border, would attack. As for Syria, Bashir Assad might attack Israel just to divert attention from the revolution that seems on the verge of sweeping away his regime.

Additionally, the nearly dead peace process would be buried. Israel might survive the war and its aftermath, but it would never achieve peace or security with a Muslim world that would never forgive a "preemptive" attack on a fellow Muslim state.

In short, those who are advocating an attack on Iran by either Israel or the United States are cavalierly trifling with the survival of Israel, a nation that was built by dreamers and pioneers who wanted nothing more than a secure spot on earth where Jews would control their own destiny.

That vision was achieved, but now it is being jeopardized by those who have a different dream: not the security of a Jewish state but its right to regional hegemony.

As Gen. Ephraim Sneh, one of Israel's leading Iran hawks, admits, the rush to war is not about Israel's survival but about its ability to do whatever it wants to do whenever it wants to do it. In Sneh's words, "We cannot afford a nuclear bomb in the hands of our enemies, period. They don't have to use it; the fact that they have it is enough."

Enough to risk the annihilation of Israel?

Fortunately, America's leaders don't think that way. We have lived under a nuclear threat since Stalin's Soviet Union developed atomic weapons in the late 1940s. In 1965, we had to accept the idea that our worst and most irrational enemy, the nation we then called Red China, had the bomb. And now there are North Korea, the craziest nation on earth, and Pakistan, which openly and defiantly colludes with the world's most anti-American terrorists.

We live with that.

We choose containment over national suicide. I have no doubt that virtually all Israelis (and Iranians, too) share our penchant for survival. Something is wrong with the Netanyahu government and its cutouts here. They have forgotten the number one injunction of the Torah: "Therefore, choose life."

In other words, choose diplomacy, not war.

What explains Iran's defiance over the nuclear issue? According to Lee Smith, a neoconservative writer associated with the Weekly Standard and the Hudson Institute, the fact that the fertility rate in Iran has fallen drastically over the past several decades suggests that Iranians hate their lives and have no interest in producing another miserable generation. 

In a ridiculous piece arguing for war with Iran, Smith posits that the same dynamic — what he characterizes as a desire for suicide — that has reduced the Iranian birthrate also makes it likely that Iran will commit national suicide by deploying a nuclear weapon against its adversaries. The reduced fertility rate is evidence of a nation, that he explains, "no longer wishes to live":

It's pretty easy to make a strong case that the Iranian regime really is suicidal. This is the same ruling clique, after all, that pioneered the use of the suicide car-bombing during the course of the Lebanese civil wars from 1975 to 1990. The Iranians tapped their local allies, namely Hezbollah, for martyrdom operations against Israel, the United States, and other Western powers. The Iranians spent their own blood even more recklessly in the war with Iraq when they dispatched wave after human wave of teenage boys to march through minefields, clearing a path with their bodies. Perhaps most tellingly, the plummeting Iranian birthrate-from 6.5 children per woman a generation ago to 1.7 today-suggests that it is not just the regime, but an entire nation, that no longer wishes to live.

While it's true that fertility rates have declined drastically in Iran, the change has absolutely nothing to do with Iranians hating their lives, as Smith believes. Instead, Iranian women have fewer children due to a successful state-backed family planning initiative that includes, among other things, free contraceptives.

Here's Earth Policy Institute's explanation:

Religious leaders have become involved with the crusade for smaller families, citing them as a social responsibility in their weekly sermons. They also have issued fatwas, religious edicts with the strength of court orders, that permit and encourage the use of all types of contraception, including permanent male and female sterilization-a first among Muslim countries. Birth control, including the provision of condoms, pills, and sterilization, is free.

There is an abundance of literature about family planning in Iran. All Smith had to do was look for it. In fact, the available evidence, such as this report by the Population Reference Bureau, suggests that when it comes to family planning, Iran's policies are far more progressive than assumptions about the region would suggest.

The larger point of Smith's piece is to argue that Iran's nuclear program should be taken out militarily because the "Iranian regime really is suicidal." For years, this has been the most common reason given by hawks as to why we must go to war with Iran. If we don't, they warn, Israel and/or Saudi Arabia will be in danger of a nuclear attack. Smith believes low fertility rates are an indication of Iran's irrationality.

Oddly, after trying to make the case that "the Iranian regime really is suicidal," based partly on fertility rates, Smith undercuts his own argument by explaining that the real danger is not that Iran will use the bomb to destroy Tel Aviv or Riyadh. "That's not the main problem," he explains. "The issue is that Tehran will act in precisely the same fashion as it has since 1979—hostile to the United States and its allies—only now on a much more ambitious scale. And the range of responses available to the United States and its allies will be seriously limited."

In other words, his crazy idea that falling Iranian fertility rates are an indication that Iran will use nuclear weapons as a means of committing suicide is just something off the top of his head. His primary concern is that a nuclear Iran would challenge the prevailing geopolitical balance in the Middle East. Because the "range of responses" to that challenge will be limited if Iran does develop nuclear weapons, we need to act now.

And by act now, he means going to war.

I rarely learn anything meaningful from reading The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg. In my opinion, his tight relationship with the Israeli government and its lobby here greatly influences his take on both foreign and domestic events. Although he occasionally deviates from the Israeli line, he not only appears very uncomfortable doing so, he tends to correct course fairly rapidly.

Nonetheless, in a Goldberg column about Iran this week, there was one paragraph that was dead-on and which he will have a hard time taking back (should he be so inclined).

Writing about a piece in the current edition of Foreign Affairs that endorses bombing Iran as a neat and cost-free way to address its nuclear program, Goldberg explains why he thinks the author, Council on Foreign Relations fellow Matthew Kroenig, is wrong. Goldberg says he now believes:

...that advocates of an attack on Iran today would be exchanging a theoretical nightmare — an Iran with nukes — for an actual nightmare, a potentially out-of-control conventional war raging across the Middle East that could cost the lives of thousands Iranians, Israelis, Gulf Arabs and even American servicemen.

Think about that for a minute. Uber-hawk Jeffrey Goldberg is saying that the threat posed by Iran is a "theoretical nightmare" while a war ostensibly to neutralize that threat would present an "actual nightmare."

No critic of U.S. policy toward Iran could say it better or would say it differently. And why would we?

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has not yet made the decision to go nuclear. Speaking to CBS' Face the Nation last Sunday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the same point. Iran is not working on the bomb.

We do know, as Goldberg says, that a "potentially out-of-control conventional war raging across the Middle East" could "cost the lives of thousands of Iranians, Israelis, Gulf Arabs and even American servicemen."

And that makes the decision against war a no-brainer. As Goldberg puts it:

Now that sanctions seem to be biting — in other words, now that Iran's leaders understand the President's seriousness on the issue — the Iranians just might be willing to pay more attention to proposals about an alternative course.

That alternative course would be an attempt "to try one more time to reach out to the Iranian leadership in order to avoid a military confrontation over Tehran's nuclear program."

In short, dialogue.

The United States, to this day, has never attempted a true dialogue with the Tehran. Even under President Obama, all we have done is issue demands about its nuclear program and offer to meet to discuss precisely how they comply with those demands.

That is not dialogue and it's not negotiation; it's an ultimatum.

The one attempt at dialogue (i.e., a discussion that involves give and take by both sides) was initiated by the Iranian government in 2003. That was when it proposed, according to the Washington Post, "a broad dialogue with the United States," in which "everything was on the table — including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups." In exchange, Iran wanted normalization of relations with the United States.

As is well known, the United States did not respond. In fact, we chastised the Swiss intermediary who delivered the offer for having the temerity to do so.

It was us, not Iran, that spurned a process that would have led to improved relations.

Rather than diplomacy, we've pursued a policy of sanctions, which we escalate every time the war lobby demands them.

But sanctions will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons capabilities, nor will "regime change," considering that Iranians across the political spectrum support the Iranian nuclear program. Sanctions' only effect is to please AIPAC, which has made confronting Iran central to its mission. AIPAC writes the sanctions bills, Congress passes them, the president signs them, and the Iranian people (not the regime) bear the brunt of the effects. (The politicians who endorse such measures, however, quite often are well rewarded.)

Goldberg deserves some credit for calling for dialogue. But his seriousness is undermined when he explains that the U.S. offer must be our final one. Although real dialogue is a process, Goldberg's suggestion is to try to talk just "one more time." And then: war.

Nonetheless, Goldberg does not seem to be on the same page as the Israeli government or its neoconservative backers here, who reject any dialogue at all.

Any doubt on that score came today when an Iranian civilian nuclear scientist was assassinated in his car on a Tehran street. This was the fifth Iranian scientist killed in such an attack in the last two years.

The attack today certainly looks like an Israeli hit, especially when top Israelis themselves have warned that "unnatural" events were about to befall Iran. At this point, circumstantial evidence is all we can go on.

That, and the answer to the ancient Latin question: Cui bono? Who benefits? (Check out Commentary, the neocon website that is celebrating the murder.)

In theory, at least, the Netanyahu government benefits. A 32-year-old Iranian nuclear scientist is dead. The opportunities for dialogue or successful multilateral negotiations diminishes. And, if Iran responds in any way, U.S. neocons (including Congress, which will recite its AIPAC talking points) will intensify calls for war.

On the other hand, actions like these against civilians in one country endanger civilians in others. Imagine how the United States or Israel would react if Iran or even Canada started bumping off nuclear scientists (or anyone else) in Washington.

Innocents in Israel, the U.S., Europe or elsewhere will pay a price for this criminal act of colossal stupidity. And from a security standpoint, such clear acts of aggression can only convince the mullahs that they need to develop a nuclear deterrent.

Here is Jeff Goldberg again in a column subsequent to the one I already cited:

If I were a member of the Iranian regime (and I'm not), I would take this assassination program to mean that the West is entirely uninterested in any form of negotiation (not that I, the regime official, has ever been much interested in dialogue with the West) and that I should double-down and cross the nuclear threshold as fast as humanly possible. Once I do that, I'm North Korea, or Pakistan: An untouchable country.

In short, for those hell-bent on getting the United States engaged in a war that even Jeff Goldberg views as a "nightmare" for both the United States and Israel, this is a very good day indeed.

Congratulations. Or something like that.

Council on Foreign Relations fellow and Iraq War proponent Max Boot has been agitating for war with Iran for some time now. So it comes as no surprise that he's penned yet another piece, this one over at neoconservative flagship Commentary, in which he argues that "the most effective option is to use force."

Boot has correctly admitted in the past that such a move would only delay Iran's nuclear program by no more than a few years, but apparently that doesn't matter as much to him as showing the Iranians who is boss. (As many have argued, military strikes are likely to convince Iran that they need to fast-track their nuclear program.)

In this recent piece, Boot highlights an article which he believes to be the most "powerful," "detailed and convincing exposition" in favor of war. He writes:

In the pages of the latest Foreign Affairs, Matthew Kroening [sic], a former staffer at the Department of Defense who is now a colleague of mine at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues the case for air strikes. In the process, he knocks down pretty much all of the objections that have been made against them. That doesn't mean we have to strike tomorrow; there is still time for sanctions to work-but not much time.

Boot concludes, "I have yet to see (have I missed it?) an equally detailed and convincing exposition of the anti-bombing side."

Perhaps Boot should familiarize himself with one of the major search engines. If he'd done a simple search, he'd discover that in the weeks since Kroenig's piece first appeared on the Foreign Affairs site, there have been several articles pointing out the many logical inconsistencies, overly optimistic predictions, and contrived conclusions of this apparently "detailed" piece. (As for general arguments against the idea of bombing Iran to end its nuclear program, there are hundreds!)

As Foreign Policy's Stephen Walt notes, Kroenig's case for war is made by "assuming everything will go south if the United States does not attack and that everything will go swimmingly if it does." The National Interest's Paul Pillar is equally direct, pointing out that Kroenig's argument is "so far removed from anything resembling careful analysis that one would hardly know where to start in inventorying its flaws."

As we've noted here, Kroenig's entire premise is based on a false choice: Either we strike now or prepare for "a possible nuclear war" in the future. But that ignores the many other options on the table, including actual diplomacy, which has yet to be tried in any meaningful way. "The possibility of a diplomatic or containment solution," American Security Project's Michael Cohen notes, "doesn't really enter into the equation."

The most ironic bit comes at the end, in which Boot points out that the Kroenig piece he admires so much was published in Foreign Affairs, which, he explains, is "hardly a journal known for warmongering." That would be interesting, indeed, if it weren't the case that Foreign Affairs is published by the Council on Foreign Relations, the same outfit that employs not only Boot and Kroenig but also the likes of James Lindsay, Ray Takeyh, and convicted Iran-Contra felon Elliott Abrams. Like Boot, they have all argued for war. Even the president of the think tank, Richard Haass, a self-proclaimed realist, has written in favor of regime change.

The top three vote-getters in the Iowa caucuses — Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) — responded to success in very different ways.

Santorum, best known for his antediluvian views on gay rights and choice, emphasized the economy and job creation. Paul, keeping with the themes he has focused on his entire career, talked about personal freedom, the need to restrict "big government," and preventing a new war in the Middle East.

And Romney, who is at this point the frontrunner for the nomination, started his speech by discussing the purported failure of Barack Obama to confront Iran.

With the economy still in the doldrums, Romney sees Iran as the most serious problem facing Americans.

ROMNEY: We face an extraordinary challenge in America, and you know that. And that is internationally, Iran is about to have nuclear weaponry, just down the road here. And this president, what's he done in that regard? He said we would have a policy of engagement. How's that worked out? Not terribly well. We have no sanctions of a severe nature, the crippling sanctions put in place. The president was silent when dissident voices took to the streets in Iran and, of course, he hasn't prepared the military options that would present credibly our ability to take out the threat that would be presented by Iran. He's failed on that.

Next, Romney turned to what he sees as the second biggest threat to Americans: "And then how about with regards to the economy..."

His disturbing emphasis on Iran, which in no way presents a military threat to the United States — over the economy, no less — is very telling.

Romney insists that the administration's engagement efforts have failed. Not quite.

Obama has hardly engaged in any diplomacy with Iran. After an initial foray in that direction, he quickly pulled back, deterred first by the Iranian government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in 2009 and then by a Congress that, guided by AIPAC, vehemently opposes any negotiations with Iran.

According to Iran expert and journalist Barbara Slavin, the Obama administration has spent a grand total of 45 minutes in direct engagement with Iran.

Romney's claim that "we have no sanctions of a severe nature" is just as false. The sanctions regime imposed by Obama is unprecedented in its severity. (Take a look at the full range of sanctions.)

According to a law signed by Obama in December, as of next summer, anyone who buys Iranian oil will be banned from doing business with the United States. We have the largest economy in the world, so this act could do much to damage not only Iran's economy but also the economies of some of our most trusted allies, like South Korea. If Iran retaliates by keeping its oil off the world market and causing prices to skyrocket, the dire effects will be felt globally. Including here at home.

Sanctions will probably not succeed in preventing an Iranian bomb (since the days of the Shah, Iranians of all political stripes, including the Green Movement, have supported Iran's right to nuclear development) but it is just absurd to argue that Obama has resisted imposing them.

As for the claim that Obama was "silent" when Iranian demonstrators took to the streets, Romney must know that America's embrace of the demonstrators would have been the kiss of death. Or maybe Romney actually believes that their cause would have been advanced if they could have been convincingly portrayed as U.S. puppets.

The remaining Romney charge is the only one that matters because, unlike the other two, it is not just an example of misinformation or prevarication. It is a clear indication that Romney believes that the only way to deal with Iran is through war.

What else can it mean when Romney says that Obama has not "prepared the military options"?

Of course, Obama has. The president and the U.S. military fully prepare war contingency plans for use in every volatile international situation. To assert that they have none for Iran (a major U.S. adversary since 1979) is really an accusation that Obama is not ready for war now. Romney, on the other hand, clearly is.

And why wouldn't he be?

Romney told us where he stands on Iran (and the Middle East in general) on October 7, 2011, when he announced the 22 members of his foreign policy team.

Fifteen of the 22 worked on foreign policy for the George W. Bush administration and six were members of the original neoconservative group, Project for the New American Century, that famously called on President Clinton in 1998 to begin "implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power." Its rationale: Saddam was producing weapons of mass destruction.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.

That was three years before 9/11 (after which members of the group decided, without any evidence, that Saddam Hussein was behind the monstrous attacks).

Clinton ignored the letter.

But, four years later in 2002, the next president, George W. Bush, with an administration packed with neoconservatives, heeded PNAC's new call, not only for the removal of Saddam but also for an end to serious U.S. support for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

In that second letter, the neoconservatives were more explicit about where they stood and why.

No one should doubt that the United States and Israel share a common enemy. We are both targets of what you have correctly called an "Axis of Evil." Israel is targeted in part because it is our friend, and in part because it is an island of liberal, democratic principles — American principles — in a sea of tyranny, intolerance, and hatred. As Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has pointed out, Iran, Iraq, and Syria are all engaged in "inspiring and financing a culture of political murder and suicide bombing" against Israel, just as they have aided campaigns of terrorism against the United States over the past two decades. You have declared war on international terrorism, Mr. President. Israel is fighting the same war.

Bottom line: The United States and Israel had the same enemies — specifically Iran, Iraq and Syria — and therefore had to engage in "the same war."

A year later, the United States invaded Iraq.

Today, with U.S. troops finally out of Iraq, the selfsame neocons are pushing for war with Iran (the first target proposed in the 2002 letter to Bush).

Last time they wanted to fight because they claimed, without tangible evidence, that Iraq had WMDs.

This time they want to fight because they claim, without tangible evidence, that Iran is developing them.

With even less evidence, they insist that Iran would gladly use a nuclear weapon to destroy Israel even if it meant the destruction of Iran. And they have successfully sold their line to the likely Republican nominee for president.

Can the same gang fool us twice?

As MSNBC host Rachel Maddow put it: "With the greatest American failure in American policy hung around their necks, with the Project for a New American Century neocon fantasy a punch line now, Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate has decided to embrace them."

It is like a terrible joke.

The people who helped inflict one of the worst disasters in U.S. history on the American people are back to do it again. And the leading GOP contender for the presidency is following their lead.

To make it even worse, there is little indication that the incumbent Democratic president has decided to resist the war lobby's push for conflict.

There is some good news, however.

In 2008, as he was preparing to leave office, President George W. Bush was urged by the same advisers (led by Vice President Dick Cheney) who had advocated invading Iraq to give Israel permission to bomb Iran.

But Bush, to his credit, was skeptical. Additionally, the Cheney neocon team was weakened by the departure of three of the most influential war enthusiasts: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby. All three had left the administration unmourned by Bush and with their reputations in tatters.

Bush turned to Rumsfeld's replacement, the anti-neocon Robert Gates, who told him that attacking Iran or allowing Israel to do so could turn the entire Middle East into a cauldron. Bush wisely said "no."

It is hard to believe that his Democratic successor would say, "Okay, let's bomb. It will be fine." No Democrat is going to be more neocon than a Republican.

But Romney wouldn't hesitate. That is why the neocons will be voting Republican this year. They are determined to get their old influence back and their next war started.

God help us if they succeed.

An article in the upcoming edition of Foreign Affairs magazine tries to make the case that the window of opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear facilities is closing. Written by Georgetown University professor and Council on Foreign Relations fellow Matthew Kroenig, the piece uses the same sort of simplistic speculation and analysis that was in circulation in the months preceding the Iraq War debacle, overselling the benefits of war and dismissing critics who argue that war won't be a cakewalk.

There are so many errors in this piece that they practically jump off the page.

KROENIG: Some states in the region are doubting U.S. resolve to stop the program and are shifting their allegiances to Tehran.

Oh yeah? Name one.

Without some examples, this is meaningless at best and intentionally misleading at worst. In addition, Kroenig's assertion is contradicted by the rest of his piece, where the case for a strike is partly made on the premise that other regional actors are weary of the Iranians and want the U.S. to strike. (That argument is deconstructed by Paul Pillar here.)

KROENIG: These security threats would require Washington to contain Tehran. Yet deterrence would come at a heavy price. To keep the Iranian threat at bay, the United States would need to deploy naval and ground units and potentially nuclear weapons across the Middle East, keeping a large force in the area for decades to come. ... Most of all, to make containment credible, the United States would need to extend its nuclear umbrella to its partners in the region, pledging to defend them with military force should Iran launch an attack.

This has to be one the most foolish arguments in support of war. In short, we need to go to war because the financial cost of containing a possible (but by no means inevitable) nuclear threat from Iran would be too high.

One of the benefits of choosing containment and deterrence over war, especially when dealing with a rational regime, as the author admits Iran is, is that you have the ability to convince decision-makers in Tehran that they need to behave responsibly and, perhaps, eventually convince them to abandon their nuclear program altogether. Since we haven't launched a preemptive strike against Iran, there is still the opportunity for rapprochement. With a strike, we close that door — perhaps permanently.

Also, both opponents of military action and neoconservative supporters of war agree that an attack would at most delay the program by a few years. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who has said that allowing Iran to have a bomb is unacceptable, believes a strike would delay the project by about two years.

Forget all that, Kroenig argues. "Military action could ... delay Iran's nuclear program by anywhere from a few years to a decade, and perhaps even indefinitely." Says who?

Kroenig also dismisses the retaliatory steps the Iranians may decide to take if attacked. There are many options, from the relatively non-violent closing of the Strait of Hormuz to violent actions like attacks against U.S. and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, bombings at U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia and around the Gulf, and attacks on Israeli cities and European capitals. The list goes on. At the present, Iran has been a very rational (albeit nefarious) actor on the world stage. But there's no telling how they would respond to such a clear case of hostility.

Kroenig has found a way around the concern. He explains:

KROENIG: None of these outcomes is predetermined, however; indeed, the United States could do much to mitigate them. Tehran would certainly feel like it needed to respond to a U.S. attack, in order to reestablish deterrence and save face domestically. But it would also likely seek to calibrate its actions to avoid starting a conflict that could lead to the destruction of its military or the regime itself. In all likelihood, the Iranian leadership would resort to its worst forms of retaliation, such as closing the Strait of Hormuz or launching missiles at southern Europe, only if it felt that its very existence was threatened. A targeted U.S. operation need not threaten Tehran in such a fundamental way.

That simply doesn't make sense. On one hand, the Iranians are such a threat that we can't live in a world where they may have nuclear weapons. However, at the same time, the Iranians are levelheaded and cautious enough that they would not launch responsive measures to an unprovoked attack on their country. Kroenig's logic just doesn't work. As Stephen Walt observes, "When Kroenig is trying to justify the need for war, he depicts an Iran with far-reaching capabilities and dangerously evil intentions in order to convince readers that we have to stop them before it is too late. But when he turns to selling a preventive war, then suddenly Iran's capabilities are rather modest, its leaders are sensible, and the United States can easily deal with any countermeasures that Iran might take."

KROENIG: Washington could also reduce the political fallout of military action by building global support for it in advance. Many countries may still criticize the United States for using force, but some — the Arab states in particular — would privately thank Washington for eliminating the Iranian threat. By building such a consensus in the lead-up to an attack and taking the outlined steps to mitigate it once it began, the United States could avoid an international crisis and limit the scope of the conflict.

Iran is becoming increasingly isolated (not primarily because of its nuclear program but due to its abysmal human rights record). But the international community, and certainly China and Russia, are unlikely to support a strike, especially not with the memory of Iraq still fresh. In fact, many states that have supported tough sanctions against Iran have done so in the hopes that they would reduce the possibility for war.

KROENIG: With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq winding down and the United States facing economic hardship at home, Americans have little appetite for further strife. Yet Iran's rapid nuclear development will ultimately force the United States to choose between a conventional conflict and a possible nuclear war.

This is a false dilemma. Kroenig, who certainly knows better, gives two terrible choices when there are in fact several choices, some which aren't at all terrible and could lead towards an end to the impasse.

This is a deadly serious issue, with a lot at stake. The least we can expect from some of our best and brightest minds in the field is to be a bit more responsible in making these important cost/benefit judgments.

This is my last column of 2011, so I will make a few predictions for 2012, some which I hope come true and some which I hope don't.

U.S. Election: President Barack Obama will be re-elected. Each of his potential rivals is, in my opinion, fatally flawed. The most likely GOP nominee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, is a handsome version of that little plutocrat dude in a Monopoly game.

In a time of high unemployment, Americans will not elect a president who made much of his fortune closing down factories in the heartland. Happily, I do not believe Romney's religion will be an issue, one way or the other. By the way, Romney's choice for vice president will be Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Israel: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will remain in power, spending 2012 girding himself for a newly energized Obama to put pressure on him in a second term. Unfortunately, I don't expect the pressure to come.

Having won re-election with the overwhelming support (75-80 percent) of American Jews, Obama will continue to accept the AIPAC-generated "conventional wisdom" that his Jewish support was a result of his "pro-Israel" policies and not because he was the liberal candidate. Because many of the big Democratic funders themselves adhere to the view that Jews primarily care about Israel, Obama is unlikely to challenge it. The only variable that might change Obama's policy would be a major act of stupidity by Netanyahu such as bombing Iran or, once again, trying to physically crush Gaza, as in 2008-9.

Public Opinion: The past year has seen Israel (more specifically, Netanyahu and the occupation) take a major hit with American public opinion. Prominent Jewish journalists like Tom Friedman, Joe Klein, and Peter Beinart (whose upcoming book will cause the "pro-Israel" establishment to quake in its boots) are all vocally condemning Netanyahu's policies, freeing many less-prominent voices to speak their minds.

In the days prior to the internet, the Israel lobby had the ability to shut down criticism of Israeli policies through calls to editors, bosses, advertisers, etc. Those days are almost over.

On the web, it is the Israeli government and not its critics who are on the defensive. This is partly related to the fact that the web is dominated by young people who, for the most part, have an even-handed view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is particularly true of young Jews. The other reason that the web is the ultimate in free journalism is that it is infinitely harder to get bloggers fired and, even if they are, they will just keep blogging on another site. For the lobby, the internet is a curse.

Iran: There will be no attack on Iran by either Israel or the United States over the next 12 months. With both the military and intelligence establishments in both countries opposed to bombing Iran, an act viewed as both futile (in terms of ending Iran's nuclear program) and incredibly destabilizing to the entire world, a war just won't happen. Sanctions will continue producing significant suffering among the Iranian people while racketeers in the Iranian government and military apparatus make a killing.

The neocons, however, will intensify their clamoring for war, hoping the Iraq model can be repeated. In fact, virtually the entire crowd that helped lie us into Iraq is back in place, working tirelessly to convince the United States to bomb Iran.

AIPAC: The AIPAC conference (see video) in March will be proclaimed the "most successful" in the organization's history. Most of Congress will show up along with President Obama. The theme of the conference, as with every AIPAC conference for over a decade, will be about confronting Iran. A subsidiary theme will be that President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are now just as evil as Hamas and that, accordingly, there is "no partner" with whom Israel can negotiate the "two-state solution" it theoretically (but not really) supports.

The conference will accomplish its main goal of conveying to Congress that supporting AIPAC on all matters related to the Middle East is the only way to stay out of political trouble. Following the conference, Congress will overwhelmingly pass one to three pieces of legislation (bashing Palestinians and calling for ever more action against Iran) drafted by AIPAC and circulated at the conference.

Arab Spring: In 2012, the Syrian government will collapse, a good thing, but the transition to something resembling democracy will be as bumpy as it is in Egypt. Also, as is the case with Egypt, any move by the new Syrian government to include "Islamists" will be condemned as frightfully threatening to the U.S. and Israel. Few will mention that the Christian right here (which essentially owns the GOP) and the Shas Party in Israel (a powerful component of Netanyahu's coalition) both seek, often successfully, to impose their bigoted and antediluvian religious dogma on their respective countries.

Israelis and Palestinians: Both peoples will be saddled with governments (in the case of the Palestinians, quasi-governments) that are almost exclusively concerned with preserving power. Both Israeli and Palestinian authorities will instigate and exploit hatred of the enemy in order to stay in power, and each will refuse to utter "magic word" formulations that would enable genuine negotiations to begin.

The Israeli center and left will confront a government that has as its chief goals settlement expansion and the eviction of Palestinians from their homes and neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Palestinians will suffer from continued ineptitude and corruption in Ramallah and from the refusal by the authorities in Gaza to call Netanyahu's bluff by accepting Israel's right to exist within the '67 lines, to form a unity government for the purpose of negotiating with Israel, and to totally and unequivocally reject violence against Israel in favor of energetic and nonviolent resistance.

Anti-Semitism: There will be no more or less anti-Semitism during the coming year, especially in the United States, where hardly any Jews experience it in a lifetime (I never have). But the phrase will be very big because, in the last few months, neoconservatives and other agitators for war with Iran and against any "concession" to Palestinians have begun condemning virtually all opponents of their policies as anti-Semites.

This, in itself, is not completely new. For decades non-Jewish critics of Israeli policies have been called anti-Semites in an effort, often successful, to shut them down. In 2011, however, the right stopped limiting use of the term "anti-Semite" to non-Jews and now freely uses it against Jews who despise the occupation, settlement activity, and right-wing Israeli policies.

They (we) used to be called "self-hating Jews" but since that didn't shut us up, the hope is that this will. Of course, it won't. Jews are used to being called bad names by bad people.

In conclusion, despite everything, I look forward to a better 2012. In December 2010, I didn't expect President Obama to end the Iraq war in 2011 or eliminate the monster who killed 3000 Americans. But these things happened. So, there is hope.

Whenever I doubt that the good guys are starting to win, I'll just re-read this column by Tom Friedman, or this piece by Joe Klein. A few years ago, neither would have been possible. Progressives are making a difference. As the great Tony Kushner wrote, "The world only spins forward."

Happy Holidays to all.

It is hard to believe that anyone who defends Israel's legitimacy as a state would buy into former Speaker Newt Gingrich's argument that Palestine is an "invented nation."

The singular triumph of the Zionist movement is that it invented a state and a people — Israel and the Israelis — from scratch. The first Hebrew-speaking child in 1900 years, Ittamar Ben-Avi, was not born until 1882. His father, the brilliant linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, created a modern language for him to speak by improvising from the language of the Bible.

The founder of the Israeli state was Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), an assimilated Viennese writer who was convinced by the Dreyfus trial in France and the horrendous right-wing anti-Semitism that resulted from it that Jews had to get out of Europe.

In 1897, he wrote the book that would essentially inaugurate the Zionist movement. It was called Der Judenstaat (meaning "the Jews' state" or "the Jewish State"), which was his proposal for moving the Jews out of Europe and into their own country.

He didn't specify where the Jewish homeland should be. He was more concerned about quickly obtaining territory anywhere for Jews to seek refuge.

Later he decided that Palestine made the most sense because that was where the Jewish people both began and exercised self-determination in ancient times and where there already was a small minority of Jews. But he also spoke of finding a place in Africa or the Americas if Palestine was unavailable.

The reaction to Herzl's idea was primarily that he was a bit crazy. Jews committed to assimilation insisted that Jews were not a nation but a religious faith. Their nationalities were French, German, Polish, Iraqi, or American — not some imaginary Jewish nationality that had not existed for 1900 years.

As late as 1943, during the worst days of the Holocaust, the American Jewish Committee — which adhered to the assimilationist view — resigned from the body created by American Jews to respond to the Nazi catastrophe over its "demand for the eventual establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine."

Seventy-plus years later, it is impossible to argue that the Israeli nation is not as authentic and worthy of recognition as any in the world (more authentic than some, in fact).

The Hebrew language is spoken by millions of Jews and Palestinians. The Israeli culture is unique, bearing little resemblance to any other in the world. In fact, diaspora Jews have as little in common with Israelis as African-Americans have with Africans.

Israelis are not just Jews who happen to live in Palestine, even though the concept of Israel-ness started just over a hundred years ago as nothing but an idea. They are Israelis, entitled to self-determination, peace and security in their own land.

And the Palestinians are every bit as much a nation. If the ultimate definition of authentic nationhood is continuous residence in a land for thousands of years, the Palestinian claim to nationhood is ironclad. They never left Palestine (except for those who either emigrated or became refugees after the establishment of Israel).

Those who deny that Palestinians have a nation base their case on two arguments, both of which are logically incoherent. The first is that Palestinians never exercised self-determination in Palestine; they were always governed by others from ancient times to the present day.

The answer to this is: So what?

Most nations in the world lacked self-determination for long periods of their history.  The Polish nation existed between 1790 and 1918 even though the state was erased from the map — divided between Russia and Austro-Hungary. It achieved independence in 1918 only to again lose it to the Nazis and then the Soviets from 1939 until 1989. Would anyone today argue that the Polish nation was invented?

The idea of it is ridiculous, especially when offered by Israelis or Americans (or Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, etc.), whose national existence would have been unimaginable a few centuries ago.

The second argument is that Palestinians never thought of themselves as Palestinians until Jews started moving into their territory, that Palestinian nationalism is a response to Zionism. .

Again, so what?

When  European Jews docked in Jaffa, Palestine in the early immigration waves of the late 19^th century, there were Arabs waiting at the port. When the Jews  purchased land, it was Arabs who had to move out.

And if those Arabs didn't call themselves Palestinians until the Zionist movement began, neither did the Jews call themselves Israelis.  Until 1948,  they were just Jews. But each of the two peoples knew who they were and who the other was.

The bottom line is that today the Palestinian nation is as authentic as the Israeli nation, and vice versa. Those who think either is going away are blinded by hatred.

To put it simply, the first part of the phrase self-determination is the word self. Both nations have the absolute right to define themselves as two nations which, hopefully, will evolve into two states. The alternative is national catastrophe not for one nation, but for two.

Why would Newt Gingrich care about that?

It turns out that being a neocon, gung-ho for war with Iran, is not exactly a selling point among Iowa Republicans.

In fact, according to Joe Klein in Time, it is a likely reason that Iran hawk and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is slipping in the polls while Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who opposes military action in the Middle East, is on the rise.

Iowa Republicans are not neoconservatives. Ron Paul has gained ground after a debate in which his refusal to join the Iran warhawks was front and center. Indeed, in my travels around the country, I don't meet many neoconservatives outside of Washington and New York. It's one thing to just adore Israel, as the evangelical Christians do; it's another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel's national security.

Paul's stance on Iran, which may be gaining him popularity in the country, is certainly not winning him any points among the establishment media (which is as hawkish on Iran as it was on Iraq). But many Americans, even Iowa Republicans, have learned from the Iraq catastrophe. And Newt Gingrich may find that in 2012, his neoconservative hawkishness is anything but an electoral plus.

It has been over a week since the lobby that deems itself "pro-Israel" began its recent effort to suppress the views of those of us it considers Israel-haters, self-hating Jews, or — in a most ridiculous twist given that most of us are Jews — "anti-Semites."

The effort to silence us now stems from (1) the determination to defeat President Obama, and (2) the need to intimidate us as the lobby and its congressional acolytes cowboy up for a bombing campaign against Iran.

I am one of the least significant figures to come under attack.

The bill of particulars against me is that I use the term "Israel firster" to describe those who consistently thwart the efforts of U.S. presidents to achieve Middle East peace. Their goals are those of the Israeli right: to maintain the occupation and prevent diplomacy with Iran.

These people (take a look at Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post) think nothing of attacking the President of the United States in the most vicious of terms but condemn anyone with the temerity to criticize anything done by the prime minister of Israel.

As I have explained, it is not Israel they put first, but rather the Israeli right. (They had no objection to criticism of Yitzhak Rabin, whose pursuit of peace with the Palestinians led to him being portrayed as an enemy of Israel by many, including Israel's current prime minister.)

After a week attacking me, they have turned their guns to bigger prey: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Friedman is under attack for writing a column denouncing Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who praised the recent Russian election as "absolutely fair, free and democratic," and lamenting a host of anti-democratic actions in Israel (all of which have been roundly condemned inside the country).

The Friedman quote that absolutely drove the pro-Likud right crazy was directed at Binyamin Netanyahu:

I sure hope that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.

For this, Commentary called Friedman a practitioner of the "new anti-Semitism," with virtually all of the usual suspects following suit.

Tom Friedman an anti-Semite! Imagine.

It feels ridiculous rebutting this outlandish charge. Tom Friedman has, for virtually his entire career, been condemned by real anti-Israel types as an apologist for Israel. He's Jewish (although the crazies now call Jews anti-Semites!); he became a journalist through his involvement with Israel; he and his family are huge donors to pro-Israel causes; and he hardly publishes a column without reference to one of his Israeli pals at Hebrew or Haifa University.

If Tom Friedman is an anti-Semite, there is no such thing; the charge has simply lost its meaning. I don't think Tom would object if I said that not only does he not hate Israel, he loves Israel and makes no effort to hide it.

As for his quote about the lobby and Netanyahu's standing ovation at that joint session, everyone knows that the only reason there even was a (rare) joint meeting of Congress honoring Netanyahu (for what?) was because House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) wanted to make it harder for the president to promote an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by demonstrating that Congress supported Bibi and not Obama.

And it was because they wanted to put on a show for the lobby. No one in the Republican congressional leadership even implied otherwise.

The pro-Bibi ovation was about as sincere and free of political considerations (i.e, campaign donations) as was Newt Gingrich's sudden announcement that Palestinians are an "invented people."

But the silly attack on Tom Friedman wasn't enough.

On Thursday, the right-wing Republican Emergency Committee for Israel ran ads across the country (including a full page in the New York Times) denouncing the Obama administration for treating Israel like a "punching bag." (Specifically, they went after the president, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.)

The administration's sin, as always, is that it has (intermittently, in my opinion) tried to get Israel back to negotiations and has (very intermittently) cited Israel for human rights violations. The attacks on all three people are dumb, but the one on Hillary Clinton takes the cake. (Has there ever been an American political figure more outspokenly pro-Israel?)

As for treating Israel like a punching bag, what a joke! The pro-Israel peace camp (of which I am a member in good standing) has consistently denounced the Obama administration for never criticizing Israeli policies.

For example, the administration's demand for a measly 90-day settlement freeze was dropped when Netanyahu balked. Even ultra-right Elliott Abrams (a board member of the Emergency Committee for Israel) says that under Obama the strategic relationship between Israel and the United States has reached an all-time high. Netanyahu himself said in September that Obama has earned a "badge of honor" for his support for Israel.

So why all the hate from the right?

The reason is simple.

It is not that the targets of its wrath are anti-Israel; that is demonstrably false.

It is that some of us (Friedman, for instance) oppose the status quo that the Bibi crowd treasures above all else. They support the unsustainable occupation and the determination to heighten tensions (and hence the likelihood of war) with Iran. To put it simply, they are coming at us because we object to those policies endorsed by the right that we believe could lead to Israel's destruction.

I often recall a similar situation back in 1971. Israel at that time was riding high and feeling pretty invulnerable. Still in a technical state of war with Egypt, it was separated from its enemy by the Israeli-controlled Sinai Peninsula, which was four times the size of Israel itself.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, already contemplating a peace deal with Israel, sent word to the Israeli government that if Israel would pull back two miles from the Suez Canal (allowing Egypt to reopen it), he would commence negotiations with Israel.

The United States immediately sent an envoy to Jerusalem to ask the Israelis to at least consider Sadat's offer. What's two miles? Israel would still have the rest and, maybe, peace with the most powerful Arab nation.

Israel said absolutely not. It was strong; Egypt was weak. The United States told the Israelis that if they refused to consider Sadat's offer, he might go to war to recover the land. The Israelis scoffed.

Two years later, on October 6, 1973, Sadat led an Egyptian attack to regain the Sinai and came very close to conquering Israel itself. After three weeks, Israel prevailed — with the invaluable aid of the U.S. — at the cost of 3,000 soldiers. Ultimately, Israel had to give up not just two miles of the Sinai but the whole peninsula altogether.*

All this could have been avoided if Israel had simply told the United States that, yes, it would consider Sadat's offer.

Needless to say, AIPAC and the other organizations that believe one must never, ever question an Israeli leader — along with their devotees in Congress — supported Israel's incredibly stupid and eventually tragic decision to reject Sadat's offer. When the U.S. administration asked for the lobby's support in getting Israel to consider Sadat's offer, the lobby said no. It stood with the Israeli government, right or (in that case) tragically wrong.

And thousands of Israeli kids grew up with missing fathers.

Of course, the lobby and its cutouts in Congress never apologized for backing the worst decision Israel has ever made (so far).

It occurs to me that one of the reasons I feel so strongly about the necessity of Israel pursuing peace is that I remember (although not as clearly as an Israeli) what October 6, 1973, felt like.

It was Yom Kippur. We were in synagogue. In came the amazing and utterly shocking news that Israel was under attack and that all its positions along the Suez Canal had fallen. Casualties were high. With the exception of November 22, 1963, and 9/11, I cannot remember a worse day.

The problem with the right-wingers is that, when it comes to the Middle East, they remember nothing. Lucky them.

*The best book about the Yom Kippur War is October Earthquake by Israeli historian Zeev Schiff.