I don’t think you’d hear the Arab states say this publicly, but they would be delighted if the United States or Israel destroyed the Iranian nuclear weapons capability.
It's hard to count just how many ways that Bolton is wrong when he speaks like this in public. No credible news organization should look to him for analysis or commentary, at least not the ones who value what they put out as far as content is concerned. Bolton reads and sounds like the last Neocon standing, a relic of 2003 that simply can't find anyone to take him seriously anymore.
His statement is wrong on so many different levels--but yes, it would technically be true to say that many Arab nations would like to see Israel "disarm" Iran and "destroy their nuclear weapons capability." Except that there are a whole host of other reasons they would be horrified and would react accordingly against it--namely, I don't think OPEC would sit there and do nothing. I don't think Jordan and Syria would allow their airspace to be used for any kind of overflight, at least not without serious protest or military force. The fledgling Iraqi government would likely collapse into hysterics over such a thing.
Does anyone seriously think Israel could do such a thing? Well, no, because, for starters, Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons capability--hence, the disconnect in Bolton's logic. He knows they don't have one, but he cannot make his case if he has to sit there and patiently explain just how far away they are from having one. They have a series of initiatives and programs headed in that direction, and there's a good chance they could get there in five to ten years with a massive effort and an influx of money, and with support and technology they don't currently possess. However, there are at least a handful of other nations around the world that you could say the same thing about. But no one talks about Algeria or Taiwan like this, do they? No one talks about the fact that Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, Spain, Romania, or South Korea could probably beat the Iranians in the race to get a weapon if they put forth that same herculean effort. How seriously do you take a country like Iran when they're largely incapable of doing anything other than talking and repressing their own people?
So we're to believe that Arab countries would celebrate an aggressive projection of Israeli military force into a distant country, one that "succeeded" in destroying dozens of facilities, and left Iran defenseless? Because in order for Israel to destroy Iran's nuclear program, it would involve sending thousands and thousands of sorties over hostile territory into hostile territory, it would involve systematically destroying the Iranian air defense systems which use some fairly modern SAMs and SAM systems, and it would take months. Months of attacks, months of assessing damage, and months of determining what the end state of the situation was. As in, did we get it all? Did we get everything?
All while expecting Iran to do nothing in response to this.
Last time I looked into this, Iran was a founding member OPEC. They're not the end all, be all, but they're part of an organization which is running the table right now on energy prices. When was the last time anyone stood up and said, "you know, Iran is part of OPEC." Why do we never hear anyone point that out? We hear the likes of Bolton, we hear the proxies and the shills, and they always conveniently fail to point out that Iran is a member of OPEC.
So is Bolton being ridiculous? Yes, of course. Should Israel do nothing? Of course not--but how do you explain this to the Neocons? They're not totally wiped out, unfortunately. They're like the last shithouse rat looking to bite someone just to see if they can still pull it off.
Until we are rid of them, we are cursed with their presence in the media.
--WS
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