Political Observer comments.

The first three paragraphs of this essay wallows in a retelling of a History, that is still unfolding. But the very canny Mr. Friedman lets his ‘reader’ know that he is aware of the various political actors in this Real Life Melodrama, and that he has not been beguiled by the machinations of those toxic actors? Yet Friedman is a Zionist! How might a Zionist approach such fraught political/moral territory ?

One of my ironclad rules of reporting in the Middle East is that sometimes you need to rereport a story to see things even more clearly than you did earlier. I’m having that experience with the Iran-Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war, which could soon draw in the United States. It could not be more clear now that, while Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 was triggered in part by reckless Israeli settlement expansions, brutal treatment of Palestinian prisoners and encroachments on Muslim religious sites in Jerusalem, the terrorist assault was also part of a broader Iranian campaign to drive America out of the Middle East and America’s Arab and Israeli allies into a corner — before they could corner Iran.

Which is why if the current tit-for-tat conflict between Israel and Iran and Iran’s proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis) escalates into a full-scale war — one that Israel could not fight for very long alone — President Biden could face the most fateful decision of his presidency: whether to go to war with Iran, alongside Israel, and take out Tehran’s nuclear program, which is the keystone of Iran’s strategic network in the region. Iran has been building that network to supplant America as the most powerful force in the Middle East and to bleed Israel to death by a thousand cuts inflicted by its proxies.

But America must always be wary about what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is up to. As a former Israeli diplomat, Alon Pinkas, observed in Haaretz on Thursday, one has to wonder why Netanyahu chose now to assassinate the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran — in the middle of delicate hostage talks.

The Reader finds herself in the uncomfortable position, of confronting 1,205 more of Friedman’s words: that should cement in her mind, his mastery of the vexing complications of Netanyahu’s Political/Moral Universe, and the real possibility of nuclear war, as a possible outcome?

Editor: I’ll sample some of Freidman’s self-serving chatter , that in his mind demonstrates ‘mastery’. Poor Mr. Friedman is not Walter Lippmann!

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In Netanyahu’s nearly 17 years in power, Bibi has both aided and undermined American interests in the region.

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But honesty also requires me to acknowledge that some things are true even if Netanyahu believes them.

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No leader in any of these Arab states today can make decisions hostile to Iran’s interests without fear of being killed.

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Lebanon and Syria had to observe three days of mourning after Iran’s president died in a helicopter crash. Yup, three days of mourning for another country’s president. There is a name for that: Iranian imperialism.

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IMEC was designed to foster tighter trade and energy supply links between the European Union and India — via U.S. allies on the Persian Gulf.

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The founding IMEC partners are the U.S., the E.U., Saudi Arabia, India, the U.A.E., France, Germany and Italy.

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Iran knew it had to prevent this Saudi-U.S.-Israel deal or be strategically isolated.

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Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei said that Muslim countries that are normalizing with Israel are “betting on a losing horse,” state-run media reported Tuesday, as regional rival Saudi Arabia moves toward establishing ties with Jerusalem. Khamenei also predicted Israel would soon be eradicated, in an address to government officials and ambassadors from Muslim countries. …

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How, though, will it end?

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 “In a network, everyone is No. 2.” Successors always emerge, often worse than their predecessors.

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With that one chess move — embracing the Palestinian Authority — Netanyahu could cement the U.S.-Israeli-Arab alliance, put in place a Palestinian governing structure in Gaza that would not threaten Israel and isolate Iran and its proxies militarily and politically, making their bet on Hamas’s war an utter waste of lives and money. But Bibi would have to risk his governing coalition to do it, because his extremist far-right messianic partners oppose any deal with any credible Palestinians.

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 What is not at all clear is what Bibi will do. Whose interests will he serve? His, Israel’s, America’s or Iran’s?

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Iran has long been happy to let Palestinians, Lebanese, Yemenis, Iraqis and Syrians die “for Palestine” but never risk Iranians if it could avoid that. The crocodile tears shed by Iran’s clerical leaders for Palestinians are all a fraud — all just a cover for Tehran’s regional imperialist adventure.

Netanyahu can now pull back the curtain on the whole cynical play. But that would require him to put Israel’s interests ahead of his own political survival. Will he?

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Political Observer