Dear Leon,
Having just read David Brook's Op Ed piece, "Converting the Ayatollahs", in today's Times (2/27/), I would like to know your opinion on this arrangement Obama is working for with Iran.
J.
Dear J.,
I read the Brooks column online last night. He's more seductive than Netanyahu, but they're on the same page. I think the gang up of the extreme right (US and Israeli) against Obama for trying to establish a mutually necessary modus vivendi with Iran is extremely dangerous. I could pose a dozen questions here about the consequences of following neocon-GOP policy in the past, and many more about what would come of a Netanyahu reelection coupled with the ascendancy to power of rightist hawks in the USA. I don't think a repeat of force, a la Iraq and Afghanistan, will "convert the Ayatollahs" and I don't think "converting the Ayatollahs" is the essence of the problem. Just to be provocative — I know I shouldn't — I think a government in Israel of the ultra right (those who assassinated Rabin and cry "Death to the Arabs") would be more able and willing to resort to a nuclear bomb against Iran than the other way around.
I'm not going to write a rebuttal to Brooks today although one occupies my mind along with indignation over Netanyahu's warmongering collusion with the GOP. It's probably my age, but some days I'm low on energy.
Best, Leon
