In what is perhaps his most
remarkable feat, Roger Cohen's latest op-ed for the New York Times -
where he critiques Binyamin Netanyahu's speech to the UN last week - gets everything wrong.
Even more remarkably, his main
arguments are refuted by the contents of the speech itself. Which means that
either Cohen didn't listen to or read the speech itself, or he consciously
chose to lie about it.
Op-ed writers of course have
more latitude than reporters do, but that latitude does not extend to simply
making up facts.
Here we go:
Never has it been more
difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to convince the world
that, as he put it in 2006: “It’s 1938. Iran is Germany.” He tried again at the
United Nations this week. In a speech that strained for effect, he likened Iran
to a 20th-century “radical regime” of “awesome power.” That would be the Third
Reich.
Netanyahu:
The
last century has taught us that when a radical regime with global ambitions
gets awesome power, sooner or later, its appetite for aggression knows no
bounds. That's the central lesson of the 20th century. Now, we cannot forget
it.
Does Cohen disagree that Iran
is a radical regime or does he disagree that that its acquisition of nuclear
arms would give it "awesome power"? Does he disagree that a
nuclear-armed Iran would irrevocably alter the geopolitical landscape of the
Middle East? Both of those facts are incontrovertible.
By any sane measure, Bibi is
right and Cohen is wrong.
Among those who question this
approach is David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish
Committee. Referring to the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, he wrote in
the Israeli daily Haaretz that, “Simply
implying, for instance, that anyone who sits down with Rouhani is a modern-day
Neville Chamberlain or Édouard Daladier won’t do the trick. To the
contrary, it will only give offense and alienate.”
When Netanyahu’s staunchest
supporters — the leaders of the American Jewish community — question his
approach to Iran, the Israeli prime minister needs to stop calling Rouhani “a
wolf in sheep’s clothing,” his favored epithet, and start worrying about crying
wolf.
At
no point in Bibi's speech did he even imply that the world shouldn't talk with
Iran. Here
is exactly what he said:
So here's what the
international community must do. First, keep up the sanctions. If Iran advances
its nuclear weapons program during negotiations, strengthen the sanctions.
Second, don't agree to a
partial deal. A partial deal would lift international sanctions that have taken
years to put in place in exchange for cosmetic concessions that will take only
weeks for Iran to reverse. Third, lift the sanctions only when Iran fully
dismantles its nuclear weapons program.
My friends,
The international community has
Iran on the ropes. If you want to knockout Iran's nuclear weapons program
peacefully, don't let up the pressure. Keep it up.
We
all want to give diplomacy with Iran a chance to succeed. But when it comes to
Iran, the greater the pressure, the greater the chance.
It is Cohen's fantasy that Bibi
called for no talks with Iran. Cohen
is wrong.
Now, what about David Harris?
Did he find Bibi's speech to be problematic, as Cohen implies?
Harris' article was
written on September 27. Bibi's speech was October 1.He wasn't condemning
Bibi's speech, he was saying his worries about Bibi's possible approach.
Hours after Bibi spoke, Harris enthusiastically praised Bibi's speech,
days before Cohen's piece:
AJC
Executive Director David Harris praised the Israeli leader’s speech.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu delivered today a compelling clarion call for the entire world about Iran,” said Harris. “The stakes are very high, with no room for wishful or illusory thinking about Iran’s intentions. No one seeks confrontation for confrontation’s sake. But until the Iranian regime comes clean on its nuclear program and fully cooperates with the international community, maximum pressure is absolutely necessary. History’s lessons on this score could not be clearer.”
Cohen could have looked up
Harris' comments before he wrote his column. Instead, he chose to misrepresent Harris' opinion written before
the speech as if he was critiquing the speech. For this reason alone, Cohen
should be fired.
Bibi and Harris are right, Cohen is wrong.
It is not just that the world
has now heard from Netanyahu of the imminent danger of a nuclear-armed Iran for
a very long time.
In Roger Cohen's world,
apparently, getting sick of someone's warning about a threat than could affect
literally billions of people gets old after a while. Best to ignore it. Cohen is wrong.
It is not just that
Israel has set countless “red lines” that proved permeable.
Doing a New York Times search
for the words "red line," "Netanyahu" "Iran" and
"nuclear" finds nothing before Bibi's speech exactly one year ago.
There has only been one red line.
This speech showed that the entire reason Iran has not crossed the only red
line Israel has set is because of sanctions. There have been no permeable
"red lines." Cohen is
lying.
It is not just that the
Islamic Republic has been an island of stability compared to its neighbors
Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ruthless dictatorships with
strong leaders are generally stable. Syria and Egypt were stable for decades
before their respective revolutions. Does that make them desirable? Cohen is wrong.
It is not just that, as Rouhani’s
election shows, Iran is no Nazi-like totalitarian state with a single authority
but an authoritarian regime subject to liberalizing and repressive waves.
Bibi answered the ridiculous
claim that Rouhani's election proves liberalism in the very speech Cohen is attacking:
Presidents
of Iran have come and gone. Some presidents were considered moderates, others
hardliners. But they've all served that same unforgiving creed, that same
unforgetting regime – that creed that is espoused and enforced by the real
power in Iran, the dictator known in Iran as the Supreme Leader, first
Ayatollah Khomeini and now Ayatollah Khamenei. President Rouhani, like the
presidents who came before him is a loyal servant of the regime. He was one of
only six candidates the regime permitted to run for office. Nearly 700 other
candidates were rejected.
All major decisions in Iran are
made by Khamanei. The president reports to the "Supreme Leader."
Cohen knows this, and yet he chooses to ignore it. Cohen is wrong.
No, Netanyahu’s credibility
issue is rooted in the distorted priorities evident in a speech that was
Iran-heavy and Palestine-lite. The real challenge to Israel as a Jewish and
democratic nation is the failure to achieve a two-state peace with the Palestinians
and the prolongation of a West Bank occupation that leaves Israel overseeing
millions of disenfranchised Palestinians. ...Iran has long been an effective
distraction from the core dilemma of the Jewish state: Palestine. But global
impatience with this diversionary strategy is running high.
But Israel, even with the
Palestinian issue, is also an "island of stability compared to its
neighbors" Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Isn't that important in
Cohen's worldview? It sure seemed that wayonly
one paragraph ago.
Additionally, the world is
quite impatient with Palestinian Arabs who have been given every chance
for peace since Oslo. Arabs are
far more interested in Iran than in their Palestinian brethren. Cohen's idea
that the Palestinian Arab issue is more important to Israel's future than Iran
is fantasy. In other words,Cohen is
wrong.
Iran has much to answer for.
Rouhani’s “Iran poses absolutely no threat to the world or the region” is a
preposterous statement. It has hidden aspects of its enrichment program. It has
taken American and Israeli lives and attacked U.S. interests, through the
Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and other arms of its security apparatus. It
has placed odious Israel hatred and America-as-Satan at the core of its
revolutionary ideology. President Obama is right to demand transparent,
verifiable action for any deal.
What Iran has not done is make
a bomb or even, in the view of Western intelligence services, decide to do so.
Here is a time-worn method
where columnists pretend to briefly acknowledge another side to the story while
sweeping it under the rug. But Bibi's speech gave in great detail the evidence
that Iran is hell-bent on creating a military nuclear device as well as how
Rouhani bragged about hiding the nuclear program from the West. While Iran may
not have greenlighted the building of an actual nuclear device, it is clearly
doing everything that would be necessary to build one quickly should it decide
to. As David Albright of ISIS testified to
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week:
If
Iran decided to produce nuclear explosive materials today, it could use its gas
centrifuge program to produce weapon-grade uranium (WGU). However, Iran’s fear of military strikes likely
deters it at this time from producing WGU or nuclear weapons. However, if
its centrifuge plants expand as currently planned, by the middle of 2014 these plants could have enough centrifuges
to allow Iran to break out so quickly, namely rapidly produce WGU from its
stocks of low enriched uranium, that the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) would likely not detect this breakout until after Iran had produced
enough WGU for one or two nuclear weapons. ISIS calls this a
“critical capability.”
If the Arak reactor operates, Iran could also create a plutonium pathway to nuclear weapons. This reactor can produce enough plutonium each year for one or two nuclear 2 weapons, heightening concerns that Iran aims to build nuclear weapons. Its operation would needlessly complicate negotiations and increase the risk of military strikes.
If Iran creates the ability to
build a bomb in two weeks (the time between IAEA inspections,) the fact that it
has not made a decision to
build one becomes moot. At that
point, nothing can be done to stop it. Cohen's bizarre idea that the
two can be decoupled is fantasy, not fact. Cohen is wrong.
(There is plenty of other evidence that Iran's nuclear program is military, but that is outside the scope of this post.)
It is not in Israel’s interest
to be a spoiler. Limited, highly monitored Iranian enrichment — accepted in
principle by Obama but rejected by Netanyahu — is a far better outcome for
Israel than going to war with Tehran. But, of course, any deal with Iran would
also have to involve a change in the Iranian-American relationship. Israel does
not believe that is in its interest, hence some of the bluster.
So, according to Cohen, Israel is more afraid of warm US-Iran
relations than of being blown up. This is projection on Cohen's part, as
this op-ed proves that it is Cohen who cares more about appearances than truth,
and is more prone to make decisions based on bias than on facts. Cohen is wrong.
In this essay, Cohen is
criticizing a speech that was never made and he cannot counter a single point -
not one - that was actually in the speech. Which is why he resorts to lies.
In any sane world, Cohen should
be ashamed to go out in public after writing such a thoroughly embarrassing
article. In any sane world, the Times would let him go because of the danger
Cohen's columns bring to its own rapidly sinking reputation.
This piece is not just
wrong-headed. It is not just showing that Cohen's opinions are wrong. No, this
essay shows that Roger Cohen is guilty of editorial malpractice; he is someone
who consciously and willingly ignores facts and makes up his own just to
support an unsupportable thesis. A doctor or lawyer or teacher who acted this
unprofessionally would be unceremoniously fired after a performance like this.
Op-ed writers can and should push their opinions, but they should not have the
right to make up their own facts.
--
Elder of Ziyon
Elder of Ziyon
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