פיין געזאגט.
http://www.indystar.com/article/2012020 ... pinion%7CpIn his 1983 song "Neighborhood Bully," written in defense of Israel, Bob Dylan puts the Middle East conflict into sharp focus with hard-hitting lyrics like these:
"Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, and nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He's the neighborhood bully."
The last lines refer to the bombing by Israel of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. But they could also just as easily refer to current events -- namely, whatever plan is being hatched in Jerusalem to protect 8 million Israelis and, frankly, the rest of the world, from a new threat: the possibility of a nuclear Iran.
This was a constant topic of conversation during an enlightening trip I recently took to the Holy Land as part of a small group of U.S. Hispanic journalists. We met with more than a dozen Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The excursion was sponsored by the New York-based group America's Voices in Israel.
Many Americans may shrug at the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons on the other side of the world. I fell into that trap myself.
You get comfortable and become provincial in your thinking. Sipping $4 lattes, you use a word like "crisis" casually -- the foreclosure crisis, the debt crisis, the spending crisis, etc. More than 10 years after 9/11, you let your guard down and forget that the world is still an incredibly dangerous place.
The Middle East usually reminds us. As I write this, the government of Syria is trying to clamp down on a rebellion and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that the situation there could quickly degenerate into a "brutal civil war." Meanwhile, the government of Egypt -- which is now controlled by the radical Muslim Brotherhood -- plans to put on trial 19 Americans accused of violating funding laws for foreign nongovernmental organizations.
So what would it mean for Iran to have nuclear weapons? At least three things: that Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East, would live under the constant threat of being wiped off the map; that the global balance of power would shift as other rogue leaders and developing nations rallied to Iran's side; and that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, choking off much of the world's oil supply, or do just about anything else it wanted and the rest of the world would be reluctant to protest for fear of sparking a nuclear confrontation.
It's one nightmare scenario after another.
On the streets of Jerusalem, here's what they say about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- that here you have someone who denies the Holocaust ever happened, and yet would, if given the chance and given a nuclear weapon, gladly stage a recurrence.
The Israeli people are counting on their leaders to protect them and their country with whatever action is necessary. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta raised eyebrows recently when he said that Israel could bomb Iran as early as this spring.
But this isn't just a problem for Israel. Iran is a global menace. James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, recently told the Senate intelligence committee that Iran is increasingly likely to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States "in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime." He cited an alleged Iranian plot last fall to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.
Here's more bad news. Consider the cozy relationship between Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. One top Israeli official told my group that, just with the technology that the Iranians are working on now, it is possible that Iran -- if it had nuclear weapons -- could place missiles in Venezuela capable of reaching Miami.
Americans have seen this movie before, with Russian missiles in Cuba in 1962. Could we be looking at the possibility of a Venezuelan missile crisis?
There is a farcical quality to this drama. If Israel does bomb the Iranian nuclear sites, you can expect that many world leaders in Asia, Europe and the Middle East will publicly condemn the attack -- while privately breathing a sigh of relief. Why not just be honest and say that out loud?
Life can be maddening when you're the neighborhood bully.
