Told you my bullshit detector was pegged on high over yesterday’s report that claimed if Iran didn’t attack U.S. installations, we’d stand by as they retaliated if Israel bombed their nuke sites. Reuters reports today that I was right.
“It’s incorrect, completely incorrect,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told Reuters while accompanying President Barack Obama on a campaign trip in Ohio. “The report is false and we don’t talk about hypotheticals.”
Without naming its sources, Yedioth said Washington had approached Tehran through two unidentified European countries to convey the message that the United States would not be dragged into fighting if Israel carried out threats to attack Iran.
Yedioth said the United States told Iran it should in return refrain from retaliating against U.S. interests, including its military in the Gulf.
In Jerusalem, an Israeli official, who asked not to be identified, described the report as illogical.
“It doesn’t make sense,” the official said. “There would be no need to make such a promise to the Iranians because they realize the last thing they need is to attack U.S. targets and draw massive U.S. bombing raids.”
Note that Carney is not equivocating, as he does when a reporter asks him something that is true. He’s flat-out denying it.
Never, ever, EVER accept a story as big as this one with unidentified sources that only one news outlet is reporting. It’s a dead giveaway that it’s not true.
Meryl,
Given Carney’s previous behaviour and Obama running for re-election there is the probability that what he denied is not quite right.
Also when taking into consideration the attitude of Foggy Bottom with regard to the Corries and the judge’s decision in the recent judicial action against the IDF one wonders what would be the end result of an Israeli strike.
From what we have seen State and the CIA don’t exactly do things in accordance with US interests so it’s hard to know exactly how the various organs of govt., will react.
Let’s face it the Middle East so used to its cultural taquiya doesn’t American pronouncements at face value and is quite adept at playing the lying game (in waiting).
Something like Johnson’s inaction when Egypt closed off the Straights of Tiran and blockaded the Israeli port of Eilat in 1967 after he and the Brit’s Harold Wilson had given Israel their support previously?
Who knows whom and what to believe before it happens?
Oops! left out take in cultural taquiya doesn’t American
No. The article is bogus. It has two unnamed sources and no other news media has published the same charge. I am not saying that Obama is a great supporter of Israel. But I am calling bullshit on the Yedioth Ahronoth report. Note that the unnamed sources are from two European nations. It’s bullshit. They won’t name the sources, no other news media can confirm this report, and the White House denies it vehemently.
It is not true. You can’t point to other incidents in history and use them as a backdrop to say that this is a true report. Find me evidence of its truthfulness. Relevant evidence. Otherwise, I stand by my call: It’s bullshit.
That this particular report might not be correct does not demonstrate that Obama is not abandoning Israel. On the pro-Israel side you can put the large amount of weaponry we’ve sold to Israel. But this report is believable because of all of the public ways that this administration has distanced itself from that nation.
Start with the Cairo speech, add in the public scoldings of Netanyahu, the total lack of pressure on the Palestinians, the recent downgrade of a joint military exercise and the most recent removal of pro-Israel elements from the Democratic platform, and only way you can credibly believe that “we are not abandoning Israel” is if you accept that we’ve already done so. And this really matters. Weaponry increases the likelihood of Israel surviving an attack, but the distancing rhetoric increases the probability that an attack will come.
At the least, it would have been reasonable to get an explanation.
You are conflating two separate arguments. The issue is whether or not the U.S. is abandoning Israel, not whether or not Obama is abandoning Israel. I called bullshit on the Ynet story that said the U.S. was going to act as cowardly as the European nations who sought protection from terrorists by allowing them to operate against Israelis without stopping them.
If you have something to say about what I wrote, say it. But I’m not going to rehash the Obama administration’s attitude toward Israel. I’ve been writing about that on my blog for nearly four years now.
Meryl,
I received this following mail from Barry Rubin which is rather long so I will mail mit to you but basically he is not too happy
You are still not responding at all to the subject of this post. You are bringing up a different topic. I don’t see how your reposting Barry Rubin’s take on the DNC platform has anything to do with my pointing out that the report in Ynet was false. The report was false. It’s a binary choice: True or false. It has nothing to do with the DNC platform.
You are making an entirely different argument, and I will not be bothering to answer any other comments that do the same.
What I was responding to was the title of your post: “I told you so: The US is not abandoning Israel.” It is entirely possible for the article to be false without it meaning what your title says.
Then you’re still off the mark, because as was demonstrated, the U.S. is NOT abandoning Israel.