The hawks of Israel want a war with Iran ....

First the bad news was that Netanyahu became the prime minister. Even before the elections, back in September, I was rooting for Tzipi Livni, who I thought would then become the world's second most powerful woman. Alas, that never came to pass, and now we have to deal with an ultra-hawk.
Obama will have a tougher time with Netanyahu than with most Arab leaders. Israel is at some serious crossroads.

Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from a commentary in Haaretz (note that the commentary is written from the future, from November 2012):

Obama had no chance in the snows of Iowa in 2012. So with Oprah Winfrey wiping a tear at his side, the most promising president ever announced he would not run for a second term.

What went wrong? Where did Obama go astray? In retrospect, the answer is clear and simple. In the summer of 2009, the president had to make the most courageous decision of his life: to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Granted, opting for confrontation would have been incompatible with the DNA of the liberal Democrat from Chicago. Ironically, however, only such a decision could have saved his legacy and advanced the noble values he believed in. Only that decision could have led to a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. If Obama had decided three years ago to impose a political-economic siege on Tehran, he would have changed the course of history. The Roosevelt of the 21st century would have prevented regional chaos, a worldwide nuclear arms race and an American decline.

The war chant in Israel seems to be getting louder and louder. This is simply nuts! Imagine if Amedinajad gets re-elected. He will get bolder. Netanyahu then aims all his ammo at Tehran and the nuke-specific locations. Hezbollah starts lobbing whatever it can at Israel. Israel then blinks.

I suppose there is no point worrying about the swine flu virus now!

Want a real nightmare? Imagine if John "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" McCain had been elected prez ...... aaaaahhhhh!

Eyeless in Gaza

Roger Cohen's short piece in the NY Review of Books has a title that is a play on the old idea that an eye for an eye will end up leaving everybody blind.  Actually, Cohen has an even better metaphor to describe the tragic and atrocious Israeli military campaign in Gaza: "As Avi Shlaim, a professor of international relations and former soldier in the Israeli army, has observed, the Gaza offensive "seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash."

Cohen writes that: 

Only in the Middle East do the dead rule. As Yehuda Amichai, the Israeli poet, once observed, the dead vote in Jerusalem. Their demand for blood is, it seems, inexhaustible. Their graves will not be quieted. Since 1948 and Israel's creation, retribution has reigned between the Jewish and Palestinian national movements.