ISRAEL'S PEACE TALKS WITH SYRIA - A RUSE FOR ATTACKING IRAN?

Why is Israel holding negotiations with Syria about a possible peace agreement and return of the Golan Heights now?

This is a legitimate question to ask. It was only a few months ago that Israel sent its war planes into Syria to bomb and destroy what Israel and its neo-con friends in the U.S. government termed an inchoate nuclear bomb processing site. Yet less than a year later, Israel is conducting peace talks.

I suspect that Israel is doing this to neutralize an ally and friend of Iran in the event that Israel sends its bombers against Teheran. The whole world knows that Barack Obama is likely to be the next U.S. president in months, and Obama has stated publicly that he believes in a foreign policy that would eschew tanks and missiles in favor of negotiation and diplomacy. Israel knows that George Bush's term has only six or seven months to go. And it is clear that Bush would support Israel in its militaristic aggression against Iran. In other words, it is now or never in mounting an attack against Iran and in destroying Iran's nuclear power capabilities. So engage Syria in phony peace talks, neutralize the Syrians, and then attack Iran.

This must not be allowed to happen. If Israel attacks Iran, there will be turmoil and war in the Middle East for the next 500 years, maybe longer. The U.S. will be seen for what it is, an enabler of the Olmert regime in attacking another Islamic nation without cause. The whole world order will be roiled and in a frenzy.

SOME MORE THOUGHTS ON HILLARY CLINTON AND HER PROMISE TO "OBLITERATE" IRAN

Why don't we have more condemnation from the talking heads and opinionists about Hillary Clinton's most recent reckless claim that she would as president order the "obliteration" of Iran if it attacked Israel?

The only serious discussion of the dangerous fatuousness of Clinton's comment that I have seen has been in the legal blog Balkinization in a commentary by Sandy Levinson.

Is this what we want in a president, the offhand comment of Clinton that she would direct the United States to "obliterate" Iran? How about the millions of innocent civilians and others who would be killed in a nuclear U.S. attack on Teheran and on other Iranian cities?

I see where Levinson or one of his respondents suggested that the questioner should have asked Clinton what she would do as president if Israel attacked Iran with nuclear weapons? Would she have answered the same way that the U.S. would bomb Tel Aviv? Of course not! This just shows the awful depths Hillary Clinton finds herself in as to foreign relations. Iran and Iranians are the demons, not Israel. Kill the Iranians!