Grappling With Goldberg on the Idea of Israel Attacking Iran – International – The Atlantic.
Aug 14 2010, 11:00 AM ET | 
Comment
In the few days since the
current issue of
The Atlantic came out, Jeff Goldberg’s cover story, “
The Point of No Return,” has already prompted sharp thoughts, big feelings, and intense discussion. Among the early
responses, we’ve seen an immediate, widespread, and even awestruck recognition of the scope and depth of Jeff’s reporting. Fred Kaplan
comments over at
Slate:Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the latest Atlantic, on whether Israel will (or should) attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, is the best article I’ve read on the subject–shrewd and balanced reporting combined with sophisticated analysis of the tangled strategic dilemmas.
Whatever you think should be done about the Iranian program to build an A-bomb …, read his piece before thinking about it much more.
Here at
The Atlantic, Clive Crook
calls the story “an amazing intellectual coup”:
It takes an issue of enormous importance, a decision on which the history of our times could pivot, which has been on people’s minds for ages–and through prodigious reporting and force of analysis makes everything that has been written on the subject up to now seem completely inadequate. I can’t think of anything else quite like it.
Some, however, have wondered whether the story is ultimately part of “a campaign of intimidation against Iran” — as Jacob Heilbrunn
speculates at
The National Interest. At
Salon, a harder version case has been iterated: Justin Elliott, for example,
writes that “Jeffrey Goldberg is out with a monster
piece that, together with the Atlantic’s cover
art, will do a fair amount of legwork in mainstreaming the idea that bombing Iran is a good and justifiable idea.” Trita Parsi, joining
Stephen Walt at
Foreign Policy, portrays the story as the beginning of a “campaign for war.” And Glenn Greenwald
describes it bluntly as “propaganda.”
Joel Klein — emphasizing his own vehement opposition to any attack on Iran —
counters at
Time: “No matter what Jeff thinks [about the idea of an attack], his Atlantic piece has no secret agenda–any more than my reporting last month that the Obama Administration has revived its study of the military option.” And Jim Fallows addresses the accusation of “warmongering” in Jeff’s story here at The Atlantic:Or to put it more delicately, is it meant to condition the American public and politicians to the prospect of an attack on Iran? Many people have portrayed it as such. I disagree. I think that those reading the piece as a case for bombing Iran are mainly reacting to arguments about the preceding war.
Jeff Goldberg was a big proponent of invading Iraq, as I was not — and those who disagreed with him about that war have in many cases taken the leap of assuming he’s making the case for another assault. I think this is mainly response to byline rather than argument. If this new article had appeared under the byline of someone known to have opposed the previous war and to be skeptical about the next one, I think the same material could be read in the opposite way — as a cautionary revelation of what the Netanyahu government might be preparing to do. Taken line by line, the article hews to a strictly reportorial perspective: this is what the Israeli officials seem to think, this is how American officials might react, this is how Israeli officials might anticipate how the Americans might react, these are the Israeli voices of caution, here are the potential readings and mis-readings on each side.
Jeff, meanwhile,
describes his own position on the question of whether attacking Iran is a good idea, as one of “profound, paralyzing ambivalence.”
Elsewhere, discussion of the story and its implications has been vital: Tom Socca
critiques at
Slate, concluding that Jeff may be “too much of an expert. He has more information than he knows what to do with (e.g. ‘Persian and Jewish civilizations have not forever been adversaries….[I]n the modern era, Iran and Israel maintained close diplomatic ties before the overthrow of the shah in 1979’).” Glenn Reynolds
boosts at
Instapundit, remarking on the Israeli leadership’s view of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat, as Jeff reports: “I think some people in Washington — and elsewhere — have been letting the Israelis twist in the wind in the hopes that Israel will solve our Iran problems for us, and take the blame. I don’t think these ‘leaders’ will like the outcome ….” Steve Clemons
takes on Jeff’s understanding of the rational incentives governing the Iranian leadership at
The Washington Note, while David Rothkopf
takes on Clemons’s understanding of the Iranian leadership’s rationality at
Foreign Policy. Also at
Foreign Policy, Amjad Atallah discusses Arab concerns about Iranian regional dominance. At The Christian Science Monitor, Dan Murphy assesses the repercussions of an Israeli strike on Iran. And at Arms Control Wonk, Joshua Pollack seizes on Jeff’s article to call for greater debate on the issues it addresses, particularly among nonproliferation pros:
The nuke nerds — you know who you are, people — have failed to contribute effectively to the Iran policy conversation. Too often, it seems, we’re just talking to each another in our own special jargon of UF6, SWUs, SQs, LWR, NPT, NFU, BOG, NSG, and so on and so forth. Amid these minutiae, the larger debate has managed to bypass what I’d consider the hard-won insights that this community has produced on the Iran question over the last several years.
Back here, at
The Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan —
previewing a lengthy, spirited response “The Point of No Return” that he’ll make here — also emphasizes the importance of Jeff’s story, and the larger importance of vigorous, smart, and informed debate on its subject:
The point of this magazine, as I understand it, is airing real and honest debate about the great issues of our time. I think Jeffrey’s piece is a classic example of what should be published under such a philosophy, and am proud that this magazine is pioneering the debate we need to have. We do not, moreover, believe in a collective line. We believe in open discourse. And there is no subject as grave as the one Jeffrey has grappled with or that this country will have to confront in the months and years ahead.
On this point, for all the ways it’s in our
DNA not to hold a collective line, Andrew speaks for all of us. Monday morning,
Robin Wright of the United States Institute of Peace will start off a debate that we’ll be running here at
The Atlantic through Wednesday, August 25. Weighing in along with Robin will be
Elliott Abrams (Council on Foreign Relations);
Nicholas Burns (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University);
Patrick Clawson (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy);
Reuel Marc Gerecht (Foundation for Defense of Democracies);
Marc Lynch (The George Washington University);
Gary Milhollin (Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control);
Karim Sadjadpour (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace); along with
Andrew,
Jim, and other voices here at
The Atlantic, including, of course,
Jeff himself. We hope you’ll be there, too, share your thoughts, and help move the conversation forward.
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WarSclerotic 
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