This Time, Netanyahu Was In The Wrong, Not Iran

I haven’t heard any serious condemnations of Israel’s bombing of the Iranian’s consulate in Damascus, have you? Anyone remember the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)? That was a big one in European history classes because the treaty helped establish the principles of state sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of other states and laid the groundwork for the idea that diplomats should be granted certain protections to carry out their duties without fear of arrest or harassment. In fact, the concept of diplomatic immunity has ancient roots going back as far as Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome. Today, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) are the primary international treaties that codify the rules and privileges of diplomatic and consular agents, respectively. These conventions set out the rights and obligations of diplomats and diplomatic missions, including provisions the inviolability of diplomatic premises, including embassies, consulates and ambassadorial residences.

Bombing another nation's embassy or consulate is a gross violation of international law and diplomatic norms, a serious breach of the principle of diplomatic immunity that would normally result in severe diplomatic repercussions, including sanctions and diplomatic expulsions. Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus not only violated Iran’s sovereignty but undermined the foundations of diplomatic relations between nations. Under international law, Iran has the right to demand accountability and reparations and has the right to take other retaliatory measures to protect its interests and assert its rights.

And, yet Americans seemed celebratory, even giddy, about the Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate. Over the weekend, Zionist shill David Frum wrote in an Atlantic column titled A Test of Strength, that “Early in April, Israel scored a big win against Iran. It struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed important figures in the Iranian terror system. Iran acknowledged the death of two top commanders and five other senior officers.” Nothing about Netanyahu wanting to spark a wider war in the Middle East to salvage his unpopular government. Frum instead wrote that Iran’s retaliation was “a risky escalation” that Biden should reply to. He then connotes Iranian righteous retaliation with Russian aggression against Ukraine because Iran designed drones that Russia uses and notes that “Ukraine’s self-defense against Russian aggression has been sabotaged by Trump-loyal Republicans in Congress.”

He wrote that “Anti-Ukraine Republicans offer many excuses for their refusal to assist a friendly democracy under attack. One by one, each of those excuses has been discredited. Aiding Ukraine did not provoke nuclear war with Russia. The European allies are not freeloading— in fact they have provided more than twice as much as the United States. Aid to Ukraine does not distract the United States from commitments in Asia: This past week, the prime minister of Japan addressed a joint session of Congress to insist that the defense of Asia begins in Ukraine, saying, ‘Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow.’ When each story collapses, Trump Republicans replace it with a fourth or sixth or eighth. The rationalizations shift and twist. The anti-Ukraine animus remains fixed.”

Pretty obviously, some deeper motive is at work.

Iran’s attack on Israel has, at least temporarily, complicated the political calculus for Republicans in Congress. Republicans want to sound strong, to criticize President Biden as weak. But when Trump Republicans thwarted aid to Ukraine, they also stalled Biden’s request to help Israel bear the immense costs of its self-defensive war after the Hamas terror attack. Last night’s defense will be expensive: Hundreds of interceptors must now be replaced; fighter-jet operations burned fuel and weapons.

Because of Donald Trump, Republicans are now the party of foreign-policy weakness, passivity, and surrender.

Although America media avoids the topic, The Guardian ran a piece on Sunday that explains it in black and white: “While senior Israeli officials have framed this weekend’s Iranian attack as ‘revealing the true face’ of Tehran, the reality is that the proximate cause was Israel’s misjudgment in its strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria that killed two senior Iranian generals, among others. After years in which both sides operated within the framework of a largely undeclared set of ‘rules,’ Israel— as analysts have pointed out— bulldozed through every red line to attack a location that Tehran maintains was tantamount to attacking Iranian soil.”

“Israel went too far in assassinating the Iranian general, probably, in a diplomatic location,” said Yagil Levy, a professor of military sociology at the Open University of Israel.

“Israel is led by the availability of its weapons systems. And whenever the country or the leadership feels that they have a good intelligence, a good opportunity and available weaponry systems that can do the job, Israel strikes,” he added.

“Israel doesn’t have a really strategic approach … the attempt to identify the [connections] between specific military actions and expected benefits is not in the repertoire of the Israeli leadership.”

This Red Rockers cover is always reassuring, right? Listen a couple of times; it's infectious: