Major escalation by Israel in the past 24h. Israel’s UN ambassador says the quiet part out loud, admitting that Israel seeks a coup d’etat and regime change in Iran.
The same day, Israel’s Defense Minister says “we need to take military action against Iran"
But there’s more… >>
This week, the Israeli think tank BESA published a piece titled: “Dismantle Iran Now.” It calls on Biden to militarily help Iranian ethnic minorities dismantle the Iranian state violently. “The disintegration of Iran would be a blessing,” BESA writes.
besacenter.org/dismantle-iran…
Whatever one thinks of the Iranian gov, this much is clear: Experience shows that as Mideast states collapse, democracy and stability DO NOT FOLLOW. Rather, there will be war, instability, refugee flows & radicalization.>>
As this QI report shows, the instability then begets more interventions by regional&global powers, which further destabilizes the region & intensifies human suffering. All of this is bad for US interests - one of many ways US partners undermine US security
quincyinst.org/report/no-clea…
In fact, the report also shows that 5 out of the 6 most interventionists states in the region - incl Israel - are US partners. They are armed and politically protected by the US. And they often use that protection to intervene militarily beyond their borders. >>
If we want to avoid suffering and instability a la Iraq, Syria & Libya, then we have to stop blindly following the lead of regional partners who seek to settle scores with their own rivals with no regard for the impact on the US or the region as a whole.>>
Regarding escalation between Israel and Iran, attacks on boats, assassinations & major cyberattacks were NOT taking place as long as the JCPOA was in effect.

We can play a tit-for-tat game and beget major escalation, or we can use diplomacy to put an end to this nonsense.//

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More from @tparsi

4 Aug
MUST READ by @globalsarang: Liberal internationalism - or more accurately, American primacy - is not the answer to the challenges of our time, but one of the causes of it.

A response to Deudney & Ikenberry's critique of Restraint and the Quincy Coalition
responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/08/04/cal…
American primacy’s stress on democracy lacks credibility. Washington is militant on violations of rights by its geopolitical adversaries. But when it comes to U.S. allies and partners in the Global South, they rarely go beyond nudges and occasional slaps on the wrist. >>
Democracy and human rights are only of marginal importance in the liberal primacy project, except when they can act as force-multipliers in the great power competition framework. >>
Read 7 tweets
19 Jul
Surely, @QuincyInst’s latest paper will cause some minds in DC to explode

@Matthew_petti & I test the DC analysis that a single "bad actor" - invariably aligned against the US - accounts for most of the region's ailments. If it only was this simple…>>
quincyinst.org/report/no-clea…
Our quantitative and qualitative study published today shows that there is a set of powerful states who all are ROUGHLY EQUALLY INTERVENTIONIST. There is no one outlier - whether Iran, Libya, or Iraq - who more than the others is responsible for regional instability.>>
Six states have been the most interventionist: Iran, Israel, Qatar, Saudi, Turkey & UAE. Iran is highly interventionist but not an outlier. The others are often equally interventionist — and at times even more so. UAE & Turkey have actually recently surpassed Iran.>>
Read 9 tweets
7 Jun
/THREAD/ Won’t lie, tremendously honored to receive this recognition from Chomsky.

But more importantly, Chomsky is right that between the official sanctions narrative on Iran and the one I present in Losing an Enemy, there’s no serious scholarship behind the official line. >>
The official line essentially says that Obama sanctioned Iran till they begged for mercy and agreed to negotiate. Then, despite the sanctions remaining in place, the Iranians were so desperate for sanctions relief that it took almost three years to reach a deal (!!??) >>
Thus, had it not been for sanctions, the JCPOA would never have come about and only war could have stopped Iran from getting a nuke. The sanctions were, the official line goes, “essential leverage.” >>
Read 17 tweets
12 May
@IgnatiusPost has a good column today where he recognizes the outbreak of MidEast diplomacy. But he underplays the main force behind this: Regional actors' conviction that the US is leaving the region and that the era of complete deference to regional partners may be ending >>
Here’s David’s column. For the US to support this embryonic yet promising diplomacy, it needs to better understand WHY it is happening now and not earlier. Hint: It is NOT because the UAE suddenly has become a force for peace as David suggests. >>

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
But UAE deserves credit. As David writes, UAE reached out to Iran in 2019 after attacks on UAE ships & Saudi oil fields. What David fails to mention is that the UAE did so after realizing the US wasn't going to defend the UAE. I wrote about it at the time: foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/06/the…
Read 15 tweets
18 Apr
News of Iraqi-brokered talks between Saudi & Iran is a VERY BIG DEAL. Not just because the two sides are talking, but WHY they have started talks. I explain here how the US's military disengagement is incentivizing countries to pursue their own diplomacy ft.com/content/852e94…
In January 2020, I wrote a controversial piece for @ForeignPolicy arguing that the US's military involvement in the region has incentivized US partners to be more reckless and destabilizing.>>
foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/06/the…
When that involvement reduced, good things emerged. I argued Trump's refusal to go to war with Iran over the attacks on Saudi oil fields, prompted Saudi to both engage in its own diplomacy with Iran and reduce aggression in Yemen.>>
Read 13 tweets
15 Apr
The @nytimes keeps on sticking this into its reporting and it's highly problematic.

Three heads of the Mossad in a row have publicly rejected this notion: Halevi, Dagan & Pardo.
Ehud Barak has consistently rejected it since 1992. Here's why: >>
As Barak and Halevy argue, Iran is a threat, but NOT an EXISTENTIAL threat because that notion belittles Israel's own power. Israel is indestructible Halevy maintains, and as such, Iran can't be an existential threat.

The data supports their argument. >>
Even if Iran had nukes - which it doesn't but Israel does - it would be suicidal for it to attack Israel due to Israel's 2nd strike capability. As a senior Israeli official told me, whatever Iran does to destroy Israel, it cant destroy Israel's ability to destroy Iran in turn. >>
Read 7 tweets

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