A Linkage Made by Amateurs

Submitted by Alex (United States), Sep 23, 2013 at 18:47

I tend to think that foreign policy officials in Western countries who make the erroneous linkage between solving the Israel/Palestinian conflict constitutes a primary means of alleviating the rest of our global tensions are not only wrong, but unprofessional. In fact, I think the fact that they believe in the linkage is their reason and justification for operating outside the parameters of their job descriptions (what is the head of MI5, a domestic security agency, doing talking about diplomacy?). As proof of the amateurish job performance of one of the officials who Dr. Pipes quotes in this blog as making the linkage, David Petraeus, see this New Yorker article published today about Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran's Qods Force and the world's most powerful terrorist. On a nutshell, Soleimani was able to alter American strategic considerations and behavior vis a vis the Iraqi insurgency simply by sending a few well placed threatening text messages:

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