Treacherous Alliance: the secret dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Tuesday November 20, 2007 14:27

by Jim Miles

An interesting review:of Treacherous Alliance – the secret dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States By Trita Parsi. Yale University Press, New Haven. 2007 by Jim Miles.

As the prospects of a limited ‘strike’ or a full out attack on Iran become more and more familiar in the media, and as the end date for the Bush-Cheney regime in the United States draws ever nearer to its close, a better understanding of the tripartite relationship between Iran, Israel, and the U.S. requires a strong presentation of the underlying so far verbal conflict between the three governments. Trita Parsi succeeds in this goal in Treacherous Alliance, in which he discusses the relationship between the three.

Parsi concludes “Washington has sought to establish an order that contradicts the natural balance by seeking to contain and isolate Iran” and follows with his well-developed arguments that “The major transformation of Israeli-Iranian relations have all coincided with geopolitical rather than ideological shifts.”

Paesi shows that for political Islam, “ideology is not an absolute for the rulers of Tehran,” although the public rhetoric would make it seem otherwise. That same view can be considered for the Palestinian Hamas, and the Lebanese Hezbollah, both ideologically partnered with Iran to a degree – practicality over-rules rhetoric. The argument concludes, “no force in Iran’s foreign policy is as dominant as geopolitical considerations.”

Parsi effectively reiterates the ideology/geostrategy idea throughout his work through strong examples and many quotes from sources that were or are involved in the apparent and real conflicts of the triad. Another note emphasizes the constraints of geostrategy over ideology as “Neither the honor of Islam nor the suffering of the Palestinian people figured in the deliberations.” Although the Israeli-Palestine question “touches everyone…in a profoundly emotional way, it is not a conflict that sets the geopolitical balance.”

Interestingly enough, while Bush-Cheney are dismally low in American polls, they and the media have managed to establish the idea that an attack on Iran is both feasible and good. Rhetoric has trumped strategy, at least in the opinion polls.

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Treacherous Alliance: the secret dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States