The US and its allies have been attacking one evil empire after another for decades, including the evil empire of Mohammed Mosaddegh, the scary Red Menace in Iran, in 1953. We have nothing to show for any of them. Why do US, European and Israeli leaders think this time things will be different?

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, said today that Israel was “very far off” from any attack on Iran. More important, Israeli intelligence indicates that they have not yet determined that Iran has decided even to build a nuclear weapon. These are things you don’t hear much in the US press, so let’s run the [...]

Prior to all the rising tensions around Iran, the US and Israel had scheduled a large set of joint military exercises in the spring. Maybe this wasn’t necessarily a provocative act, but with everything happening around Iran, it gained a new resonance. So today, when the two sides postponed the exercises, some saw it as a way to cool those tensions.

A provocative article in Foreign Policy magazine suggests that Israeli Mossad officers recruited members of the Pakistani terrorist organization Jundallah to aid in the covert operations against Iranian targets, including bombings in the Baluchistan region and potentially the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. The Mossad officers, according to Mark Perry, posed as American intelligence agents during the recruitment, using US passports.

When we last saw neo-con nutball and Jenifer Rubin’s BFF Rachel Abrams, she was still publicly working out some of the kinks for her proposed Israeli/Palestinian two-state solution where the Israelis got to keep all of the land and the Palestinians would move to Waterworld where they would be welcomed as shark chum(s).

Remember when Red diaper baby Ezra Klein set up a Lie-beral Super Secret Decoder Ring Society where he and his elitist komrades plotted treason and conspired to elect the Kenyan Muslim Communist so they could shove Socialism down America’s slender swan-like virginal throat? And then bow-tied anus Tucker Carlson asked to join and Ezra and his buddies were all like, “sure” and they extended their hand to shake on it only to pull it back at the last second – psych! – and then they stuffed Tucker into a locker and went off to drink vodka and set fire to Christmas trees?

What’s particularly remarkable is that Pexton is admitting (albeit wanting it kept secret) what any honest observer knows to be true: that there is a very high likelihood — I’d say absolute certainty — that Rubin would have been fired had she promoted a post like this about Jews and Israelis rather than Arabs and Palestinians.

On an open mike at a G-20 summit press conference, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Netanyahu a liar, and Obama said the US had more contacts with Israel. So naturally, the right wants Obama to apologize — that is, to lie about telling the truth.

The fallout from the entry of Palestine into UNESCO continues. In addition to the US, bound by statute, removing their funds for UNESCO, Canada canceled its voluntary funding. The organization’s budget is probably close to 1/4 smaller than it was just a few days ago. And that can’t help but impact UNESCO’s work around the world.

What’s more, Israel has responded, not by targeting the member states that voted for Palestine’s entry, but by thumbing their nose at Palestine.

Gilad Shalit, the Israeli Defense Forces soldier who has been under the control of Hamas since 2006, may be freed in a prisoner exchange deal, according to multiple officials.