The US efforts in Iraq will definitely fail. Societies do not become liberal democracies overnight, but only through an arduous history of assembling wealth, when they slowly learn to raise hands in voting instead of breaking them. Autocracy is the only chance for stability in Iraq. The autocracy might come from two sources: a strongman like Saddam or an external – Iranian – control. Even religious authority is not an option in the multi-confessional Iraq.

So far, the US arranged for truce with Iran which temporarily scaled down its support for Iraqi guerrillas. The US also persuaded Kurds to refrain from openly ceding from Iraq, and Iraqi government – from dismantling the Kurdish de facto state. Even if all the major Iraqi groups root out the terrorists, the groups would still have plenty of opportunities to fight among themselves.

Iraq’s mirror is Lebanon: a religiously fragmentized state oscillating between fragile, frightful balance and bloody chaos. Iraqi situation is made worse by the low probability of its government doing away with terrorists completely. As Israeli example shows, even a few dozen killed are still a big deal when media inflate the stories. Iraqis are happy now with decrease in violence, but in a year of quiet they would adjust their expectations and view even small terrorist acts as signs of growing instability.

Iran nourishes its influence throughout the Middle East and Africa, and it is unlikely that Iran would abandon the perfect opportunity to influence Shiite Iraq. Shiites would not be happy about the necessity to reach consensus with Sunni minority. Too many forces influence Iraq from within and without. It cannot exist as even a remotely liberal, democratic country. It was for a reason that Iraq never existed before the British created that Frankenstein.

Iraq will become an unofficial Iranian province, fall to a strongman, or fall apart.

For Israel, joining the NATO is a wishful thinking: the alliance has no reason to accept the burden of protecting the Jewish state threatened or at least disliked by every Arab country. Joining the NATO while Israel still remains at war with Syria is legally problematic, as it may draw the alliance into a major war over what is to all international purposes a minor dispute. The absence of internationally recognized Israeli borders accepted by her neighbors is another legal obstacle to joining the NATO.

In any conflict, Israel would be the guilty side by the NATO standards. She preempted in 1967 (started a war). In 1973, Israel suffered the Egyptian attack only because she illegally held the Egyptian Sinai. In 1982, Israel’s right to invade a sovereign country over the criminal acts which originated from its territory was highly problematic (though the United States did just that with Mexico). The rocket attacks on Sderot are a legitimate (in the international law) resistance against Israel’s illegal closure of border crossings. Israel’s war with Syria would be over her illegal annexation of the Golan Heights. Israel’s attack on Iran, if any, would be a brazen violation of the UN charter besides the fact that Iran, an NPT signatory, is entitled to its nuclear program.

Let’s test the 1967 situation. Egypt moves its army into Sinai but doesn’t cross Israel’s border. Syria mobilizes the border region but still doesn’t invade Israel. There is nothing that NATO could do at this point. But after the attack, it might be too late to call for NATO’s help as Israel lacks depth of defense. By the time NATO help arrives, there might be no recipient.

Israel faces specific threats which won’t trigger NATO’s support. Acts of terrorism, however big, are not those of war. Even shelling of Israel by a duly elected government of Gaza still falls short of the stringent casus belli. Europeans would always find an excuse for the Arab freedom fighters to prove that they only react to Israel’s violations of peace such as closure of border crossings.

The NATO can stifle whatever help is forthcoming to Israel from the United States. America, the NATO member, probably is not entitled to aid Israel despite the NATO’s official policy in any given situation. Moreover, once NATO assumes nominal responsibility for Israel’s survival, America can abandon its assumed responsibility.

In any pre-war crisis, NATO would press Israel rather than Arabs. First, NATO will push Israel to abstain from preemption, because a NATO member is not supposed to start a war. Second, NATO has huge interest in avoiding war with Arabs; since Arabs are inflexible, NATO would press Israel to accept the Arab terms. Such appeasement is an inherent policy of mutual defense alliances: in the end, no one wants to defend anyone and only enters the alliance in order to receive protection. Thus, Britain and France had not only accepted the German ultimatum but threatened Czechoslovakia to join war against it on the German side – to make the Czechs accept German terms.
NATO’s credibility as a guarantor cannot be better than the American credibility – which is very low. After the war of 1956, Eisenhower enticed Israel to withdraw from the Sinai promising American involvement if Egypt ever closes the Tiran Straits. When Egypt did just that ten years later, the United States did not mount military pressure on Egypt but on the contrary had operational plans of landing American troops in the Sinai on Egypt’s side – against Israel.

NATO is already inoperative. It failed to act coherently in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It admitted many countries with diverse interests, some close to Arabs, others afraid of the pro-Arab Russia.

Bringing Israeli army to NATO standards would be expensive and unnecessary as the IDF’s own regulations are often better.

Israel’s safety is in her nuclear weapons.

It is most absurd to compare Iran to Nazi Germany. The most important thing about Nazis was their continuance: they developed the long preexistent policies to the logical end. For centuries, German society was anti-Semitic, militarist, disciplined, expansionist, supremacist, and xenophobic. Germans fought among themselves and against other Europeans. Nationalism was deliberately inflated for the purposes of German unification, and fitted into the core attitudes of supremacy and xenophobia. Since the time immemorial, Germans were disciplined, ruthless soldiers. Swiss and Danes, for example, were militaristic, too, but have long passed the stage of nation-building which was very recent for Nazi Germany, and are therefore peaceful. France, Ukraine, Serbia and most other European countries could initiate Holocaust just like Germany; Ukraine did just that in the early twentieth century, and France efficiently collaborated with Germans to bring the Holocaust about. Very few Germans were actively involved in genocide, but others concurred; the very same pattern is visible in France, Italy, and other countries. Anti-Semitism is endemic to Christian culture and actionable in Europe. In America, anti-Semitism was never encouraged officially, and Americans, though dislike Jews, are unlikely to organize genocide.

Nothing of the sort holds for Iran. That country lacks entirely the history of anti-Semitic incitation and persecution typical of Germany and Europe generally. Most Iranian Jews emigrated, but they did so due to nationalistic (Israel) or economic (America) opportunities. Those who remained in Iran are not persecuted. It is foolish to compare the Iranian situation to systematic brutal oppression of Jews in modern Syria, where they were correctly seen as Israel’s fifth column, or all the more to Germany. Still in the nineteenth century, German Jews lacked full citizenship and popular parties vehemently opposed endowing Jews with full civil rights. German newspapers routinely published anti-Semitic articles and cartoons – a thing unheard of in Iran where the line is carefully drawn between Zionism and Judaism, and even anti-Zionist propaganda doesn’t remotely resemble the anti-Semitic fury in Germany. Unlike Iran, German culture is inherently anti-Semitic, with short-lived Weimar Republic being the only exception. Germany was anti-Semitic in the fourteenth century, in the twentieth, and in the twenty-first.

It is not implausible to suggest that Iran, though tolerant to Jews, can annihilate a Zionist state. Given Iran’s track record, that’s extremely unlikely. Iran was never expansionist in the modern history. It did not start any aggression. Even in the story of Tunbs Islands, Iran painstakingly followed diplomatic path until Sharjah secretly asked it to invade the Tunbs so that the emir could give the island away to overwhelming force, thus saving his face. Iran’s operations in Lebanon come nowhere close to the Syria’s blunt intervention. True, Iran supports resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine, but Israel, too, supports Kurds. Almost every considerable state supports some foreign guerrillas to extend its influence.

If Iran is so good, why are the Arabs hysterical over its nuclear program? That’s because Iran builds a Shia empire. Unlike Sunnis, Shia are loyal to the ayatollah rather than their country of residence. Shiite influence in Sunni states guarantees civil unrest and undermines local governments. Arabs tend to side with the strong, and nuclear Iran will increase popularity of Shia Islam. Egypt will no longer enjoy free hand in arbitrating intra-Arab disputes, and the whole balance of power will shift. Arabs, however, readily adjust themselves, and so Egypt and Saudi Arabia strengthened their ties with Iran recently.

Iran will use its nuclear weapons to provide Syria and Lebanon with defensive shield, but won’t bomb Israel. Unlike German’s, the Iranian army is deficient and cannot conduct mobile warfare. Iranian ballistic missiles are susceptible to Israel’s air defenses, and won’t score devastating hits. Sanctions and inefficiency bled the Iranian economy, and Iranians cannot secretly militarize in the manner of Germans. The Iranian leadership is very conservative and exerts control over Ahmadinejad which is exactly the opposite of the German parliament’s lack of control over the Nazis.

That being said, nothing is certain. Iran fought Iraq with chemical weapons and suffered retaliation in kind. It marched its teenage soldiers to sap the minefields. It lost an immense number of soldiers in a pointless (though defensive) war with Iraq. Iran can retaliate for Israel’s attacks on its nuclear facilities with chemical and radiological weapons, and disregard the consequences. Actually, there would be no consequences as Israel cannot conduct protracted war with Iran: that country is too large and too far. A missile exchange is the likely scenario. Israeli establishment drums the Iranian nuclear threat as it covers Israel’s inability to deal with the real, credible, and immense nuclear threats from Pakistan and North Korea which are almost certain to pass nuclear weapons to Arab regimes and terrorists.

The very existence of Iranian military nuclear program is uncertain. If America had positive evidence of the military program, Bush would have produced it after the National Intelligence Estimate discredited his anti-Iranian policy. In at least two briefs to IAEA aimed at bolstering international support for sanctions, US Administration produced no substantial evidence of Iran’s military nuclear research. Israel offered America all the evidence of Iran’s illicit activities that she has, but apparently it was unconvincing to the CIA, IAEA, and the diplomats. Struggling for the international support against Iran, Israel would have made public every shred of evidence: telling that such-and-such a program takes place in such-and-such location doesn’t tremendously endanger the spies. Chances are, however, that Iran indeed conducts a military nuclear program, and we cannot take chances.

So Iran is a threat which must be dealt with. It is not, however, anything like the Nazi Germany.

Jewish ultra-Orthodox concern with blood infusions is in part superfluous. Jews are enjoined against consuming animal blood, “for its soul is in its blood.” Soul, however, can be only in a single place at a time, and it’s either in the animal or in its blood. The commandment, therefore, only deals with slain animals and leaves open the possibility of drawing blood from live animals and humans.

There is an adjoining prohibition against cutting flesh of a living animal. Blood, however, is not flesh: we’re allowed to eat animal flesh but not its blood. In light of the “soul-blood” commandment, we can plausibly infer the prohibition of shedding blood of a living animal until it dies. It is doubtful whether we can extend the prohibition of cutting flesh onto all animal suffering: doubtlessly, a sheared sheep suffers considerably, but shearing is not regulated. Perhaps, it is prohibited to inflict the enormous, death-like suffering only.

Drawing blood of live humans and animals by medical means doesn’t cause them considerable suffering or connected with their death, so is not prohibited.

Perhaps blood consumption is prohibited per se, regardless of the blood’s source? Capital punishment for intercourse with menstruating women favors such a wide assumption.
A contrary argument, that priests and arguably medical professionals, though in constant contact with blood, incur no guilt on its account, would be wrong. They derive no personal benefit from the blood and are not culpable. True, doctors receive payment for their services, but the payment is for healing; the contact with blood remains circumstantial.

The blood of menstruation, however, is considered the one from wound, therefore symbolical of death. Plausibly, the blood not related to wound and death, such as drawn for infusion, lacks the stigma.

There is also an argument of necessity. Animal slaughterer gets in touch with blood but is not guilty because the contact is unavoidable. Blood infusion in life-threatening circumstances can be justified by similar necessity as that which makes us slaughter the animals to eat and live ourselves.

The example of woman in childbirth is instructive. During the birth, she becomes unclean through the contact with blood of the wound, and is instructed thereafter to purify herself by moderate sacrifices. I lean to the opinion that blood transfusion from living humans and animals is possible but leads to the receiving party’s ritual impurity.

Just everyone is concerned with Iran’s rising influence in the Middle East. Israel, the United States, Egypt, and Russia protest what they see as Iranian incursion on their turf. Russia and America are in the double binge: Iran acts both in the Middle East and in their backyards, Central Asia and Venezuela, respectively. For Egypt, rising Iran creates a major domestic threat: dormant Shiite communities in Egypt and Shiite proselytes sponsored by Iran are inherently disloyal to Egypt’s secular Sunni regime. Russia sees Iran as wooing away its traditional clients: Syrians and Palestinians. France protests Iran taking Lebanon and Syria out of the French sphere of influence. And Israel rightly feels threatened by Iranian nuclear weapons which Iran needs only for boosting its regional stance rather than actual attack.

It hardly pays to run against the wave of history. Iran is returning to its historically high position. The country which destroyed ours in the sixth century BCE and helped us to establish a short-lived Jewish state a thousand years later; the country powerful when Egypt was a non-power; the populous, civilized, educated, and rich country, Iran will unavoidably rebound.

Israel had helped Iran with its nuclear program. That happened under the Shah, even though a failure of monarchy was only a matter of time; monarchy is not viable in the modern world. So the real problem is not the Iranian nukes, but Iranian friendliness. Love is impossible for now, but cooperation can be there. Israel has no other option: Iran can actually move its low-end but massive army against Israel through friendly Kurdistan, Jordan and Syria. Unlike Israel’s traditional enemies Egypt and Syria, Iran is extremely tolerant to strikes at its civilian centers, as shown in the Iran-Iraq war. There is really nothing short of a multiple nuclear strikes that Israel can do to stop the Iranian military advance. So Iran has to be accommodated.

Israel shares a political common ground with Iran: both need to do away with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. As far as Israel is concerned, the US military aid allowed Egypt to develop a relatively agile modern army, and Saudi Arabia has both a huge conventional arsenal (which it can loan to Egypt) and nuclear weapons (developed by Pakistan with Saudi money). For Iran, Egypt is a major contender for regional influence, and Saudi Arabia is the oppressor of Shia population conveniently settled in Saudi oilfields region.

Israel should prefer Iranian Shiite dominance in the region to Egypt’s Sunni one. Egypt will soon become even more radicalized than Iran, when Muslim Brotherhood takes the power. Iranians are disenchanted with mullahs but Egyptians are all for Muslim Brotherhood. So it’s not a choice between a secular peaceful Egypt and the Ahmadinejad state, but between the two heavily armed Islamic fundamentalist states. In such an outlook, Iran is preferable as it did not start wars in its recent history – unlike Egypt which attacked Israel continuously, and continues to do so through the Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood proxy.

Whatever we do will threaten us. If Israel attacks the Iranian nuclear facilities and suffers massive retaliation, it would only clear the way to Egyptian dominance. Egypt will continue building a conventional army, to be inherited by the politically victorious Muslim Brotherhood, and would likely develop nuclear weapons, feeling that the US Camp David guarantees protect it from Israeli reprisal.

Without the Sinai and the West Bank, Israel is a beach approximately 60 miles long by 14 miles wide. The Negev is uninhabitable, and the Galilee is densely settled by the hostile Israeli Arabs. A country 60 by 14 miles cannot survive. We can effectively increase its size by attacking preemptively far outside of our borders. Short of that, Israel needs strategic cooperation with Iran.