The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Bombed again

According to a reader familiar with New Yorker magazine, Seymour Hersh and his nameless friends are at it again this month.

If what Hersh reports being told by “a Middle East expert with knowledge� is correct, we have further evidence (like we needed it) of the crowded confusion that occupies Bush Jr.’s oval cuckoo’s nest. According to this expert, the invasion of Lebanon was a plan cooked up collaboratively with the White House, and one of the goals was to make the Lebanese government stronger.

The best laugh, however, comes from a “U.S. consultant with close ties to Israel� who says “The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits … It would be a demo for [an American strike on] Iran.�

Back in April Hersh wheeled the same anonymous cast on stage to assert that Cheney et al are forging ahead with plans bomb Iran back to the stone age, with nukes if at all possible. Hard to know what any of it’s worth when you don’t know who’s saying it, but a pleasant bit of echo-chamber reading for the pessimistic.