the Israelis are terrified of Iran

* starroute (who always gets attention here, even if she's ignored at xymph's place):

"My guess is that the Israelis are terrified of Iran for roughly the same reasons the Saudis are -- because it's not decadent and corrupt and under the thumb of the CIA. Because it has the will and the independence to go "boo" to Uncle Sam. And because it aspires to the same position of regional dominance that it's held periodically over the last 6000 years.

On the whole, the Middle East over the last few centuries has been impoverished, demoralized, and purposeless -- and the Israelis like it that way. It's what enabled them to move in and set up camp in the region (just as the decadence of the Aztecs gave an opening to the Spanish.) Israel's greatest fear is of a reinvigorated and self-confident Middle East -- and thus of any nation that could serve as a template for that sort of revival. That is why they believe (perhaps rightly) that their own survival depends on Iran being beaten back down into the mud.

And even if they don't get their war on, that flood of Afghan heroin moving west might serve the same purpose. Perhaps that's what it's really for."

* Raw:

"According to MSNBC's David Shuster, legal sources say that if I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is convicted for perjury and obstruction, prosecutors may try to get him to turn over evidence against the Vice President."

* marcy:

"That’s what I do well. I’m as good a close reader as I think there are out there. And reading through the filings and that kind of thing I’m sure I read them as intelligently as anybody. So for me that’s what I do. I don’t particularly like the phone and I don’t live in DC. I think one of the bigger differences between what I do and what journalists do has to do with genre more than anything else. "

btw - she also sez that TNH only gets 3000 unique visitors a day!