Death of an Iranian Scientist, Alleged Afgahn Insurgents, Hopes in Jerusalem

A few news items from this morning. An Iranian nuclear physicist was killed by a bomb attached to a bicycle, and the Iranians quickly started pointing fingers at the US and Israel. A rational response, I’d think, but this is a crime we’re not ever likely to know the origin of. Wondering what the Israeli press was saying about this, I clicked over to a few papers and saw a different item, that opened: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday that Israel would never cede control of united Jerusalem nor retreat to the 1967 borders, according to a bureau statement.”

Yikes. Well, then, it’s just not happening. No way. Thanks for coming out. Talk about your nuclear options. Imagine having the power to just toss aside decades of attempted negotiations and other peace efforts, not to mention the blood that’s been shed, with a single statement. Netanyahu isn’t the only one who has or who wields this power, but he is the most powerful right now, and he is the latest and most obvious example. Is there any chance that the US would really respond meaningfully?

Then, in Afghanistan, a story that shows that the winter is no longer down season for fighting. That dynamic has been changing dramatically over the past several years. Another new, or new-ish development, a drone attack inside Afghanistan, in Helmand, to be precise, that killed 16 people. They “seemed to be insurgents” villagers told the New York Times. Given McChrystal’s welcome emphasis on not killing civilians with air strikes, this is an interesting development. Could it be that we’ll be seeing more drones fire their missiles into southern Afghanistan? Could it be related to the killings of the intelligence agents in Khost two weeks back, or to the impending arrival of the new waves of troops? Seven western troops were killed the yesterday, however, so the one sure thing we can say is that this foe has not been cowed by anything the US has done yet.