How Is Jeffrey Goldberg Embarrassing His Fellow Homo Sapiens Today?

Jeffrey Goldberg began his new blog at the Atlantic with a very specific goal: each day he hoped to say something that would make all other human beings embarrassed to belong to the same species as him.

"We obviously know that, as primates, we tend to flee from reality into a bizarre dreamscape of self-justifying delusion," Goldberg imagined the world's population saying to themselves as they read his blog, "but we had no idea we were THIS bad."

Goldberg's blog has already had great success creating shame among his fellow humans. Now here's his latest effort:

Those of us who have a hard time believing that even the most irrational Iranian leader would actually sacrifice Persian civilization on the altar of anti-Zionism ought to pay attention to this story, about the tendency among Islamists toward national suicide.

The story Goldberg recommends is by Israeli politician Amnon Rubinstein in the Jerusalem Post, titled "Suicide, the path to national salvation":

Islamist national suicide are not uncommon...

• The first case is that of Saddam Hussein, who in 2003 could have avoided war and conquest by allowing UN inspectors to search for (the apparently non-existent) weapons of mass destruction wherever they wanted. Yet Iraq's ruler opted for war, knowing full well that he would have to face the might of the US.

• The second case is that of Yasser Arafat in 2000, who after the failure of the Camp David and Taba talks had two options: continue talking to Israel - under the leadership of Ehud Barak, this country's most moderate and flexible government ever - or resort to violence. He chose the latter, with the result that all progress toward Palestinian independence was blocked. The ensuing loss of life, on both sides, testified to Arafat's preference for suicide over compromise.

• The third case is that of the Taliban. Post-9/11, their leadership had two options: to enter into negotiations with the US, with a view to extraditing Osama bin Laden, or to risk war and destruction. The choice they made was obvious: Better to die fighting than to give up an inch.

In all three cases, the conclusion is plain: prolonged war, death, destruction and national suicide are preferable to peaceful solutions of conflicts: Dying is preferable to negotiating with infidels.

There's so much bizarre primate self-justifying delusion here that you have to make a list.

(1) Neither the Saddam Hussein regime nor Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority was "Islamist." (The Taliban, of course, was.)

(2) Even if the Iraqi regime and the Palestinian Authority had been Islamist, Rubinstein would still be bonkers.

(a) As anyone knows who spent any of 2003 conscious, Iraq did in fact let UN inspectors look for WMD "wherever they wanted." Beyond that, we now know the perspective of the Saddam regime at the time, thanks to the final CIA report on Iraq's WMD programs:

Saddam assembled senior officials in December 2002 and directed them to cooperate completely with inspectors, according to a former senior officer. Saddam stated that the UN would submit a report on 27 January 2003, and that this report would indicate that Iraq was cooperating fully. He stated that all Iraqi organizations should open themselves entirely to UNMOVIC inspectors. The Republican Guard should make all records and even battle plans available to inspectors, if they requested. The Guard was to be prepared to have an “open house” day or night for the UNMOVIC inspectors.

[High government official] Husam Amin met with military leaders again on 20 January 2003 and conveyed the same directives...Amin told them that the government would hold them responsible if UNMOVIC found any WMD in their units or areas, or if there was anything that cast doubt on Iraq’s cooperation with UNMOVIC.

(b) After the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000, Yasser Arafat did continue talking with Israel. This was what led to the Taba negotiations in January, 2001. (Thus, the Taba talks could not have, as Rubinstein states, failed "in 2000.")

Moreover, the Taba negotiations were halted not by Arafat, but by Ehud Barak. Here's the press release from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Prime Minister Ehud Barak has decided today (Sunday), Jan 28, 2001, not to continue the diplomatic contacts with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and his people until after the elections in Israel.

Here's the joint Israeli-Palestinian statement at the time, again from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

The sides declare that they have never been closer to reaching an agreement and it is thus our shared belief that the remaining gaps could be bridged with the resumption of negotiations following the Israeli elections.

After Barak lost, he emphasized the new Sharon government could ignore the Taba talks:

Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak clarified this evening that the ideas which were brought up in the course of the recent negotiations conducted with the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, including those raised at the Camp David Summit and by President Clinton towards the end of his term in office, are not binding on the new government to be formed in Israel.

And indeed, Sharon did ignore the negotiations and did not restart them.

(c) Rubinstein is closest to reality when claiming the Taliban failed to "enter into negotiations with the US, with a view to extraditing Osama bin Laden"—but even here he's still in an imaginary universe.

To start with, here's what the 9/11 Commission report said about the perspective of the Taliban on the 9/11 attacks before they occurred:

Although Bin Ladin's top priority apparently was to attack the United States, others had a different view...From the Taliban's perspective, an attack against the United States might be counterproductive. It might draw the Americans into the war against them...Bin Ladin countered that Mullah Omar lacked authority to prevent al Qaeda from conducting jihad outside Afghanistan.

On September 20, 2001, George Bush delivered an address to Congress containing an ultimatum to the Taliban. Bush stated they must hand over "all the leaders of al Qaeda" to the US, plus "every person in their support structure," and "give the United States full access to terrorist training camps."

Bush added: "These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion."

On September 21, Taliban official Abdul Salam Zaeef stated that they would not hand over bin Laden "without evidence," but that "if America has proof, we are ready for the trial of Osama bin Laden in light of the evidence." Zaeef also called for an investigation of the attacks by the UN and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. On September 25, the UK Independent reported (via Nexis) that "[Zaeef said] it was 'good news' that the US intended to produce its evidence against Mr bin Laden. This could help to solve the issue 'otherwise than fighting.'"

On September 30, Bush chief of staff Andrew Card repeated Bush's stance from his September 20 address:

The president has said we're not negotiating...We've told the Taliban government what they should be doing. They've got to turn not only Osama bin Laden over but all of the operatives of the al Qaeda organization.

On October 3, the UK Telegraph reported this:

A SECRET plan to put Osama bin Laden on trial in Pakistan has been blocked after President Musharraf said he could not guarantee his safety, it was disclosed yesterday.

Suggested by the Taliban's closest allies in Pakistan, it was a last-ditch attempt to satisfy Western demands for bin Laden's surrender while averting a war and ensuring the fanatical regime's survival...

The court would decide whether to try him on the spot or hand him over to America.

Nothing more came of this, and the US invasion of Afghanistan began on October 7.

3. Even if the Iraqi regime and the Palestinian Authority had been Islamist, and Iraq, Arafat and the Taliban had refused negotiations, Rubinstein would still be bonkers.

Jeffrey Goldberg's thesis is that somehow the cases of Iraq, Arafat and the Taliban suggest Iran would attack Israel with nuclear weapons, even though it knows this would cause its own obliteration.

But Iraq didn't attack the United States. Rather, Iraq was attacked by the United States. Nor did Arafat attack Israel. Rather, Palestinian land was being occupied by Israel. (The Taliban could be said to have attacked the United States, but as noted above, the 9/11 Commission found it was mostly the doing of Al Qaeda by itself.)

In other words, even if Rubinstein were right about everything he's wrong about, the correct prediction to draw from his examples wouldn't be that Iran would attack Israel with nuclear weapons. It's that Iran won't negotiate with the US, and then we'll attack them.

Whew, that's exhausting. But dealing with the bizarre self-delusions of homo sapiens always is. It's really, really embarrassing.

MORE EMBARRASSMENT FOR HUMANS: Amnon Rubinstein used to be the Israeli Minister of Education.

—Jonathan Schwarz