Roger Cohen continues his credulous defense of the Iranian regime today in the pages of the New York Times, alleging that Israel has “cried wolf” over the threat, and the imminence, of a nuclear Iran. Cohen assures us that Iran will not obtain a nuclear weapon for at least “a couple of years,” though he provides no evidence or analysis to back up his charge, and there is no evidence that Cohen’s claim comes from serious study of the issue. Instead, Cohen had the misfortune of putting this column to bed before an Iranian official announced that the country is now operating 7,000 centrifuges in a nuclear facility at Natanz. Cohen closes his column with this odd formulation:
Cohen should at least get some credit for understanding that the problems of the Middle East require dealing first with the problem of Iran and not the Arab-Israeli conflict. But what does Cohen mean that “Israeli hegemony is proving a kind of slavery”? Hegemony over what? And does Cohen intend to offend Jews on the occasion of passover by comparing Israel to biblical Egypt, or is this just another example of bad timing — and bad taste?
