Iran Isn't Winning the Future

Matt Duss reports from Israel's Herzliya Conference, a.k.a. "Neocon Woodstock":

The drummers were already going to have trouble keeping the beat in the wake of outgoing Mossad chief Meir Dagan's and Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon's recent statements that efforts at sabotage and international sanctions had likely delayed an Iranian nuke for several years. Egypt only made things more complicated. Still, it was odd to hear neoconservative doyenne Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute dismiss as "propaganda" former Mossad head Efraim Halevi's assertion that "the US and Israel are winning the war against Iran." "If Iran is losing, I'd like to be that kind of loser," Pletka said, reminding the audience that, "Khomeini referred to Israel as a one bomb country."

"What I'm saying is not propaganda," Halevi shot back. "The danger is believing the propaganda of others."

It's amazing to me how this particular cast of mind manages to consistently overrate the success of dysfunctional political and economic systems. Israel has about twice Iran's per capita GDP, has an actually functioning nuclear arsenal, counts the mightiest empire the world has ever known as an ally, has a more potent conventional military, and manages to not be under international sanctions. But most of these advantages are either going to be frittered away, or else simply not matter, if the Israeli government persists in trying to hold on to and even expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.