"Iran cannot attack Israel because of the weight of history that puts Iran on the side of defenders of Jewish rights to a homeland and by the same token Israel cannot attack Iran because, first, it would be acting against its own conscience and, second, it would be making a strategic error by weakening the non-Arab bloc in the Middle East," said a prominent Tehran political scientist.
"The Iran-Contra affair, when Israel replenished Iran's inventory of arms during the Iran-Iraq War [in the 1980s], happened for a reason. It showed realpolitik instead of ideological noise ruling the policy-makers in Tehran and Tel Aviv, and the logic of limited cooperation - call it a temporary marriage of convenience back then - is not entirely absent today with the threats of terrorism, etc," added the Tehran political scientist.
Not everyone in Tehran shares such sentiments and the issue of Israel has been subjected to the exigencies of factional politics, like so many other (foreign policy) issues. Unfortunately, some Iran experts in the West have made a serious error of speaking of a "strategic alliance" between Israel and Iran during the Iran-Iraq War.
"The Iran-Contra affair, when Israel replenished Iran's inventory of arms during the Iran-Iraq War [in the 1980s], happened for a reason. It showed realpolitik instead of ideological noise ruling the policy-makers in Tehran and Tel Aviv, and the logic of limited cooperation - call it a temporary marriage of convenience back then - is not entirely absent today with the threats of terrorism, etc," added the Tehran political scientist.
Not everyone in Tehran shares such sentiments and the issue of Israel has been subjected to the exigencies of factional politics, like so many other (foreign policy) issues. Unfortunately, some Iran experts in the West have made a serious error of speaking of a "strategic alliance" between Israel and Iran during the Iran-Iraq War.
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