Misreading Biden

There's a bit of stir over Biden's appearance yesterday on "This Week" with George Stephanopolous. This particular remark is "being widely interpreted" as giving a tacit green light to Israel to bomb Iran.

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else."

As I tweeted to Greg Mitchell, (gah - I can't believe I'm tweeting), I didn't read it that way at all. Not that anyone pays attention to me, but Juan Cole had the same take as I did.

So what Biden was really saying is that the Obama administration intends to engage Iran diplomatically, and that if anyone wants Iran attacked they will have to do it themselves. This is not a green light to the Israelis, who hardly need one. It is a tough message to the right wing of the Israel lobbies that the Obama administration is not going to launch any hostilities with Iran, even after the hard line power grab of three weeks ago.

Exactly. As I read it, keeping in mind Biden's unique style of speaking, he was saying, "How would we stop them?" I mean, I know we give them a ton of military aid, but no one could deny the politics of telling them what to do with it, are complicated.

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