"We speak of a poor country, whose government is expressed as if it were a noble and advanced country. It is true that they produce missiles, or rather, import them from North Korea. They program them and launch them. Instead of accepting the agreement and withdrawing from nuclear power, interrupting relations with terrorist associations, they reacted, doubling. They have stopped investing in nuclear power for invest in missile systems. They live like miserable peasants, most in absolute poverty, whose government spends the money of poor in ballistic missile and to finance militias like Hezbollah, against Israel. This is their choice: a clerical dictatorship, which sometimes makes elections among candidates that they themselves have chosen".
So, speaking about Iran the international policy expert and strategic advisor to the US Government, Edward Nicolae Luttwak. The scholar, originally from a Jewish family in Arad, Romania, fled to Italy during the Second World War escaping from the Soviets. Responding to my request for an email interview, he invited me to contact him on the phone. He answered from Washington, where he served as counsellor at the Office of the Defense Ministry, the National Security Council and the US Department of State. Being well-known for its harsh and provocative attitude, outlined by its 'Give War a Chance' paper, which suggests the uselessness of peace missions and humanitarian activities by non-governmental organizations, I appreciated the cultural honesty very much and kindness with which he answered to my questions.
Other to design missiles and be a poor and backward country, as Iran sees it? Will there be reactions after this provocation?
First, Iran is the country that has, in the northern part, the largest mineral deposits in the world. Because of their political system, their regime, their synthesis between corruption and religion has managed to do nothing and not develop. We have a country with more than 80 million people with a heavy dependence on the hydrocarbon business and it is absurd. This economic model can be valid for smaller countries such as Qatar and the UAE, which can afford to sit as fat as you can with their servants working for them. Income from gas trading brings very little per capita wealth to a country with more than 80 million inhabitants. They are very unproductive, so they are condemned to poverty in the gas and oil sectors too. More generally they are uncompetitive: they do not export almost anything, they cannot produce clothing, shoes or cars, or anything that can be sold on the market. It will not happen much because a regime such as the Iranian one can last for a long time, until it collapses in various rotations in various sizes. Nobody invades them, nobody removes them until they attack the Israelis, and then they will pay a very high price. If they ever attack Israel, Netanyahu will then erase them, as every time they have sent ships to Hamas in Palestine and have been sunk.
We are right in Israel: after the escalation of tension from the July 14 attack where two guards died in Jerusalem yesterday, Netanyahu dismantled the metal detectors and reopened the site for Muslim Friday. The tensions with Jordan, but the most imminent threat for the State of Israel seems to be Hezbollah, which has missile bases not only in Lebanon, but also in Syria. Protestant Arab protesters yesterday against Israel, have shown waving yellow Hezbollah flags in Iran. Do you think we are close to a new war?
Yes, surely the highest concentration of rockets in Hezbollah's hands is in Lebanon. I believe that if Hezbollah launches missiles, a small part will not be intercepted at the beginning, but Israel will have no difficulty getting rid of them in a short time.
What you think about who speaks of boycotting Israel in the West, and to a growing public opinion in favor of the Palestinians?
There is no, and no way, to boycott Israel. Only in the last week were created 22 new connecting lines from Tel Aviv airport to Europe, Slovakia and China. Not to mention the dense diplomatic network Israel has, one of the most developed, technological and advanced countries in the world. Bibi Netanyahu's government is a hard, right-handed government that does not make any concessions to anyone. It does not discount Palestinians, with nothing and no one. The Israeli economy, with its ever-increasing presence in the world, is constantly expanding. I believe that continuing this way, Israel will increasingly be the least-boycotted country in the world. There may be street manifestations with Palestinian flags, a shame that Palestinians hate Europeans as much as Americans. But the Swedish government, for example, loves the Palestinians without doing anything for them: companies and Sweden are doing business with Israel; It's all a matter of pretense. Of all the peoples who are in trouble in the world, people have chosen the Palestinians, believing in lies believed by the Palestinians themselves.
The same thing happened with Unesco, then?
Certainly, because those who vote for UNESCO's culture are illiterate, with illiterate people who decide on world culture, while countries like Italy stop and leave them to do. For example, they decided that the Jews had nothing to do with Jerusalem because this text, called 'The Bible', is a Jewish fantasy. Burkina Faso, Sudan, Iran and other countries have said that 'The Bible' are all stories and are not part of their historical knowledge of the texts. Therefore, Jerusalem must belong to the Palestinians, because if Jewish history doesn’t exist, Jerusalem will belong to the Palestinians, it cannot belong to the Portuguese. The United States has already cut funds to UNESCO, can be abandoned: the cultural association of illiterates in the world can get out. They could easily rewrite the history of Sicily, making it an Arab region. Yet these stories, these lies do not harm the Jews, but to themselves: saying 'bales' can also work, but telling them to themselves never works.
In recent years, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has gone a little under silence in the West, perhaps because since 2014 the world has been more focused on ISIS and terrorism?
It has been silent because it is a trivial conflict. Israelis who can only kill all Palestinians without a minimum of effort, do not; While the Palestinians who want to destroy the state of Israel and see the flow of blood do not even have a grub of this force. Consequently, in a Middle Eastern scenario upset by a major civil war in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, where 200/300 people per day die, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is almost nothing. In this scenario, how can the killing of two people in Syria be reported?
Israel is the most solid, indeed perhaps the only real US ally in the Middle East, do you think Trump will continue to let them do?
Yes, because the United States has no reason to intervene, because now for example more people die in the city of Baltimore. The journalists deal with it, because the world's media are in Israel, they can live there and send children to school. So as soon as there is a dead person, the news, the first page, the television service comes out. If die 600 persons in Yemen, the same day, the news will end on page 22. It's not a real phenomenon, it's a media phenomenon: if you turn off the television, the phenomenon doesn’t exist, even with the TV off you will see thousands of Syrian refugees coming in Italy. The Syrians are teasing around the Palestinians, who are not moving a finger to help the Syrian people. When Assad bombs the city of Aleppo, Palestinians didn’t even spend a word. Palestinians, compared to all other Arabs people, are fine but they would like to keep everyone awake at night for their problems.
A final note question: what are the biggest concerns of US foreign policy?
Korea and China represent 90% of the agenda, the rest a 10%.