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Thomas L. Friedman

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

Let’s review the latest headlines: The United States is sending an advanced antimissile system to Israel, along with U.S. troops to operate it. Iran’s foreign minister says there will be “no red lines” governing Iran’s retaliation for any Israeli retaliation for Iran’s latest missile retaliation. And reports from the Persian Gulf say Iran has quietly told Arab gulf states that if Iran is hit by Israel, Tehran may respond by striking Arab oil fields. If all of this does not terrify you, you are not paying attention.

May I make a suggestion?

How about sending our savvy C.I.A. director, Bill Burns, to meet his Iranian counterpart on neutral turf in Muscat, Oman, with a real strategy for coercive diplomacy vis-à-vis Iran that might actually work to change the Tehran regime’s behavior? Burns could say to the Iranian intelligence chief something like the following:

“Let me tell you how your country looks from C.I.A. headquarters: You are infiltrated, exposed and isolated.

“Infiltrated? We heard that the latest joke going around Tehran is that your supreme leader is in hiding and the only ones who know where he is are the Israelis. Israel’s intelligence is very good, but the only reason it could have penetrated your leadership and Hezbollah’s so deeply is that so many Iranian and Lebanese Shiites hate both regimes and are ready to spy for Israel. So, you have no idea today when you talk to one another or to Hezbollah whether the person you’re talking to is working for Israel or you.

“Exposed? You, Iran, have fired nearly 500 rockets at Israel since April and did not destroy a single military target or kill a single Israeli soldier. I don’t have to tell you that on April 19, an Israeli airstrike on Iran damaged an S-300 air defense system at the Eighth Shekari Air Base in Isfahan. It was reported that Israel had deployed aerial drones and fired at least one missile from a warplane with stealth technology — and you never saw them coming. You are N-A-K-E-D.

“And finally, you are isolated. Israel has badly damaged your Hezbollah militia, in which you have invested billions of dollars, so it is no longer your protection against an Israeli strike on your nuclear facilities. We have inflicted heavy damage on your Houthi militia in Yemen. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is fed up with you and wants you out of his country, and the Arab gulf states are now doing all they can to woo Assad away from Iran. The mainstream Iraqi Shiite party led by Muqtada al-Sadr hates you for the way your regime........

© The New York Times