The "Iranian Lens"

Caught this via Andrew just now. Marc Lynch at the FP blog:

The Israelis are going to try to argue that the U.S. can't do Israeli-Palestinian peace until after "solving" Iran, while many Arabs and others are going to argue that the U.S. can't solve Iran without first addressing Israeli-Palestinian issues. Both are wrong, or at least over-stated. The two issues are only loosely related, the much-trumpeted alignment of interests between Israel and Arab leaders is wafer-thin, it's important to move towards an Israeli-Palestinian two state solution for its own sake, and there is absolutely no logic to "sequencing" the two since both will take long, painstaking diplomacy.

I'm going to have more on this in the next few days, but this is a bizarre assertion that needs immediate comment. It says a great deal about Lynch's point (whatever it may be) that his assessment of the logic of "sequencing" itself seems lacking in logic. Because both processes are lengthy diplomatic issues, it is illogical to understand one needing to follow the other? Is this supposed to pass for conflict analysis?

I'm the last to shill for Netanyahu's continued policy of indefinite foot-dragging when it comes to a Palestinian state. But make no mistake: the connection to Iran is real. Hamas is building its military capability in the West Bank, as Ghassan Khatib notes in this week's Bitter Lemons:

Second, there are increasing indications that Hamas is building its military capabilities in the West Bank. These, at the moment, appear related to Palestinian divisions rather than Israel, but that could change any minute. The nature of the preparations (including for example, hundreds of military uniforms discovered in different parts of the West Bank) shows that there is serious potential in this regard.

There's no crystal ball that can tell us how Hamas will shape up in the West Bank, or whether Iran would risk the hand-off of weaponized uranium to a group crazy enough to use it. But to assert that there is "no connection" here--to assert, in essence, that there is no risk of such a transaction--is simply ludicrous. Lynch is one more in a long line of commentators to fail to do even the basic homework.