Fareed Zakaria constructs one of his diplomatic and quasi scholarly articles about why Iran hates America, but he forgets that America is Israel’s figleaf and bunker against having to face international justice.  The hostility goes much from the back than modern politics. We have the restoration of the Jewish people to Palestine by the Persian king Cyrus.  The person government had seen the light, or so it seems, when it  authorized Jewish people to pillage Persian homes in retaliation for the Persian threat of annihilation against the Jewish during their in exile.

Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.”

Ezra 1:2

Israeli government policy in the modern era ignores the cosmopolitan character of the Jewish mission.  Succeeding generations of Jewish people have pretended that they are independent of international interest and fellowship.  Similarly, Iranian policy has been fueled by the need for revenge.  The God of the Jewish people had made the ancient Persian king an agent of his, and the Islamic religion, Iran’s new religion, makes no pretense of being the corrector of rebellious Jews.  So Iran is as hardline anti-Israel and as hardline anti-everything related to Israel as hardline one can be.

The use of the veto by the United States at the United Nations to shelter Israel from scrutiny looms large on the horizon of Iranian  venom and energy.