From the Guardian. Kind of worrisome, to say the least.An Israeli minister has said an attack on Iran's nuclear sites will be "unavoidable" if Tehran refuses to halt its alleged weapons programme.
In the most explicit threat yet by a member of Ehud Olmert's government, Shaul Mofaz, a deputy prime minister, said the hardline Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "would disappear before Israel does".
"If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Mofaz, who is also Israel's transport minister, said in comments published today by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
"Attacking Iran in order to stop its nuclear plans will be unavoidable."
Friday, June 6, 2008
Israel going apeshit?
Uh-oh...
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2 comments:
The author of those comments, according to the Guardian story, "leads regular strategic coordination talks with the US state department". That's a useful bit of information, actually.
The US, under the current bellicose regime of George "Dubya" Bush, has made it official policy that the US can, and will, carry out preemptive attacks on any (or perhaps EVERY) country that could conceivably challenge the hegemony of the US in any region of the world. Having invaded Iraq and occupied it for over 5 years now, the US is looking for new targets. So the fact that the Israeli minister is re-iterating this doctrine, with an Israeli flavor, should come as no surprise. With or without nuclear weapons, Iran is a challenge to the hegemony of the US and its client state, Israel, in the region. Hence the unending sabre-rattling.
Incidently, it's not clear to me that there are any substantial differences between the Republican candidate, McCain, and the Democratic candidate, Obama, on this issue. Either one could, as President, attack Iran for one spurious reason or another ... at least going by their public remarks.
Fortunately for Iran, it has some regional trading partners that have strong militaries of their own. I mean China and Russia. Perhaps that will restrain the fake cowboy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or whoever it is that takes his place, and encourage Israel to, say, address the serious domestic issues in that country rather than engaging in another regional war. The last one in Lebanon in 2006 was a dismal failure.
I suspect you're right about Obama on this issue, unfortunately. Given that the US mainstream seems to see failure to harbour sufficient ill will towards Muslims as prima facie evidence of anti-Semitism, he can hardly take a progressive stance.
I'd like to think Obama is still better than McCain overall, though I don't share the optimism shown by Gwynne Dyer in this article:
http://tinyurl.com/68duo3
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