Israel Matzav

More from UAE ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba on Iran

Earlier this week, I wrote about remarks made by Yousef al-Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the IAEA, regarding a potentially nuclear Iran. Here are more details about those remarks.

Speaking at a gabfest sponsored by The Atlantic, Mr. Otaiba was asked if he wanted the U.S. to stop the Iranian bomb program by force? He answered: "Absolutely, absolutely. I think we are at risk of an Iranian nuclear program far more than you are at risk. At 7,000 miles away, and with two oceans bordering you, an Iranian nuclear threat does not threaten the continental United States. It may threaten your assets in the region, it will threaten the peace process, it will threaten balance of power, it will threaten everything else, but it will not threaten you."

How a threat to multiple U.S. security interests somehow doesn't threaten America is a distinction we'll leave to the Jesuits. But his point that the U.A.E. is directly threatened is surely right. Mr. Otaiba added that "There are many countries in the region who, if they lack the assurance the U.S. is willing to confront Iran, they will start running for cover towards Iran." He also tossed some skepticism at the idea, fashionable in Washington, that Iran can be deterred or contained if it gets a bomb. That's hardly credible if the West fails to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power after so many declarations that such an outcome was unacceptable.

Yesterday, the U.A.E. foreign ministry dismissed as "inaccurate" a report by the Washington Times that Mr. Otaiba had gone further on the sidelines of the same gabfest and said he preferred a resort to military action to "living with a nuclear Iran." That comment may have been too blunt for the U.A.E. to admit to, and besides it was deniable as a private remark reported by one newspaper.

But Mr. Otaiba's other comments leave no doubt what he and most Arab officials think about the prospect of a nuclear revolutionary Shiite state. They desperately want someone, and that means the U.S. or Israel, to stop it, using force if need be.

Whose side is President Obama on?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:46 AM