Israel Matzav

Don't discount Iran's threats

A threat from a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards official to avenge the recent deaths of two Iranian nuclear scientists prompts the New York Post to warn that such threats should be taken seriously.

It may sound like an empty threat, or an unhinged response -- like sacrificing a rook to take a pawn in chess.

But the threat is dead serious -- proof of how hellbent Iran is to split the atom. . . .

For Iran, nukes are its foreign policy -- along with the terror it exports to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Jennifer Rubin comments.

We haven't been very effective in confronting Iranian aggression while Iran doesn't have the bomb. So how effective should we expect a combination of sweet talk and sanctions to be? Not very, I'd suggest.

The Obama administration's devotion to a "nuke free" world is manifest in meetings and speeches, but unfortunately it is not matched by any policy that has actually slowed the threat of proliferation. To the contrary, we face one rogue state with nuclear capabilities, and, unless we can devise a more effective approach than the one of the past decade, we are likely to face another soon.

With one huge difference between them of course: North Korea isn't looking to create an apocalypse - just a lot of deadly mischief.

Much of the political news here in the US is being taken up by discussions of the START treaty. I find it amazing that the treaty seems likely to pass a lame duck Congress with a lot of Republican votes. While I don't consider myself an expert on the subject (I used to know a lot more when I lived here), it seems to me that the United States degrading its nuclear capabilities is the wrong move at a time when Iran and North Korea are establishing themselves as nuclear proliferators who - especially in Iran's case - are more than willing to use nuclear weapons. Worrying about balancing levels of nuclear weapons with the Soviets strikes me as wrong, or at least far less important than confronting the menace posed by these two rogue states. Worrying about the Soviets seems out of date.

But what do I know? I'm only an Israeli under the gun.

Labels: Iran, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, North Korea, START

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:42 PM