The Obama Administration is sending conflicting and confusing messages both to Iran and to those who fear an Iranian nuclear weapon. According to the New York Times, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sent a top secret memorandum to White House officials bemoaning the fact that the United States simply has no policy in place to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. At the same time, it is telling Israel that although Iran has threatened to wipe it off the map, the Jewish state should not take military action to prevent a second Holocaust. Indeed, former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has participated in White House discussions concerning the Middle East, has threatened that if Israel tries to destroy Iran's nuclear weapon facilities, the United States is fully capable of shooting Israeli jets out of the air.
Although Gates subsequently denied that his memo, which he acknowledges writing, was intended as a "wake up call," a senior White House official has confirmed that it was just that. There is no evidence, however, that the White House is prepared to confront the grave threat posed by a nuclear Iran. The policy that seems to be emerging from the White House is one called "containment." But what is containment? It is little more than an acknowledgment of failure. Containment implies that the United States will not succeed in preventing Iran from securing nuclear weapons, but rather it will accept such an eventuality and seek to deter the use of nuclear weapons by threats and by the deployment of defensive measures. The analogy that proponents of containment point to is North Korea, which has nuclear weapons but has thus far been "contained" from using them. But there are vast differences between North Korea and Iran.
North Korea is a secular Communist regime that is risk averse and that has no sworn existential enemies. The goal of its leaders is simply to remain in power and maintain their totalitarian control over their people. Iran is a theocratic, apocalyptic regime that believes that it has a religious obligation to destroy Israel and threaten the United States. Iran, unlike North Korea, also operates through surrogates, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and other smaller terrorist groups. They could hand-off nuclear material to such groups, or to sympathetic individuals, for use as dirty bombs directed against its enemies.
When he ran for president, Barak Obama pledged not to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. He claimed to understand that a nuclear Iran would be a game changer and a direct threat to the United States and its allies. He now seems to be softening his position and that of the United States government.
If in fact the United States is prepared to accept a nuclear Iran, then it has no right to require Israel to accept the risks posed by a nuclear armed country that has overtly threatened its destruction. Every country in the world has the inherent right to protect its citizens from a nuclear attack. Israel, a nation that Obama has himself acknowledged was built on the ashes of one Holocaust, certainly has the right to take military action to prevent a second Holocaust, especially at the hands of a country that has explicitly threatened to wipe it off the map.
The world ignored the explicit threats of one tyrant who threatened to destroy the Jewish people in the 1930s, and he nearly succeeded in the 1940s. Israel cannot be expected to ignore Hitler's successor, who while denying the first Holocaust, threatens a second one.
The United States has promised to regard a nuclear attack on Israel as a nuclear attack on its own country, but Iran does not credit such threats, since it appears that the Obama Administration has already broken its promise not to accept a nuclear Iran. Elie Wiesel put it well when he said that the Holocaust has taught the Jewish people to "believe the threats of our enemies more than the promises of our friends." Iran's promise to destroy Israel must be taken seriously, not only by Israel but by the United States. If the United States is not prepared to stop Iran from acquiring the nuclear weapons necessary to wipe Israel off the map, then Israel must be prepared to protect itself.
I am not suggesting that Israel should attack Iran's nuclear weapons facilities. I don't know enough about the military considerations that should go into any such an existential decision. But I am asserting, in unqualified terms, that Israel has an absolute right -- legally, morally, politically -- to take such an action if it deems it necessary to protect its citizens from a threatened nuclear attack. This is especially the case, if Secretary Gates was correct when he wrote in his memorandum that the United States "lacks a policy to thwart Iran," as the New York Times headline announced. Someone must thwart Iran. An Iran with nuclear weapons simply poses too great a threat to the world to be accepted -- or "contained."
IF THE US AND ISRAEL WORKED TOGETHER...TO PLAN AS A LAST RESORT, A MILITARY PLAN, it would definetly succeed. Such planning needs months and months of planning and strategy. Gates knows it and he wants Obama to know that he give him a call and demand a military strike with no notice. It would fail
1. Stop the settlements
2. Accept the Goldstone report and let's investigate what happened in Gaza
3. Agree to peace settlement based on the 1967 borders.
4. Join the NPT
5. Let the IAEA inspectors in and allow them to inspect your nuclear facilities, your military, biological and chemical facilities
6.Demand for a nuclear free zone Middle East without any exception.
7. Stop the seige on Gaza
8. Put an end to your Apartheid practices
9. stop spying on the US
10. stop stealing US intelligence reports.
If the above are not accomplished Israel is threatening the safety and security of the USA..As such, we we will stop all aids, financial, military and other cooperation with the State of Israel until it is in full compliance. We shall no longer use our veto power to protect Israel from violation of international and humanitarian law.
However, the U.S. president, and our members in the House and Senate have never, and will never request such demands from Israel.
1. Settlements are not endangering peace. They can promote prosperity. Anti-Semitic incitement that is being carried out daily in Arab schools, mosques and their media are the main road block to peace.
2. The Goldstone report is a collection of poorly fabricated lies.
3. Israel has agreed to peace settlement based on the 1967 borders, and yet there is no peace, as the Arabs seek the destruction of Israel. Nothing less.
4. There is no point in the NPT, when the tyrants that threaten to annihilate you don't intend to observe it. The fact that Israel hasn't joined the NPT so far, has not caused any trouble in decades.
...to be continued...
5. The IAEA inspectors and all other UN employees are corrupt. They played a major role in hiding Iran's nuclear plan so far, and will not hesitate to fabricate false evidence against Israel (as Goldstone did), if ever allowed to.
6. Nuclear free zone Middle East without any exception is utopia, and I wish it wasn't.
7. The siege on Gaza will be stopped the moment the Hamas will accept the conditions set by the Quartet (US, EU, Russia, UN)
8. Israel practices equal opportunity to all, and freedom of speech and more.
9. There is no Israeli spying on the US
10. Israel is a reliable source of intelligence reports for the US.
The USA is a world power. Israel cannot threaten the safety and security of the USA. These accusations are purely Anti-Semitic.
The US is using its veto power to protect Israel from the automatic majority that non-democratic dark regimes have in the UN.
Israels obsessive land-grabbing policies and its brutal treatment of Palestinian civilians are its reasons for its isolation in the word.
Israel is becoming a pariah state and they are in a position of their own creation. Their own decisions and actions have brought them to this point in history. The US has no more obligation to be a patron of Israel than it does Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Quatar, France or Spain. Israel isn't special.
Israel has all the right to protect itself from the brutal attempts by the terror organizations to butcher innocent Jews.
The “Palestinians” were and are a pariah and they are in a position of their own creation. Their own decisions not to accept the existence of Israel and actions have brought them to this point in history. Israel has no more obligation to be a scapegoat for the US as well as the regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Quatar, France or Spain, that are threatened by the same terror as Israel. Israel isn't special.
Do they never tire of it?
You're leading in the floride terminology stakes too.
Now....the message contained therein is threadbare.
The UN has proven to be an avowed anti-Israeli organization, why should Israel trust any of its institutions or join any of its treaties?
Iran never threatened to wipe Israel off the map. It was a mis-translation.
Ahmadinejad never denied the Holocaust, nor is he Hitler's successor. There are 25000 Jews in Iran and they are protected under the Iranian constitution.
The Iranian regime is not suicidal. The 2007 NIE reported that Iran shut down it's Nuclear weapons program after a COST-BENEFIT analysis. That's not the behavior of someone looking for an apocalypse.
"In unusually blunt language, an International Atomic Energy Agency report for the first time suggested Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability"
That was a few months ago. And your other two statements are untrue as well:
From his presidential website...http://www.president.ir/en/?ArtID=10114
"The Zionist Regime has lost its existence philosophy... the Zionist regime faces a complete deadend and under God's grace your wish will soon be materialized and the corrupt element will be wiped off the map" 2008
As for the H -
"They (the Western powers) launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews…. If as you claim the Holocaust is true, why can a study not be allowed? ... The pretext for establishing the Zionist regime is a lie... a lie which relies on an unreliable claim, a mythical claim" -Sept 18, 2009
Iran has never threaten to wipe Israel off the map. We have heard the same argument before the Iraq war.
Ahmadinejad actually say to quote his exact words in farsi:
"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."
That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "Regime", pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).
So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh", is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", despite never having uttered the words "map", "wipe out" or even "Israel".
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4527
The Centre for Research on Globalization is an independent research and media organization based in Montreal
Sad to say to people pushing for war against Iran it will not change anything.
Like Iraq the march to war against Iran is based on lies and fear.
Lol yeah right now N Korea is a good guy...guess anything to make bomb, bomb. bomb Iran prophecy true...
Iran never threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”. Ahmadinejad stated that ‘Israel would fade away’, akin to the Soviet and apartheid South African regimes. Not that Israel would be bombed by nukes. Taking advantage of purposeful mistranslations (by MEMRI and others) for propaganda that’d result in geopolitical catastrophe is the apex of insidiousness.
Attacking Iran would result in a spreading war that’d draw in Russia, China, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela (Iran’s OPEC ally) and others, like the ‘Stan states of Central Asia. Economically, it’d be the equivalent for the West of ‘burning the village to save it’.
Assuming that Iran is even arming with nukes, which hasn’t been proven, even Henry Kissinger (who certainly has more international affairs and nuclear deterrence acumen than defense attorney and criminal law professor Dershowitz) stated that Iran is a “rational” regime, not a suicidal one.
"Death To America Day"
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1934584,00.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRjG36WGvWM
http://www.worldtravelguide.net/country/124/public_holidays/Middle-East/Iran.html
no, not listed there
http://www.irpedia.com/iran-trip-planner/iran-travel-facts/65/
no, not there either
http://www.revealingpersia.com/iran_public_holidays_in_year_1388_2009_2010.html
no, not there either (though Nationalization of Oil Industry Day is noted)
http://www.ameinfo.com/iran_public_holidays/
no, not there either.
even checked the Iranian government's tourism website http://www.itto.org/aboutiran/?status=countryinfo&catid=119 and guess what, not mentioned there either.
Funny, isn't it
(BTW, the article is about 'Students Day' (nowhere near as inflammatory sounding, so I can see why the headline writer and you don't use it) which happens in...DECEMBER)
Iran cannot be blamed for feeling the paranoid themselves. Like Israel they were attacked by America through their proxy, Iraq in the 1980's. In 1953, the CIA instigated the overthrow of the first democratically elected government in the Middle East in Iran. Israel too had military challenges and they saw fit to get the atomic bomb in self defense. Why wouldn't Iran be allowed the same right? Are we hypocrites? What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Iran won't use atomic weapons any more than any other country has, except America of course. America gets to use all its weapons because they are always on the side of the good. Like they are in Honduras right now using the upper classes and the military as their proxy yet again. Compesinos could be slaughtered at any time using American weapons, American trained officers, American foreign aid and American advisers. America will not pull the trigger but they will be responsible.
Like all paranoids, eventually those who are willing to humour them tire of the costs involved in doing so, and stop doing that.
And that leaves the paranoid with a big problem, either keeping his paranoia to himself, keep trying to convince others to share it (and face them distancing themselves), or, worst of all, actually committing an act of violence based on his paranoia, and end up being locked away until they can show that they no longer pose a danger.
Those willing to humour the US (and Israel) on Iran have dropped below the critical level needed for the US to get its way, and if the US cannot accept that, it will end up in serious trouble.
Paranoia (both drug induced and otherwise), PTSD, and just about the entire spectrum found in the DSM, I've learned to recognise them all (or at least enough to realise when they are causing the person problems in dealing with reality.