Israel cannot abandon military option on Iran

In all the years since nuclear weapons were first developed, they have been used on humans exactly twice: on August 6 and 9, 1945, against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That is how the Americans achieved the final surrender of Japan. There are some who claim that the second bomb was unnecessary, but it was important as a warning to the future: This is not a weapon you play around with.

Since then, this deadly weapon has become even more powerful and has spread around the world. Yet not one single bomb has been dropped, nor has a single missile carrying a nuclear warhead been launched.
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Even during the hottest days of the Cold War, when the two superpowers were the sole possessors of nuclear weapons, this line was never crossed, or even approached. The only time the world held its breath was October 1962, when Nikita Khrushchev unexpectedly stationed medium-range missiles in Cuba and thereby threatened the American heartland. President John F. Kennedy responded by openly threatening war, and the Soviet Union backed down and removed the weapons.

The second and third episodes were both connected to Israel's policy of denying the Arab states nuclear weapons. Twenty-nine years ago, Israel bombed the nuclear reactor that Iraq was building and thereby dissuaded Saddam Hussein from trying to restart his program. And in 2007, when it bombed the reactor then under construction in Syria, it apparently also eliminated Bashar Assad's desire to try again.

The existence of mutual assured destruction did not prevent wars from breaking out, but so far, at least, the doomsday weapon has not been used. Nuclear states that live side by side, like India and Pakistan, have never dreamed of using their nuclear weapons, though this is not necessarily a guarantee for the future.

The issue is not the ability to develop nuclear capability, but rather who possesses this capability and for what purpose. When such weapons exist in a country under the rule of ayatollahs who have proclaimed it their goal to destroy Israel, a.k.a. the Zionist entity, these threats must be taken completely seriously.

Iran is the only country in the world that belongs to the United Nations yet publicly declares its intention to destroy the Jewish state. We are facing a lunatic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who repeatedly and publicly declares that the Holocaust never happened, and has now "discovered" that the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers were perpetrated by the Americans to give them an excuse for the war on terror. This is a country whose leaders seek to turn all the moderate states in the Middle East into an unbroken stretch of Sharia extremism.

Alongside its race for nuclear weapons, Iran is building a huge conventional military on both land and sea. It also has an arsenal of long-range Shihab missiles that threaten Europe and even America. The expectation is that a nuclear Iran's first move would be to take over Iraq, en route to achieving hegemony over the entire Persian Gulf.

The rulers of Saudi Arabia and Jordan have as much reason for concern as Israel does. And proxy Hezbollah, armed with Iranian weapons, does not threaten Israel alone. It is already prowling about in Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's backyard.

It is true that nuclear states that hate each other nevertheless live side by side without using their nuclear weapons. But under the heavy shadow of the lunacy that characterizes the Iranian threat, a blow to the Iran of Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs is unavoidable - whether via international sanctions or an American military operation authorized by the UN Security Council.

It is not just the countries of this region, but all the world's sane states that ought to be worried by what is going on in Iran. And that is all the more true for Israel, which has been marked as the first target for being wiped off the face of the earth.

Our American friends, including Vice President Joe Biden, who is now visiting Israel, have warned us again and again not to leap headlong into a military operation before the sanctions track has been exhausted. Israel must indeed give the world, headed by the United States, a chance to act.

But the Iranians, as is well known, are sufficiently cunning to lead the sanctioners astray. Thus we must keep our eyes wide open, carefully scrutinize the manner and speed with which the United States and the "enlightened world" are acting, and not abandon the military option.

When what is at stake is an avowed existential threat, then yes, we have an obligation to rush in - even where angels fear to tread.

fonte: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1155115.html