Iran's shadow covers the world

A former Iranian law student, who graduated with honors from Iranian prisons where he was tortured for his student activism, said about Iran's current rulers,

Since they took over 30 years ago... when the regime acquired rocks, they stoned our women; when they acquired rope they hung our men; when they acquired guns they used them on our streets... Does anyone doubt what this illegitimate regime would do if it acquired nuclear weapons?

("Iran's President is defiant & our diplomacy looks foolish, A. Cooper & H. Brackman, Fox News Op-ed, 4 May 2010)

In July, Netanyahu spoke at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting. Here are some of his remarks about Iran. He said most of the world leaders, including Arabs, now realize that if the world's greatest sponsor of terror gets the world's most dangerous weapon, it is a threat to... the entire world.

But how do we move from understanding into action. We must ask whether the world can live with a nuclear Iran. He then says that many influential people compare a nuclear-armed Iran with the old USSR. After all, the Soviets had nuclear weapons. They were contained. So, too, it is argued, a nuclear-armed Iran could be also contained.

But the Soviets were different. They had global, ideological ambitions, but in international affairs, they acted with supreme rationality. Every time they were faced with a choice between their ideology and their survival, they chose survival...

The Iranian regime is... driven by a militant ideology... based on an entirely different set of values... that may seem entirely irrational to us but is pervasive, and very powerful...

Bibi said Iran already denies the Holocaust, openly calls for Israel's destruction, supplies Hezbollah and Hamas with rockets, sends saboteurs and terrorist squads into Egypt, and Yemen and threatens Saudi Arabia directly.

This is what they do today when they don't have nuclear weapons. Think of what they will do tomorrow... We must not allow the world's most dangerous regimes to possess the world's most dangerous weapons.

("A Conversation with B. Netanyahu," Council on Foreign Relations, 8 July 2010)

An Iranian Revolutionary Guard defector who was also a CIA spy, said,

Sanctions are a fantasy, an illusion. Stop dreaming... You're not dealing with rational people.

He said most Iranians do not have anything against Israel, and cared very little about the Palestinians, yet the Revolutionary Guards use hatred of Israel as a driving cause.

He also mentioned that many Iranians get their news from Israel Radio's Persian service. They trust the radio of Israel more than the BBC and definitely more than the Voice of America. ("Sanctions on Iran are 'a fantasy'," JP, 11 July 2010)

July 1, President Obama, signing the US Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, said, ...the US and the international community are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

July 12, Russia's President Medvedev, in an unusually strong statement...said Iran is getting closer to having the potential to build a nuclear weapon...

This escalation in rhetoric comes with a message of stronger than ever support for sanctions from many directions, with some hints even of possible appetite for military action against Iran...

The message, 'an Iranian bomb is worse than bombing Iran,' is starting to crop up in statements...attributed to officials in some Arab Gulf states as well.

("Iran: The course is almost run," E. Asculai & E. Landau, JP Op-ed, 20 July 2010)

On Iranian TV in late July, Ahmadinejad accused the US of plans to attack at least two countries in the region within the next three months. This is a very dangerous game Iran is playing as they try to divert the recent pressure. If they start a war, such as releasing Hizbullah to attack Israel - as in 2006 - they will be able to say, We told you so. It is not us, but America and Israel. And right now, tension is very high on Israel's northern border. ("...US New Psychological Plot vs. Iran," [Iran's] Fars News Agency, 27 July 2010)