Iran again

After the Iranian revolution took place in 1979, the expectation for
exporting that revolution among the Iranian clerics was high. Posters with
revolutionary themes were posted around Teheran, and the commonest stated,
"The road to Jerusalem goes through Baghdad." It was taken as an act of
faith that the clerical Iranian regime would participate actively in the
Islamic re-conquest of Jerusalem and in order to do so it would first have
to conquer Baghdad. At that time Saddam Hussein was their main enemy
because he was not only secular, but he was persecuting the Shi'ite Muslim
Arabs in southern Iraq.
Saddam fell into the Iranian trap when he prematurely attacked them in 1980,
and the Iran-Iraq war continued for 8 years, exhausting both sides
materially and morally. Thus, we in Israel had a breather from the ultimate
goal of the Iranian revolution. But, the Iranians established Hizbollah
("Party of God") in Lebanon and radicalized the local Shi'ites, and with
Syrian support carried out attacks on northern Israel.
Now the recently elected hard-line President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
has taken up that theme again in a speech at a conference in Teheran
entitled "A world without Zionism." He stated that "Israel must be wiped
off the map," and warned Muslim countries that recognized Israel that they
would "burn in the fire of the Islamic Nation's fury." As Vice Pres. Shimon
Peres observed "the President of Iran's call is even more grave in light of
Iran's attempt to develop nuclear weapons and acquire long range missiles."
At present Iran represents the only existential threat to the State of
Israel, and I am sure that we will not sit by and allow this threat to reach
imminence. Peres emphasized the threat to world peace in the Iranian
President's statements and called upon Iran to be kicked out the UN.
Certainly many other nations were upset by this inflammatory speech, and
there will be further repercussions.
The Iranians believe that the Palestinian intifada, that continues with the
suicide bombings that they support directly through Islamic Jihad and Hamas,
are an initial softening up of the Israeli body politic. They are
supposedly preparing us for the subsequent military blows by the Iranians
themselves and their allies. But, they have few allies, Syria, some Arab
Shi'ites in southern Iraq and the Lebanese Shi'ites in HIzbollah.
Nevertheless, Israel cannot afford to take their threats lightly, just as we
could not afford to sit by while Saddam developed nuclear weapons in the
1980's. The destruction of the Osiris reactor in Baghdad in 1988 by Israeli
jets, not only saved us, but also ironically the Iranians and US forces in
the Gulf War from possible nuclear attack. Let us hope that no repetition
of this kind of attack will have to take place upon Iran, but it may be
unavoidable and may be in the planning stage right now. Too much is at
stake, better to be safe (even if criticized) than sorry.