Israel’s detractors are fond of saying that Iran is not a threat to Israel. But Iran is insistent on proving that Israel’s existence is being threatened on a regular basis, backed by what could soon become the capability to explode a nuclear weapon in Tel Aviv.
Groups across Iran walked the streets in protest of “crimes of the Zionist regime”, calling “death to Israel” and “death to America” on Friday. Protesters also held pictures of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Ahmadinejad took part in one of the mass rallies, in Tehran, and announced that “the Zionist regime will soon be erased from the earth.”
What part of “existential threat” do you not get out of that? Because when the Juan Coles of the world try to say that Mad Mahmoud was being mistranslated, he followed up with this:
Ahmadinejad was quoted by the Mehr news agency as telling reporters that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza “because it realizes that its end is near and that it will soon be wiped off the face of the earth.”
If you still doubt that he means what he says, then read this depressing post about the Iranian nuclear bomb in the making.
Put them all together, and they spell existential threat. How hard do you think it will be, once Iran has the bomb, to get a Palestinian terrorist group to smuggle it into Israel? The Israeli security services are very good, but they don’t have a 100% safety record. No one can.
On the other hand, this piece of news hit the wires yesterday:
A Russian man working for a nuclear company in Iran has been found dead after disappearing 18 days earlier, Iranian media and a Russian spokeswoman said Thursday.
According to the state-owned Iran newspaper, the man’s frozen body was found Tuesday at a recreational area in a mountainous area just outside of Tehran, where nighttime temperatures dip well below freezing.
[…] The spokeswoman, Irina Yesipova, would not identify the man or give specifics about his job. She said the area is a popular weekend getaway destination
The Iranian newspaper said the Russian was a legal expert and that his death is being investigated. Also, the semiofficial ILNA news agency said the 57-year-old man was on a short assignment to Iran and disappeared Nov. 22.
The Iranian reports also did not identify the man.
A number of prominent Iranian nuclear workers seem to keep popping up dead as well. The Mossad has a long reach, and there are tens of thousands of Iranian Israeli—native Farsi speakers—who fled after the fall of the Shah in 1979.
Here’s hoping that the Mossad proves stronger than the mad mullahs.
I do think that there’s something going on on the ground in Iran. The Mullahs think so too. That’s why there have been so many executions lately.
It’s horrifying to think what would happen if Iran had the Bomb and Israel did not, but since Israel has a second strike capability the point is moot. Individuals may seek martyrdom, governments do not.
The main problem with Iran acquiring the Bomb is that the mullahs could sponsor a lot more conventional terrorism.