 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Jan. 20, 2006
/20 Teves, 5766
Will Israel solve our problem?
By
Mona Charen
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It is remarkable how quickly discussions about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons turn to Israel. "Well," worriers are reassured, "Israel will never permit Iran to go nuclear. Remember Osirak?"
Very well. In 1981, Israeli planes streaked across the desert at low altitude and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, a facility built by the French and partially manned by Italians. The world's response was volcanic. "An unprovoked attack" and a "grave breach of international law" declared the British Foreign Office. The French called it "unacceptable" and pointed out that Iraq had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Then U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim (not yet unmasked as a former Nazi) called the Israeli raid a "clear contravention of international law." The Soviet Union denounced the "barbarous attack." And the U.S. State Department spokesman called the air raid ''a very serious development and a source of utmost concern.'' Israel was condemned by the U.N. Security Council with the U.S. voting aye. (Though at a press conference, President Reagan could not resist defending Israel's actions, pointing out, for example, that Iraq had maintained a state of war with Israel since 1948.) The New York Times called the Israeli attack "an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression . . . Israel risks becoming its own worst enemy."
Israel's explanation — that it was acting defensively because it believed Iraq was attempting to obtain nuclear weapons — was rejected by nearly everyone.
Yet today, many seem to hope that the world's favorite scapegoat will again take matters in hand and destroy a looming threat. Perhaps they plan to denounce Israel again and sleep soundly thereafter.
But there is a problem with this tidy scenario. The Iranians have learned from Iraq's mistake — they've thought of little else — and have hardened and dispersed their nuclear facilities all over the vast territory of Iran. The sites are buried deep and well disguised.
In other words, from the world's point of view, there is no easy fix. "Let the Israelis do it" won't work.
For more than two years, the Europeans, with America's blessing, have been exhorting the Iranians to forego nuclear weapons. Shocking though it may seem, this has not worked. Last week, Iran announced that the country is removing the seals from its Natanz plant — a direct violation of an agreement with Britain, France and Germany.
The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran was made even more terrifying with the ascent last June of the Holocaust-denying, religious vision-seeing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Ahmadinejad reportedly believes in the imminent return of the righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, the 12th Imam, whose appearance on Earth will be presaged by war and chaos. A previous Iranian leader mused that only one nuclear bomb would be sufficient to completely obliterate Israel and the largest Jewish population on Earth. A return salvo by Israel could destroy only a fraction of the world's Muslims. Would this madness be within the realm of the conceivable to Ahmadinejad? Even apart from his hysterical rantings about Israel ("a disgraceful blot" that "should be wiped off the face of the Earth"), consider what he said to his own countrymen when a plane crashed into a Tehran building killing 108. "What is important is that they have showed the way to martyrdom which we must follow."
Ahmadinejad and the sick mullahs who run Iran may be crazy, but they're not fools. They know that between fighting al Qaeda and building a durable democracy in Iraq, we're hardly in a mood to deal with Iran at the moment. But we cannot avoid it. The current state of play suggests that Iran will be referred to the U.N. Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But sanctions against Iran will probably be vetoed by Russia or China.
That leaves us with no painless options. If we, together with a coalition of the willing, impose the only sanction that will truly pinch — an embargo on Iranian oil — oil prices will rise, probably by a lot. But that cost will have to be weighed against the cost of military action, which would be far higher.
In the meantime, as the far-sighted JWR columnist Michael Ledeen has argued for years, we ought to be supporting the democratic opposition within Iraq for all we're worth. The vicious Iranian regime sits atop a population that detests it. Revolution would be redemption — for all of us.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Mona Charen's column by clicking here.
Mona Charen Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate
|
