"Coming out of the closet" - israel admits they want to bomb Iran
israelis finally admit that it's THEY - not US - who want to corner and attack Iran.
In a major policy change, Israel has launched a high-profile diplomatic initiative to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions following President Bush's warning that a nuclear Iran could produce World War III.Over the last several days, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert embarked on whirlwind trips to Russia, France and Britain. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni went to China.
We all know what happened to her.
Together with the United States, these countries compose the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Israel's goal is to persuade them of the pressing need to tighten U.N.-mandated sanctions against Iran and convince Iranian leaders to abandon their nuclear program.
In Israel, Bush's remarks highlighting Iranian threats to destroy the Jewish state sparked heated debate. Many lamented that the U.S. president made it seem as if Israel is the only reason for Iran's nuclear drive "perpetuating a false perception" Israelis say is not in their national interest.
Isn't Bush their president? After all, they elected him.
The remarks also prompted a debate in Israel over the country's readiness for a possible missile attack from Iran and its army's offensive options.
Olmert returned from his lightning visit to Moscow last week heartened by President Vladimir Putin's declaration that Russia has no intention of allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. But some seasoned Israeli diplomats believe Putin may be playing a double game.
Avi Primor, a former envoy to Germany and the European Union, argues that Iran is less interested in using its nuclear profile to destroy Israel than in gaining hegemony in the Persian Gulf and controlling its considerable oil resources.
Were that to happen, Primor says, Iran and Russia would have more than 80 percent of the world's oil and could hold the West ransom [read: reject the West's demands].
Until now, Israel deliberately had kept a low profile on Iran for fear that too active a role would make the Iranian nuclear issue seem like a bilateral confrontation between Jerusalem and Tehran, absolving the international community of responsibility for dealing with Iran.
But over the past few months, Israeli leaders have detected a number of worrying developments.
With Russia and China opposed to tightening the screws on the Iranians, the Islamic regime is ignoring international sanctions. Furthermore, rising oil prices enable Iran to better absorb economic sanctions. Perhaps worst of all, the International Atomic Energy Agency is allowing Iran to continue its efforts to enrich uranium.
These changes, together with Bush's remarks, justify Israel's new high-profile approach, the Israeli daily Haaretz argued in a recent editorial.
"The minute President Bush placed his concern for Israel at the top of his arguments for confronting Iran, Israel had to come out into the open and make its position clear," the editorial said. "The trips by Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to countries that are permanent members of the Security Council for talks on how to stop the Iranian threat are the first, appropriate steps in this direction."
Too bad that didn't work.
Several Israeli pundits took issue with Bush for putting Israel at center stage.
"No thanks, Mr. President," veteran Haaretz columnist Uzi Benziman wrote. "There are already those who argue Israel's existence is the source of all the Middle East's troubles; references of the kind Bush made last week reinforce this impression and arouse dangerous anti-Israel sentiment in all corners of the globe."
"Bush's efforts, diplomatic and economic pressure as well as increasingly explicit threats to employ military force against Iran are the way to tackle the problem. Israel should be left outside of the frame," Benziman argued.
Yes - let's all make believe israel doesn't exist.
Or better yet, let's wish that it didn't and maybe it won't.
Russia and China have no better wishes for ME than Israel and West. Its true they are playing double games. Russia and China don't like it to be marginalized by west in sharing the spoils of war. They see what is happening with Iraq. Liberation -> Occupation -> Exploitation. They are thwarting West in ME only because they did not offer them share of spoils and they know once ME is completely taken over by the Western liberation army that they will be next because greed knows not for any boundaries. If Muslims don't wake up and stand up for themselves they will perish and world could not care less about it except for some of them missing part of the global plunder.
"Let there be Light!"