Netanyahu says he will prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons

The AP reports:

JERUSALEM—Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s leading candidate for prime minister, said Saturday that Iran “will not be armed with a nuclear weapon.”

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 TV, Netanyahu said if elected prime minister his first mission will be to thwart the Iranian nuclear threat. Netanyahu, the current opposition leader and head of the hardline Likud party, called Iran the greatest danger to Israel and to all humanity.

When asked if stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions included a military strike, he replied: “It includes everything that is necessary to make this statement come true.”

Well, that’s categorical, and it gives me hope.

Of course, Busheron should have done it. And, in principle, he said he would do it. But he was too scarred and wasted by the fiasco he had spawned in Iraq to face the much more serious threat in Iran. After years of drawing a line in the sand and saying the U.S. would never accept Iranian nukes, he did a 180 and gave in. What a miserable excuse for a leader. And it didn’t stop there. He even refused to give the Israelis the weapons to do the job on their own when they asked.

As for Obama, he would rather, to paraphrase Robert A. Leffingwell in Advise and Consent, “go to Teheran on my knees” than stand for the West.

So Israel is left alone. Does it have the resources to pull off such a vast and difficult attack? Presumably it lacks the bunker buster bombs that Busheron refused it. But unless Netanyahu is lying,—which is not impossible, as he’s a contradictory and often confused character—Israel has the means to do it.

I know these words of mine are unwelcome. I know that everyone is so burned out by Iraq and Bushism that they can’t stand the thought of another Mideast war. But if Iran gets nuclear weapons, radical Islam / Islam / jihadism will acquire a power over the world it has never had before. That must not be allowed to happen. Israel, the most despised country in the world, may now be the sole guardian of the world.

Further, this is not just about Iran. It should be an axiom of U.S. foreign policy that we will not allow any sharia-ruled country to possess nuclear weapons.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 31, 2009 11:20 PM | Send