(Telegraph-UK) Gen. (ret.) Sir Richard Dannatt - The risk of a new major war in the Middle East instigated by Iran has grown exponentially in recent days. Iran, animated by its own version of radical Islam, has explicitly sought Israel's destruction since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It has backed up its religious fervor with a pragmatic and deadly strategy on the ground. Iran deploys terrorist proxies drawn from Shia populations across the region - Hizbullah in Lebanon and Shia militias linked to Tehran in Iraq. Iran uses these proxies to establish a brutal monopoly on power, coupled to a strategy of slow but eventual total political domination. Hizbullah's strength today, with over 100,000 missiles of ever increasing accuracy pointed at Israel, is an indictment of the international community's failure to make good its assurances to Israel. The UN force in Lebanon has failed. Israel is justifiably paranoid that an Iranian-controlled Hizbullah, embedded among the civilians of Lebanon, has the capability to hold Israel's civilians hostage through its huge arsenal of missiles. For the same reason, it cannot tolerate Iranian bases in Syria. In the absence of a concerted international effort to rein in Iran in the region, we must be prepared to expect Israel to defend its vital security interests robustly. To have any hope of avoiding a very grave war, Britain and her allies must understand Israel's position, making clear to Iran and Hizbullah that their campaign of terror against Israel will be met by international condemnation and an acceptance of Israel's fully legitimate military reaction. Britain should also now proscribe Hizbullah in its entirety, ending the farce of our denying a reality that even their own leader articulates - that it is one organization, and its terrorism and politics are linked inextricably. If they say it, why don't we accept it? Lord Dannatt was Chief of the General Staff between 2006 and 2009.
2018-04-27 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive