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Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-sharansky12sep12,0,6872275.story
Proxy Terrorism from Iran
[Los Angeles Times] Natan Sharansky - This summer, Hizballah launched an unprovoked attack on Israel. It is clear that Hizballah is a proxy of Iran. It is public knowledge that Hizballah receives more than $100 million a year from the Iranian regime, as well as sophisticated weapons and training. Yet the international community's weak response dealt the global war on terror a severe blow. Iran has paid no price for its proxy's actions. No military strikes on Iranian targets, no sanctions, no threat whatsoever to Iranian interests. On the contrary, in the wake of the war, there have been renewed calls in the democratic world to "engage" Iran. Symptomatic of the moral myopia in the West is a farce worthy of Orwell: Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, under whom students were tortured after a 1999 crackdown at Tehran University and whose rule was marked by the continued stifling of dissent, spoke Sunday at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government on "Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence." The Iranian regime calls for "wiping Israel off the map" and tells its followers to "imagine a world without America." It seeks to dominate the Middle East. By failing to hold Iran accountable for its brazen support of Hizballah, the free world has undermined a central pillar in the war on terror. Now the mullahs know they can attack a democratic country with impunity. Considering the apocalyptic fanaticism of Iran's leader, it is an open question whether the current regime in Tehran is capable of being deterred through the threat of mutually assured destruction. But given how the world has responded to Hizballah, the point may be academic. For surely Iran would be better served by using proxies to wage a nuclear war against Israel. And if there is no accountability, why stop with Israel?