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Israel Is Not Bluffing

(Foreign Policy) David Rothkopf - The Iranian nuclear program continues moving closer to weapons capability. Diplomacy doesn't seem to be working. And the Iranians themselves have matched their rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel with direct support for attacks on its people, like the suicide-bomb murder of five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, which U.S. officials have linked to Iran. It is often hard for Americans to grasp the idea of an existential threat to a nation. Since the end of the Cold War, the notion that any single actor with any single act could effectively obliterate Americans or their lifestyle is very hard for many people to get their brains around. But that is exactly the threat that Israelis face from even a "limited" Iranian nuclear attack. And though it is reasonable to debate whether the Iranians would actually use such a weapon against Israel given the likely consequences for them, from the Israeli perspective, given Iranian threats and actions, the risks of guessing wrong about the intent of the leaders in Tehran are so high that inaction could easily be seen to be the imprudent path.
2012-08-16 00:00:00
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