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Israel Cannot Ignore the Iranian Threat

(World Affairs) Michael J. Totten interviews Lee Smith - I think we have to take Iranian threats against Israel seriously and we have to take the concerns of America's Gulf Arab allies seriously. The Arab and Israeli concerns are both to an extent existential. When Iran threatens to blow up Israel, it's a threat that Israeli officials cannot afford to ignore. And we can't ignore that the Saudis might want to counter an Iranian nuclear weapon with their own nuclear weapon, perhaps purchased from Pakistan. What's the Persian Gulf going to look like if it's bristling with nuclear weapons? The real problem is that an Iranian nuclear weapon would give Iran the ability to destabilize the Middle East whenever it wants. Look at what Iran is doing around the region. If you're Israeli your concern is that these guys could put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile and fire it at Tel Aviv, but there's more. The Iranians are not only on Israel's border through Hizbullah in Lebanon. They're on Israel's border in Syria as well. Further, the Israeli Hizbullah specialist Shimon Shapira has a new paper out explaining how Iran is building a replica of Hizbullah on the Syrian border, on the Golan Heights. Lee Smith is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
2014-06-24 00:00:00
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