To Protect our Heritage PAC Caroline Glick

Iran Purges Moderate Parliament Members - Amir Taheri (New York Post)

More regime opponents were killed or thrown into prison under Rafsanjani and Khatami than under Ahmadinejad. And both "reformers" tried to export the Khomeinist revolution via agents and clients in many Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East.
What differentiated the two men from Ahmadinejad was their penchant for taqiyeh (dissimulation) - an old trick of the mullahs who have turned speaking with a forked tongue into a fine art. Ahmadinejad, by contrast, says what he thinks. He firmly believes that his brand of Islam stands on the threshold of victory against a corrupt, weak, fat and cowardly West led by a deeply divided U.S.
Rafsanjani and Khatami are the guys that Secretary of State Rice seems to be banking on to bring the Islamic Republic back to reason. With enemies like that, Ahmadinejad needs no friends.[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, January 29, 2008]

U.S. Fears "Disastrous" Links in Latin America with Islamic Militants (AFP)
Admiral James Stavridis, head of the U.S. Southern Command, said Wednesday he fears a "disastrous" linkup between drug traffickers and radical Islamists in Latin America, where he said Iran wields growing influence.
He told a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington that Iran had already opened 10 embassies in Latin America and "President Ahmadinejad says he wants to have an embassy in every country in this region."

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, January 22, 2008]

Iran Tests New Solid Fuel Missile (Jerusalem Post)
Iran tested a newly-developed ballistic missile on the day of the Annapolis conference, Israel TV Channel 10 reported Wednesday.
The Ashoura missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers and is capable of reaching Israel, U.S. Army bases in the Middle East, and eastern European cities, including Moscow.
An improvement on the existing Shihab-3 missile, the Ashoura uses solid fuel instead of the Shihab's liquid fuel, giving it a significantly faster launch sequence which is harder to detect.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, December 13, 2007]

Iran Wants the Bomb So It Can Use It - Daniel Hannan
I was the only editorial writer on this newspaper who argued against the Iraq war, because I didn't believe that Saddam had a weapons program. When it comes to Iran, though, there can be no doubt that the regime is developing a nuclear capability, and that it has the delivery mechanism: Shahab-3 missiles, with a range of 1,500 miles. Nor can there be much doubt that the reason the ayatollahs want the Bomb is so that they can use it. Look at what they are already doing. They have armed militias as far afield as the Balkans, the Caucasus and the old Silk Road Khanates. They have supplied their Lebanese proxy, Hizbullah, with rockets. They have been implicated in the bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina.
What possible strategic interest can the mullahs have had in Argentina? The answer, surely, is that Teheran was flaunting its ability to strike wherever it wanted. That is what makes an Iranian bomb so frightening: we are not dealing, as we were in the Cold War, with a regime pursuing rational aims. The ayatollahs play by different rules. They advertised this with the very first act of their revolution: the seizure of the U.S. embassy. (Telegraph-UK)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, November 6, 2007]

Iranians Study Nuclear Physics in Britain - Jack Grimston (Sunday Times)
The Foreign Office has cleared dozens of Iranians to enter British universities to study advanced nuclear physics and other subjects with the potential to be applied to weapons of mass destruction.
In the past nine months about 60 Iranians have been admitted to study postgraduate courses deemed "proliferation-sensitive" by the security services.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, October 30, 2007]

Ayatollah Who Backs Suicide Bombs Aims to Be Iran's Next Spiritual Leader - Colin Freeman and Kay Biouki, (Sunday Telegraph-UK)

An ultra-conservative Iranian cleric who opposes all dialogue with the West is a frontrunner to become the country's next supreme spiritual leader. Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, 71, who publicly backs the use of suicide bombers against Israel, is campaigning to succeed Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini, 67, as the head of the Islamic state. Considered an extremist even by fellow mullahs, he was a fringe figure in Iran's theocracy until last year's election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a fellow fundamentalist who views him as his ideological mentor.
[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, November 20, 2006]

Getting Ready for a Nuclear Iran - Henry D. Sokolski and Patrick Clawson
As Iran edges closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb and its missiles extend an ever darker diplomatic shadow over the Middle East and Europe, Iran is likely to pose three threats. First, Iran could dramatically up the price of oil by interfering with the free passage of vessels in and through the Persian Gulf as it did during the 1980s or by threatening to use terrorist proxies to target other states' oil facilities. Second, it could increase the pace and scope of terrorist activities against Iraq, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Israel, and other perceived supporters of the U.S. Finally, it could become a nuclear proliferation model for its neighbors. (Strategic Studies Institute-U.S. Army War College) [PAC Comment: Or, for that matter, unleash Hizballah against the U.S. directly.)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, December 9, 2005]

A Clash of Civilizations - Amir Taheri (MSNBC/Newsweek International)

Iran is grossly misunderstood in the West. Given headlines in Europe and America, you would think that the crisis in relations is about nuclear weapons. But the real cause is far broader: Iran's determination to reshape the Middle East in its own image — a deliberate "clash of civilizations" with the United States.

This is bound up with a second misconception about Iran, the idea that the regime is divided between "conservatives" who oppose accommodation with America and the West, and "moderates" more inclined to return their country to the community of nations. The real power in Iran, punctuated by the ascent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, is now the Revolutionary Guards.

During the past few years, the Guards have in many ways become the government. Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, a former IRGC officer, says this new military-political elite has staged a creeping coup d'etat. The Guards built an impressive grass-roots network throughout Iran and created two political-front organizations: the Usulgara (fundamentalists) and the Itharis (self-sacrificers), each attracting a younger generation of military officers, civil servants, managers and intellectuals.

Ahmadinejad's victory is the beginning of the end of the clerics' dominance. He is the first non-mullah to become president since 1981. The holder of a Ph.D., he is also the best educated of the six Islamic presidents so far. He can be expected to be a far more formidable enemy of the West — and of America in particular.

Recently Ahmadinejad announced one of the most ambitious government mission statements in decades, declaring that the ultimate goal of Iran's foreign policy is nothing less than "a government for the whole world" under the leadership of the Mahdi, the Absent Imam of the Shiites — code for the export of radical Islam. As for the only power capable of challenging this vision, the United States is in its "last throes," an ofuli (sunset) power destined to be superceded by the toluee (sunrise) of the Islamic republic. Geopolitical dominance in the Middle East, the tract unequivocally stated, is "the incontestable right of the Iranian nation."

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, August 30, 2005]

Iran Procures Missiles Capable of Hitting Europe - Ze'ev Schiff (Ha'aretz)
Iran has purchased BM-25 ground-to-ground missiles from North Korea with a range of 2,500 kilometers, the head of the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, said Wednesday.
Some of the missiles have already arrived in Iran.
With this purchase the Iranians have leap-frogged over their Shihab-4 missile with its range of 2,000 kilometers.
The Iranians are known to be developing two more long-range missiles, and American intelligence sources say Iran is at an advanced stage of developing a missile that can carry a nuclear warhead.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, April 27, 2006]

The Iranian Missile that is Likely to Surprise Israel: A Clear and Present Danger - Aryeh Agozi
For the first time, Iran has tested an improved version of the Shihab-3 missile that uses solid fuel and has an increased range of 2,000 kilometers. The significance of using solid fuel is that the missile can be prepared for launching in a matter of minutes, making it difficult for Israeli satellites to supply a warning in time. (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew, 1Jun05)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, June 1, 2005]

The Deadly Threat of a Nuclear Iran - Douglas Davis (Spectator-UK)
"Israel is facing a very serious threat a senior official in the Vienna-based UN nuclear-monitoring industry - who is neither Jewish nor, indeed, Western - said this week, the nuclear-monitoring industry has 'utterly failed to address the profound and legitimate concerns it has about its national security.'"

H-hour has arrived, Caroline B. Glick, November 20, 2004

The agreement that France, Germany and Britain reached with Iran this week signals that the diplomatic option of dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program no longer exists . . . So where does this leave the Jews who, in the event that Iran goes nuclear, will face the threat of annihilation?

Syria Brokers Secret Deal to Send Atomic Scientists to Iran - Con Coughlin (Telegraph-UK) and

12 middle-ranking Iraqi nuclear technicians and their families were transported to Syria before the collapse of Saddam's regime

The Iraqis brought with them CDs crammed with research data on Saddam's nuclear program, and have been hidden away at a secret Syrian military installation where they have been conducting research

Under the terms of the deal Assad offered the Iranians, the Iraqi scientists would be transferred to Iran together with a small amount of essential materials, to assist Iranian scientists to develop a nuclear weapon.

Assad wants the Iranians to agree to share the results of their atomic weapons research with Damascus.

Saddam, the Bomb and Me - Mahdi Obeidi (New York Times)

As the head of Saddam Hussein's nuclear centrifuge program, I know that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was on the threshold of success before the 1991 invasion of Kuwait - there is no doubt in my mind that we could have produced dozens of nuclear weapons within a few years - but it was stopped in its tracks by UN weapons inspectors after the Persian Gulf war.

Our nuclear program could have been reinstituted at the snap of Saddam Hussein's fingers. Iraqi scientists had the knowledge and the designs needed to jumpstart the program if necessary. And there is no question that we could have done so very quickly.

In the late 1980s, we put together the most efficient covert nuclear program the world has ever seen in about three years. Had Saddam Hussein ordered it and the world looked the other way, we might have shaved months if not years off our previous efforts. Hundreds of my former staff members and fellow scientists possess knowledge that could be useful to a rogue nation eager for a covert nuclear weapons program.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, September 27, 2004]

Iran Defies Demand of Nuke Watchdog Agency (AP/ABC News)
Defying a key demand set by 35 nations, Iran announced Tuesday it has started converting raw uranium into the gas needed for enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, vowed his country will press ahead with its nuclear program even if it means a rupture with the UN watchdog agency and an end to inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities. "We've made our choice: Yes to peaceful nuclear technology, no to atomic weapons," Khatami said at a military parade in Tehran.

Iran's President: "We Will Not Give Up Our Nuclear Program" - Smadar Peri and Sefi Handler, (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew, 22 Sep 04)
Displayed at the parade were two Shihab-3 missiles - on one was written the word "Israel" and on the other "America."

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, September 22, 2004]

Iran Out of Control - Ehud Ya'ari (Jerusalem Report)

Iran is removing its mask -- and its gloves. It no longer maintains the pretense of acting as a decent neighbor to Iraq, or tries to make us believe that it is adhering to the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; it is no longer knocking gently on the White House door or making passes at the European Union. Even the warnings of what will happen to Israel if it attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities have become apocalyptically violent. And the message from Teheran reaching the perpetrators of Palestinian terror is that given the disintegration of the Fatah faction, the agenda for attacks will from now on be set by the emissaries of the Iranian elite "Revolutionary Guards."

The American army in Iraq is facing a direct Iranian challenge. The attempt to contain and isolate Iran has failed. Instead the real regional danger posed by the "Islamic Revolution" is ballooning at a pace that leaves little time for a delayed or hesitant response. The supreme religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the Rafsanjani faction and the officers of the Revolutionary Guards are going for broke. They are prepared to risk a head-on -- if still indirect -- confrontation with the United States on Iraqi soil.

No less than 80 percent of the latest Palestinian attacks in the intifada have been set in motion by the Iranians via Hizballah. Incidentally, they not only fund and promote the attacks but are often involved down to the last detail, from the preparation of explosives to transferring them to the suicide bombers and choosing targets for attack.

General Qassem Suleimani, head of the "Al-Quds Corps" of the "Revolutionary Guards" has long since coordinated Iran’s covert actions in Lebanon, among the Palestinian ranks and in other spheres, is also the main architect of the Shi’ite rebellion in Iraq. He even made the connection between Muqtada al-Sadr and his "Mahdi Army" and the all-Sunni Ba’athists and remnants of Saddam’s "Republican Guard" in Falluja, Samara and Ramadi.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, August 24, 2004]

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Oct 26, 2005 - "Israel must be wiped off the map." because “The regime occupying Qods [Israel] is the key to [Western] countries’ domination in Muslim lands, and with every blow at this occupying regime, it’s the pillars of the Global Arrogance (the West) that are targeted”. "Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? This goal [is] attainable, and surely can be achieved."

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Iraq's not-so-good neighbor -- Charles Krauthammer, Dec 16, 2005

Everyone knows where Iran's nuclear weapons will be aimed. Everyone knows they will be put on Shahab rockets that have been modified so they can now reach Israel. And everyone knows that if the button is ever pushed, it will be the end of Israel.

But it gets worse. The president of a country about to go nuclear is a confirmed believer in the coming apocalypse . . . a Holocaust-denying, virulently anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, on the verge of acquiring weapons of the apocalypse, believes that the end is not only near, but nearer than the next American presidential election.

It gets worse. After his speech to the U.N. in September, Ahmadinejad was caught on videotape telling a cleric that during the speech an aura, a halo, appeared around his head right on the podium of the General Assembly. ``I felt the atmosphere suddenly change. And for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink. ... It seemed as if a hand was holding them there, and it opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic Republic.''

Iran's Bluster Isn't a Bluff - Martin Indyk
There is plenty of International Atomic Energy Agency evidence to indicate that Iran is bent on acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and that this goal is broadly supported by all of Iran's political factions. Four years ago, the supposedly moderate Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that in a nuclear exchange, Iran could withstand a second strike, whereas "the use of a nuclear bomb against Israel will leave nothing on the ground."

Iran has been waging an ongoing war against Israel by proxy for more than a decade. The Iranian intelligence service trains, funds, arms and directs both Hizballah, which operates out of southern Lebanon, and Palestine Islamic Jihad, which carries out terrorist operations against Israeli civilians. Even now, when more than 80% of Palestinians want the current calm to continue, Iran is pushing Islamic Jihad to provoke violence. Ahmadinejad's declaration, therefore, was just one of those moments when the world could no longer avoid noticing Iran's decades-long aggression toward Israel. (Los Angeles Times)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, November 2, 2005]

A Clash of Civilizations - Amir Taheri (MSNBC/Newsweek International)

Iran is grossly misunderstood in the West. Given headlines in Europe and America, you would think that the crisis in relations is about nuclear weapons. But the real cause is far broader: Iran's determination to reshape the Middle East in its own image — a deliberate "clash of civilizations" with the United States.

This is bound up with a second misconception about Iran, the idea that the regime is divided between "conservatives" who oppose accommodation with America and the West, and "moderates" more inclined to return their country to the community of nations. The real power in Iran, punctuated by the ascent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, is now the Revolutionary Guards.

Recently Ahmadinejad announced one of the most ambitious government mission statements in decades, declaring that the ultimate goal of Iran's foreign policy is nothing less than "a government for the whole world" under the leadership of the Mahdi, the Absent Imam of the Shiites — code for the export of radical Islam. As for the only power capable of challenging this vision, the United States is in its "last throes," an ofuli (sunset) power destined to be superceded by the toluee (sunrise) of the Islamic republic. Geopolitical dominance in the Middle East, the tract unequivocally stated, is "the incontestable right of the Iranian nation."

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, August 30, 2005]

Iran Leader Calls for Israel's Destruction

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer, October 26, 2005

Iran's hard-line president called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state, state-run media reported Wednesday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also denounced attempts to recognize Israel or normalize relations with it.

"There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad told students Wednesday during a Tehran conference called "The World without Zionism."

"Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury, (while) any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad also repeated the words of the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who called for the destruction of Israel.

"As the imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, who came to power in August and replaced Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who advocated international dialogue and tried to improve Iran's relations with the West.

Ahmadinejad referred to Israel's recent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a "trick," saying Gaza was already a part of Palestinian lands and the pullout was designed to win acknowledgment of Israel by Islamic states.

"The fighting in Palestine is a war between the (whole) Islamic nation and the world of arrogance," Ahmadinejad said, using Tehran's propaganda epithet for the United States and Israel. "Today, Palestinians are representing the Islamic nation against arrogance."

Iran does not recognize the existence of Israel and has often called for its destruction.

Israel has been at the forefront of nations calling and end to Iran's nuclear program, which the United States and many others in the West say is aimed at acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Iran says the program is for generating electricity.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Ahmadinejad's comment "reconfirms what we have been saying about the regime in Iran. It underscores the concerns we have about Iran's nuclear intentions."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Baptiste Mattei condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks "with the utmost firmness."

Harsh words for Israel are common in Iran, especially at this time of year, the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In Iran, this Friday — the last Muslim day of prayer in the Ramadan holiday — has been declared Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day. Rallies were slated in support of Palestinians — and against Israel's occupation of parts of the city and other Palestinian lands.

Other Iranian politicians also have issued anti-Israeli statements, in attempts to whip up support for Friday's nationwide Quds Day demonstrations.

But Ahmadinejad's strident anti-Israeli statements on the eve of the demonstration were harsher than those issued during the term of the reformist Khatami and harkened back to Khomeini's fiery speeches. Ahmadinejad was a longtime member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, which even operates a division dubbed the Quds Division, a rhetorical reference to Tehran's hopes of one day ending Israel's domination of Islam's third-holiest city.

After his election, Ahmadinejad received the support of the powerful hard-line Revolutionary Guards, who report directly to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Last year, a senior member of the guards attended a meeting that called for and accepted applications for suicide bombers to target U.S. troops and Israelis.

Iran announced earlier this year that it had fully developed solid fuel technology for missiles, a major breakthrough that increases their accuracy.

The Shahab-3, with a range of 810 miles to 1,200 miles, is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East.

Weighing a strike on Iran

James T. Hackett, The Washington Times, August 10, 2004

On June 7, 1981, Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers took off from Etzion Air Base in the Sinai, flew at low altitude across the Iraqi border and zeroed in on Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor. One minute and 20 seconds after the first bomb struck, the reactor lay in ruins. All aircraft returned safely.

Today, 23 years later, there is a growing view in Washington and Tel Aviv that a similar pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities may be the only way to prevent the fundamentalist mullahs from acquiring a nuclear bomb.

The Iranian threat to Israel, and to Middle Eastern stability, is serious and growing. Ten months of intensive diplomacy by Britain, France and Germany has failed to defuse the crisis.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Israel has considered Iran its No. 1 enemy. On July 21, Israel's intelligence agencies submitted a joint report to the Cabinet that Iran could have a nuclear weapon by 2007. And Iran has made clear its main enemies are the "Zionist state" and its U.S. ally.

Every country that recently developed nuclear weapons has done so by generating highly enriched uranium or plutonium through the fuel cycle used for nuclear power. Tehran's claim it only aims to produce electric power is ridiculous. Iran sits on huge reserves of oil, is the second-largest Middle East petroleum exporter after Saudi Arabia, and has the second-largest natural gas reserves in the world after Russia.

The British, French and Germans brokered a deal with Iran last October under which Tehran would cooperate with international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, and suspend enrichment of uranium. In exchange, the U.N. Security Council would not take action against Iran.

The IAEA put seals on the centrifuges used to enrich uranium, but now Iran has directly challenged the IAEA and the European nations by removing the seals, and restarting production of new centrifuges. Once enriched, uranium can be used either to produce electric power or make nuclear bombs.

Iran's centrifuges are believed capable of making 20 to 25 nuclear weapons a year. Plutonium, a byproduct of the nuclear reactor, also can be used to make bombs. John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, recently told Congress that in a few years the Bushehr nuclear power plant Russia is building for Iran could produce enough plutonium for more than 80 nuclear weapons. Mr. Bolton also said that, if re-elected, President Bush would make Iran a priority.

India, Pakistan and North Korea have recently developed nuclear weapons, and Iran appears to be next. Israeli intelligence has long been warning Iran intends to produce a bomb, Washington has been calling for U.N. sanctions on Iran, and now even the wishful-thinking Europeans believe Iran is determined to produce nuclear weapons.

The best way to deliver such weapons is by a hard-to-stop ballistic missile, and Iran has an aggressive missile development program. Iran already operates the Shahab-3 missile that can carry a one-ton warhead more than 800 miles, putting Israel and much of the Middle East at risk. The Shahab-3 is a version of North Korea's Nodong missile and was developed from North Korean technology. The U.S. is helping Israel upgrade and test its Arrow missile interceptor, designed to stop slower and shorter-range Scuds, to give it some capability against the much faster Shahab-3.

Last December, Iranian officials denied earlier reports they were developing a longer-range Shahab-4. But Defense Minister Ali Chamkhani subsequently said Iran is upgrading the Shahab-3, and plans to launch its own satellite within 18 months. This is the same cover -- calling a missile a satellite launcher -- used by North Korea to explain its Taepodong-2 missile with intercontinental range.

Washington wants U.N. sanctions on Iran, but the Europeans are reluctant. And Russia and China, which have vetoes, are suppliers to Iran's nuclear program.

As the danger and Iran's defiance grows, U.S. and Israeli officials have begun talking about a possible strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, calling Iran the greatest danger to Israel's existence, has said, "Israel will not allow Iran to be equipped with a nuclear weapon."

    This time, a strike by Israel's F-15s is likely to be much broader than the attack on a single plant at Osirak, Iraq. A strike probably would hit the nuclear plant at Bushehr, the centrifuges at Natanz, a reactor being built at Arak and possibly other targets. A pre-emptive strike can be avoided, at least temporarily, if the U.N. agrees to apply meaningful sanctions. If not, Iran may become the second member of the Axis of Evil to learn the folly of its arrogance.

    James T. Hackett is a contributing writer to The Washington Times and is based in San Diego.

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No knight in shining armor

Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 29, 2003

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post about the growing threat of the swiftly advancing Iranian nuclear weapons program a few weeks ago, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz placed the burden of stopping this existential danger to the Jewish state on the US.

In his words, "The question is whether the world, under the leadership of the No. 1 power, the US, will allow the Iranians to achieve nuclear capabilities."

The answer to his question, apparently, is yes. The world, under the leadership of the US, probably will allow the Iranians to achieve nuclear capabilities.

Why is this the case? This week, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report stating that its inspectors found traces of enriched uranium in the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz.

Reacting to the disclosure, the Iranian government claimed improbably that the traces found at the site were simply a result of contamination of their nuclear devices that had been under prior ownership. Additionally, the Iranians said they would be willing to discuss entering into negotiations with the IAEA about allowing the agency unfettered access to their nuclear facilities. Such negotiations on starting negotiations could begin as early as next month, the Iranians promised.

Israel contends that the Iranian nuclear weapons program could reach the point of no return within the year. [PAC Comment: The bioweapon threat is quite serious as well. Further, Iran remains the lynchpin of the terror network. See Andrew G. Bostom
FrontPageMagazine.com, July 5, 2004, The Ayatollahs’ Final Solution? "annihilationist animus towards Jews is a deep-rooted phenomenon in Shi’ite Iran"] Current US policy regarding this urgent threat is two-pronged. On the one hand, the US is attempting to have the IAEA find Iran to be in breach of its signature on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Such a finding would turn the issue of the Iranian program over to the UN Security Council which could theoretically vote to levy economic sanctions on Iran or mount a military operation to destroy the Iranian program.

The second prong of US policy is to pressure governments like Russia, Pakistan, and China to cease their cooperation with the Iranian program and to pressure other states to stop economic cooperation with the Iranian regime until it comes clean and ends its nuclear weapons program.

Unfortunately, this approach has no chance of succeeding in preventing the Iranians from achieving nuclear capabilities. It was known that the Iranians were enriching uranium at the Natanz plant six months ago. If it took six months for the IAEA to discover traces of enriched uranium and the Iranians are but one year away from having enriched a sufficient amount of uranium to make atomic bombs, the chance that IAEA inspections could avert Iranian enrichment of sufficient quantities of weapons-grade uranium is low.

Add to that the fact that negotiations on unimpeded inspections could easily drag on for three to six months, and the Iranians will be able to announce they are vacating their signature on the NPT just as the IAEA announces that it has achieved agreement with the Iranians to allow for unlimited access to their nuclear facilities.
On the off-chance that the IAEA decides at its meeting next month that it is turning the Iranian nuclear program over to the UN Security Council, there is almost no chance the Security Council will take any concerted action.

Ignoring for the moment the fact that Iran's closest strategic ally, Syria, is currently the rotating president of the Security Council, three of its permanent members are active supporters of the Iranian government. France has consistently rebuffed US pressure to end its economic cooperation with Iran. Russia and China have been implicated in assisting the Iranian nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.

The US is also now party to multilateral negotiations with the North Koreans over their illicit nuclear weapons program. Signaling willingness to placate the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang, the US dropped its own representative to the talks, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton, after the North Koreans called him "scum" for remarks he made about the dictatorial nature of the regime.

In spite of its stated policy of not conducting bilateral discussions with North Korea, on the first day of the talks Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly spoke privately with his North Korean counterpart Kim Yong Il. For their part, three of the four other nations participating in the talks South Korea, China, and Russia all support cutting yet another deal with the North Koreans. Only Japan supports the Bush administration's hard line on North Korea.

Yet Japanese opposition to nuclear proliferation is hardly consistent. Japan continues to rebuff US and Israeli pressure to end its $2.2 billion deal for oil exploration in southern Iran.

Put simply, in dealing with the issue of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, American rhetoric doesn't match its deeds. It speaks loudly and carries a small stick.

US timidity in advancing its own national security interests in the face of international hostility is of course matched by the administration's addiction to the cause of Palestinian statehood. Standing next to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell equated opponents to Palestinian statehood with Palestinian terrorists. In Powell's view, burying the road map in the wake of the Palestinian massacre of 21 people in Jerusalem is not an option because as he put it, "The alternative is what?... Let the terrorists win? Let those who have no interest in a Palestinian state win? Let those who have no interest but killing innocent people win? No. That is not an acceptable outcome."

In the same statement, Powell recognized Yasser Arafat as the de facto leader of the Palestinian Authority. Powell's request that Arafat allow PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to make use of the Palestinian militias is what spurred Arafat's actions this week to sideline Abbas and Security Minister Muhammad Dahlan.

The Palestinian media this week has been full of reports and commentary stating that Powell's statement amounted to nothing less than the US reconferring legitimacy on Arafat. Palestinian sources say that given Powell's statement, there is no way that Abbas and Dahlan will be able to assert any type of authority over the PA.
This of course would be fine if Powell's intention had been to unmask the fiction of PA reform under Abbas and Dahlan. But of course the opposite is the case. The US is acutely interested in eternalizing this lie. "A new Palestinian leadership is emerging that understands and says, in Arabic and English that terror is not a means to Palestinian statehood, but rather the greatest obstacle to statehood," said US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

In so reacting to last week's massacre, the message the US effectively sends the Palestinians is that terrorism pays. Arafat has learned that when bombs go off in Jerusalem and the precious road map is in jeopardy, Washington knows who to call. As for the Palestinian people, they have learned that Abbas and Dahlan were repaid for their mealy-mouthed antiterror rhetoric with their removal from power.

What we see then is US policy in full-blown retreat. That the US is now considering allowing a UN-sponsored force to operate in Iraq is simply another example of this surrender of initiative to an international community that shares none of the US's views or goals.

Perhaps given its naive and premature sense of triumph, the US now believes it can indulge a strategy of delay, deny, and retreat. But Israel cannot engage in such irresponsible self-deception. International conferences will not slow or prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. Concessions to the Palestinians will not convince the US or the UN to take concerted action against the Iranians. They will have no impact on Iran's desire to destroy the State of Israel. With 70 percent of our population concentrated in the kill radius of one atomic bomb, Israel cannot stand by idly and expect the US to ride in like a knight in shining armor to save us from destruction.

Iran has already made it clear that the threat of Israeli nuclear retaliation for a nuclear strike on Israel will not deter it from attacking. We owe it to ourselves to take this seriously. Our missile defense system, although the most advanced in the world, is not an impenetrable shield.

If our survival is important to him, Mofaz should not be trusting the Americans. He should be hunkering down with OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Dan Halutz right now and mapping out plans to destroy the Iranian nuclear installations. Time is not on our side and, apparently, neither is the US.

Secretary Rumsfeld Availability at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, Saturday, February 7, 2004:

Q [Palestinian general]: Mr. Secretary, You talked about countries that were trying to produce weapons of mass destruction. You talked about Iraq and you talked about Iran and North Korea. I have a question, a direct question to you. What are you doing with Israel? As far as Israel is concerned, Israel has more atomic weapons in the region than any other country. Why do you remain silent in regard to Israel? I think it’s important to answer this question because this has to do with the world, the strategy that we are pursuing today. I think that if the position towards Israel were different then the situation would be different in the Near East, and this is a great problem.

Rumsfeld: You know the answer before I give it, I’m sure. The world knows the answer. We take the world like you find it; and Israel is a small state with a small population. It’s a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood that in many -- over a period of time has opined from time to time that they’d prefer it not be there and they’d like it to be put in the sea. And Israel has opined that it would prefer not to get put in the sea, and as a result, over a period of decades, it has arranged itself so it hasn’t been put in the sea.

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Pakistan To Arm Saudi Arabia With Nukes In Exchange For Oil.

Unfortunately, Israel must ready itself to Go It Alone.

The War of Words

Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, September 5, 2003

In a recent interview with the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, translated by MEMRI, Syria's Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass made a number of revealing statements.

On the military front, he explained that Israel and the US are terrorist states. At the same time, terrorism-supporting countries like Syria and Saudi Arabia are victims, and terrorist organizations like Hizballah in Syrian-controlled Lebanon and Palestinian terrorist groups operating in Israel and headquartered in Damascus are legitimate resistance movements.

On the theological front, Tlass explained that the Jews have no right to object to his book "The Matza of Zion." There he described the 1841 blood libel against the Jews of Damascus, which accused them of killing children to make Pessah matzot, as historical fact. Tlass argued that Jews have no right to object to his writing, because killing children to make matzot is a "Jewish ritual."

Finally, Jews, according to Tlass, have no right to claim that anti-Semitism is discrimination against Jews, because Arabs are the majority of Semites.

Aside from lying about every subject he was asked to discuss, Tlass in one interview managed by statement and inference to distort the meaning of a number of key terms. These include terrorism, resistance, occupation, racism, discrimination, anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism. By Tlass's redefinition of these terms, both Israel and the US are criminal states. The US must be reeducated and Israel must be destroyed.

* * *
Last week, Prof. Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University debated Dr. Daniel Pipes, the head of the Middle East Forum, on MSNBC's Scarborough Country. In the course of his remarks, Khalidi personally attacked Pipes twice, implying that he is a bigot because he supports Israel.

He also referred to support for Israel by senior policy makers in the Defense Department and Vice President's Office as "virulent."

As the Edward Said Professor of Middle East Studies, Khalidi no doubt is aware that Webster's defines "virulent" as "malignant; extremely poisonous or venomous."

While referring to support for Israel in this way, Khalidi, under direct questioning from host Rowan Scarborough, nonetheless felt it necessary to lie about the fact that in the past he has referred to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as "a fanatic, extreme right-wing Zionist."

He also denied referring to Israel as a "racist" state with an "apartheid" system and of claiming that America has been "brainwashed" by Israel. Yet when interviewed by writers from The Australian Financial Review and the online magazine opentent.org, Khalidi was absolutely clear in making these statements.

* * *
Two years ago this week, the UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance was in the midst of its deliberations in Durban, South Africa. The end result of the weeklong conference was the subversion of the definitions of "racism," "racial discrimination," "xenophobia," and "related intolerance."

At Durban, Israel and the US were isolated, as every other member nation of the UN and every major international human rights organization either stood by and watched or was actively engaged in the systematic criminalization of Israel, the marginalization of the Holocaust, the whitewashing of anti-Semitism, and the demonization of the Jewish people as a nation and of Jews as individuals.

In the course of its deliberations, the terms "Zionism," "anti-Semitism," "racism," "refugees," "colonialization," "terrorism," "civilians," "resistance," and "occupation" were all redefined to one end. That end was to foment a distortion of reality whereby, one week before the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York, Israel was castigated as the single most lethal and virulent threat to the world.

* * *
George Orwell once said: "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

In the two years since the Durban conference, our political language has been distorted by an alliance of the international political Left and the Arab world to the point at which neither Israel nor the US can easily use words to either describe the reality we live in or to motivate others to join us in fighting our enemies.

After September 11, US President George W. Bush called on the nations of the world to join the US in destroying terrorism. Most nations came forward and expressed their support for his call. Yet when Saudi Arabia can claim to be fighting terrorism, even while it funds al-Qaida and Hamas, it is clear that we have reached a point at which we cannot even have a conversation about terrorism and expect our interlocutors to be talking about the same thing.

For Israel, the disintegration of language is even more devastating than it is for the US. Every single term that we need to describe what is happening to us and what we ourselves are doing has been seized by the new Orwellian language police. By distorting the meaning of terrorism and anti-Semitism, our enemies deny us the ability to speak about the crimes being carried out against us. If we are terrorists because we control Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, then we cannot defend ourselves.

If the Palestinian Authority, which organizes, incites, and enables Palestinians to murder us at every opportunity, is simply involved in legitimate resistance to our terrorism, then we cannot defend ourselves, either.

The fact that the Western media refuse to refer to Palestinians who commit mass murders of Israelis as terrorists, but prefer the term "militants," indicates that from their perspective there is something basically acceptable about these murders.

Referring to Palestinian gunmen and suicide bombers in this manner distinguishes them from other people who commit similar crimes against non-Jews. The fact that the Israeli media also use the term "activist" and "terrorist" interchangeably to describe those who murder us shows that we too have lost the power to describe our enemies.

If being anti-Semitic means being anti-Arab, then Israel is the greatest anti-Semitic entity in the world. Arab hatred and demonization of Jews, which occurs daily throughout the world, is acceptable. Widespread European hatred of Jews can also be defended as simple opposition to Israel. Hatred of Jews and the Jewish state, as well as acts of war against it, are turned on their head. Israel is the criminal. Jews are racist anti-Semites. Israel is the terrorist.

The subversion of the term "refugee" in the case of Palestinians is equally debilitating for Israel.

For every other group, the status of refugee exists only for those individuals who actually lived in a country and left. But for Palestinians, every relative, child, and grandchild of an Arab who left Israel in 1948 is a refugee.

Under international law, it is the responsibility of the countries that take in refugees to provide them with a home. But for Palestinians, the situation is reversed.

It is the responsibility of the countries in which these people were born and live never to accept them, and it is Israel's responsibility to allow 4 million hostile Arabs to immigrate and receive citizenship.

Because we have accepted this subverted definition of refugee, Israelis engage in vacuous and self-defeating conversations about the so-called right of return of millions of people who have never set foot here and who actively seek the destruction of the state.

Because we have relinquished our right to language, for three years we have been unable to have any serious national conversation about the reality we experience every single day. As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demonstrated when he referred to the disputed territories of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip as "occupied," we have surrendered our right to define reality to our enemies. We cannot describe our lives.

For three years the Palestinians have been making war against us. Yet because they have taken over our language, we cannot so much as give a name to the war that we are unable to notice. We have been so imprisoned by our enemies' perversion of our words that we find it strange when outsiders have the courage to make statements about the "so-called occupied territories." We cannot even recognize when someone is trying to help us.

"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men," said Orwell, "is the restatement of the obvious."

And so, two years after Durban, 10 years after Oslo, three years after the Palestinian terrorist war was launched, and two years after the September 11 attacks, we must take it upon ourselves to do just that. If we allow our enemies to define our world for us, we are destined to lose our place in it.

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