Dismissing Mr Panetta’s damning analysis of his policy, he assumed a tone of
long-suffering patience with his allies and their reluctance to issue Tehran
with a genuine military threat.
“I started speaking about the Iranian threat 16 years ago. If I was not a
lone voice then, I was one of the few, and then others joined… Now I speak
about red lines for Iran. So far I am one of the few; I hope others will
join,” he told the Jerusalem Post paper in comments published
yesterday.
“It takes time to persuade people of the wisdom of this policy.”
As early as 1986, Mr Netanyahu, then Israel’s ambassador to the United
Nations, advocated decisive military action as the only way to deal with
terror threats. In ‘Terrorism: How the West Can Win’ the burgeoning leader
identified the Islamic Republic of Iran among the greatest threats to global
security and criticised US reluctance to use its military might to thwart
terrorism under what he termed the ‘Western malaise’.
“The rules of engagement have become so rigid that governments often
straightjacket themselves in the face of unambiguous aggression,” he
wrote. “The application of military force, or the prospect of such
application, inhibits terrorist violence.”
As prime minister, Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed frustration with
American reluctance to condone military action in Iran. Only last week, he
thundered that the international community had ‘no moral right’ to put ‘red
lines before Israel’.
But this bullish approach met a cool reception in Washington. President Obama
is reported to have declined a request to meet with Mr Netanyahu during the
United Nations general assembly later this month.
The consensus that Mr Netanyahu has deliberately used the Iran issue to insert
himself in the American electoral race, to embarrass the president and boost
the Republican ticket, is also gaining momentum in the US media.
The Jerusalem Post, a right-leaning Israeli newspaper, observed that this
suggestion “annoys him [Netanyahu]” and concluded that the tough
rhetoric he has used to assert Israel’s right to take arms against the
Iranian threat was for the benefit of his domestic- rather than the American
– electorate. The prime minister did not refute the possibility that general
elections could be called in Israel as early as March next year.
Mr Netanyahu did, however, promise the Jerusalem Post’s readers that Iran’s
nuclear programme will be crushed, concluding that his main regret for the
year was “we have not yet stopped Iran.”
“When you interview me next year, I hope I can give you a different
answer,” he said.
The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard meanwhile warned that “nothing
will remain” of Israel if it takes military action against Tehran over its
controversial nuclear programme.
Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran’s response to any attack will begin near the
Israeli border. The Islamic Republic has close ties with militants in Gaza
and Lebanon, both of which border Israel. It was the latest of a series of
apocalytpic threats by Iranian leaders directed at the Jewish state.
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