Dan

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July 30, 2009

While Sheriff Obama Dithers, Bad Cop Netanyahu Must (And Probably Will) Attack Iran

One day, perhaps sooner than we think, a rogue regime or terrorist group will launch a nuclear attack that will kill hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of people. And as it stands right now, the most likely perpetrators are Iran and North Korea.

Leaving aside the complicated challenge of North Korea, the inevitability of the above scenario is why Israel must – and probably soon will – attack Iran. To do so would merely forestall the inevitable, but this is the only way Israel can be assured it will survive to deal with tomorrow.

As you shake your head and refuse to believe this doomsday scenario could ever actually come to pass, consider:

Life on Earth is replete with experiences that cannot possibly happen, until they do. It was once impossible to build a heavier-than-air flying machine, until someone did. It was once impossible to communicate instantly with someone on the other side of the world, until the day arrived when anyone could do so anytime they wanted. It was once inconceivable that the United States would be the target of a devastating attack on its own soil, until an army of 19 successfully launched one.

People in general, and especially governments who like kicking cans down roads, have a tendency to convince themselves that worst-case scenarios simply cannot come to pass. There are too many obstacles, they assure themselves. Even rogue regimes would not be so irrational as to start a nuclear exchange that would result in their annihilation.

But some day, one will, because people are not rational all the time. It is naïve beyond belief to think that every regime that might one day come into possession of nuclear weapons would possess some inherent, built-in rationality that would prevent it from ever using them to attack a sworn enemy.

The prevailing left-wing argument against attacking Iran is that the Iranian mullahs, for all their theocratic nuttiness and despotic thuggery, are actually quite rational in their pursuit of regional hegemony. Their pursuit of nukes, so goes the argument, is really about attaining a strategic advantage – and if the rest of the world thinks they are just nutty enough to consider using the nukes, so much the better in getting what they want.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vows publicly to wipe Israel off the map, the do-nothing set assures us that he doesn’t have the real power in Iran. And surely he doesn’t, as he discovered this week when he tried to appoint a first vice president opposed by the mullahs.

But if the mullahs are willing to slap down Ahmadinejad when he goes off the reservation, it’s telling they’ve never done any such thing with respect to his statements about Israel. Even more telling is the Iranian regime’s longstanding support for the terrorist group Hezbollah, whose sole objective is to attack Israel at every opportunity.

The Obama Administration is trying with all its might (publicly, at least) to convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch a military strike against Iran. The U.S. has assured the Israelis that it will come under the American “umbrella of protection” against nuclear attack, a promise that tacitly acknowledges a) Iran is on its way to having the bomb; and b) it’s not inconceivable that Iran might use it against Israel. Otherwise, why bother offering protection?

Netanyahu has never been one to entertain delusions about existential threats to Israel, and perhaps it is God’s providence in defense of his chosen people that, just as Israel’s main protector was electing a president too naïve to understand real threats, the Israelis themselves returned to office the one man with the intestinal fortitude to act on his own if necessary.

Nuclear proliferation should frighten everyone on Earth. Where the development of such weapons was once limited to superpowers, technology and its availability have advanced to the point where even an isolated, backwards regime like that in North Korea can achieve it.

This problem will only get worse. While President Obama naively talks about a nuclear-free world, and pursues myopic negotiations with the Russians – as if it were 1972 all over again – more nefarious actors spread secrets and technology to dark, sinister places. And some day, somewhere, a lunatic will use these weapons.

The only sensible strategy is for free, peaceful, nuclear nations to police the rest of the world. That is no guarantee of 100 percent success, but it’s the best we can do. That means America – like it or not – is the sheriff of the world, and deputy Israel will have to play bad cop when no other option presents itself.

Attacking Iran and destroying its nuclear facilities is a matter of simple survival for Israel, and of preserving the peaceful order for the rest of the world. Bad cop Netanyahu understands this. Sheriff Obama does not. We can only hope the world’s would-be nuclear criminals don’t make too much progress before the day comes when we can put a serious sheriff back on the job.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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