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'Point of No Return' (Israel and Iranian nuclear program)
New York Sun Staff EditorialThe warning issued by Prime Minister Sharon on Monday - that Israel is taking measures to protect itself from Iran - is the best news to come over the wires in weeks. This followed a statement, quoted last month in Maariv, from the prime minister's national security adviser, Giora Eiland, who said that Iran will reach the "point of no return" in its nuclear program by November. Zev Chafets, a former aide to another prime minister, Menachem Begin, noted in a recent column that "point of no return" was the same phrase that Begin used when he decided to launch, in 1981, a pre-emptive strike that destroyed the reactor at the center of Saddam's a-bomb program, Osirak. Begin's daring defense minister then was the same Ariel Sharon who is premier today. This all comes in the context of an American presidential election in which neither the incumbent nor the challenger is offering a practical strategy for confronting Iran's ambitions to own an Abomb. It is true that both President Bush and Senator Kerry agreed at last week's presidential debate that the biggest threat America faces is the potential of terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. Neither dealt in any convincing way with the fact that the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, is bent on building nuclear weapons. While both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry say they oppose allowing Iran to get nuclear weapons, neither has been exactly forthright about their plan to prevent it. Mr. Kerry's plan, such as he was able to articulate it, involves relying on the French and Germans, of all people, and then giving the Iranians some nuclear fuel. He takes Americans for fools. It's a wonder the senator didn't simply offer to make the mullahs a bomb. The mullahs themselves promptly reacted by mocking the senator, saying they don't want to have to rely on foreigners for their nuclear fuel. Mr. Bush's plan, as he was able to articulate it in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, involves saying, "All options are on the table, of course, in any situation. But diplomacy is the first option." The best that can be said about Mr. Bush is that he hasn't bought into the formal advice of appeasement being promulgated by the Council on Foreign Relations. Posted by: dennisw 2004-10-06 |
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