Most despots who use virulent antisemitism as a political tool are really much saner than they seem. They know that redirecting people’s hatred against the common enemy of the Jews and Israel is shrewd: it saves them from revolting against the leadership, or from attacking one another. Somewhat.
But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spewings are ironically worrisome precisely because he seems to believe them. Unlike many Arab leaders who frequently call for Israel’s destruction when in truth it’s the last thing they actually want, Ahmadinejad actually seems crazy enough to put pragmatic or political concerns aside in favour of his virulent hatred.
Ahmadinejad knows that nobody in the world will stop him from going nuclear. He knows he can say the most hateful things possible and all the world will do is shake their heads and scold. And he knows that if he ever unleashes nuclear weapons at Israel, the Israelis would – and probably could – retaliate by wiping out Tehran.
The problem is, he may actually hate Israel so much that he doesn’t care.
If suicide bombers are so dangerous because they have no regard for their own life, then Ahmadinejad is the king of all suicide bombers; unpredictable and possibly likely to sacrifice his entire country to satisfy his blood lust. And it may well be too late to do anything to stop him from acquiring nuclear power.
Ahmadinejad has engaged the rest of the world in the ultimate game of chicken, and the rest of the world swerved first. The only question now is, can the Iranian forces for moderation and change respond quickly enough to rein him in? I’d like to think so, but it’s not looking good.
I doubt that Israel will stop with Tehran. What doesn’t really get discussed is whether Israel has Hydrogen Bombs or the old fashioned Atomic variety. I’m guessing Iran is going for the Atomic Do-It-Yourself kits.
Point two is whether, given Israel’s rush to develop an Anti-missile defense, Israel would retaliate EVEN IF they were able to destroy an incoming missile.
In the case of a failed attack,I can see them wiping out Iran’s Nuclear reactor in retaliation, but a whole city?!
I agree with your assessment of Ahmadinejad; he’d be more than willing to kill millions of his own people in order to attack and kill large numbers of israelis.
He’ll merely class the millions of dead Iranians “martyrs-for-Allah”.
If Islamist leaders have a knack for something it’s this; volunteering unknowing and unsuspecting people as jihadi cannon fodder.
Just in the past six months in Iraq how many innocents, and how many young children, have been blown away by the beards of righteousness in an effort to combat the “crusader”?
In the more than 3000 years of Persia’s existence, has it ever sunk lower?
Another question: Would Israel interpret a nuclear attack by Iran as a state vs state conflict or as a religious war…Islam against Israel/Judaism? Would Israel then counter-attack accordingly?…even if they were able to successfully defend against an incoming missile(s)?
This is a very sad and tragic situation for a number of reasons.
Iran is perhaps one of the only Islamic countries that has gone to great pains to preserve its pre-islamic past….a good sign because it indicates Iranians have another point of reference apart from Islamism….something rare in the Muslim world.
Iran, also, is the only Islamic country I can think of that has a strong grassroots movement to overthrow its theocratic régime.
And here in Canada the best integrated Muslim community, by far, is that of ex-pat Iranians. The Iranian community here also counts quite a number of converts to Christianity.
If only there was some way to make surgical strikes against Iran’s leadership, a leadership brought to power by sham elections.
Rank and file Iranians still living in the country will have to do more, organise more, and push harder to throw these thugs out before they end up blowing the whole place away.
As for your question, DinV, Israel’s leaders would probably view such a conflict as state vs state…..but imho that would be somewhat inaccurate.
Iran’s leader, from what I’ve read, sees himself as the 12th Madhi…an islamic messiah, so they’d most certainly be of the opinion that the conflict is religious.