While Iran expands its nuclear program and increases its influence in the region, Israel has vowed not to allow another Holocaust. What will result from the mounting tensions in the Middle East?
BY MARK S. MENDIOLA
The specter of the volatile Middle East turning into a nuclear battlefield looms ever closer to reality as Iran defies global opinion, feverishly strives (as the international community suspects) to develop atomic weapons and repeatedly calls for Israel’s utter destruction.
Some say that time is running out for Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons complex before Tehran has the capability to launch long-range missiles tipped with nuclear warheads aimed at Tel Aviv or other Israeli cities. The prospect of mushroom clouds casting long shadows over this strategic region of the world is not out of the realm of possibility!
Britain’s The Sunday Times caused a worldwide stir when it reported in early January that Israeli pilots were training to strike an underground uranium enrichment plant south of Tehran with low-yield “bunker buster” nuclear weapons, as well as two other Iranian nuclear sites with conventional bombs.
The Times reported that Israeli military officials believe Iran could produce enough enriched uranium to build nuclear weapons within two years, and that Israeli pilots had made flights to Gibraltar to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. It has been widely presumed since the 1970s that Israel has nuclear weapons in its arsenal.
Despite international criticism, controversial Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refuses to back down from his threats to “wipe Israel off the map.” Meanwhile, the leaders of Israel have vowed they will not allow another holocaust to be unleashed on its millions of citizens, comparing Mr. Ahmadinejad’s threats to Adolf Hitler’s rants in Nazi Germany.
On January 24, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told an annual security conference that Israel will respond to an Iranian nuclear threat “with all the means at our disposal.” He said nations of the world have no choice but to act forcefully against Iran and Mr. Ahmadinejad.
“When the leader of a country announces, officially and publicly, his country’s intention to wipe off the map another country, and creates those tools which will allow them to realize their stated threat, no nation has the right to even weigh its position,” Mr. Olmert said. “It is the obligation of every country to act against this with all its might.”
Israel is still weighing preemptive military action against Iran. However, despite Israel’s successful 1981 air strike against an atomic reactor in Iraq, many conclude Israel cannot take on Iran’s nuclear facilities without support from other nations.
Some observers view President George W. Bush’s decision to dispatch another aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf, create a “troop surge” of 20,000 more soldiers in Iraq, along with deploying more Patriot missiles to U.S. military bases in the region, as keeping his options open in the event of a military attack on Iran.
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