July 14

Fear of nuclear war

Israel has warned Iran of catastrophic consequences if it she is attacked with weapons of mass destruction, according to Robert Berger on the Voice of America (10 July). Israel's national security advisor says Iran will be destroyed if it dares to launch a nuclear attack.

In an interview published in the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz, Uzi Arad said Israel must have "tremendously powerful" weapons to deter or retaliate for a nuclear strike. That seemed to be a reference to Israel's reported nuclear arsenal, though it has never admitted to having nuclear weapons. Arad described a nuclear Iran as a "nightmare for Israel."

Iran claims its nuclear programme is being undertaken for peaceful purposes, but has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. The Israeli  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that a nuclear Iran is not only a threat to Israel, but also to Western civilization.

"The greatest danger facing our world today is if the world's worst regimes acquire the world's most dangerous weapons," he said. "For the sake of peace, for the sake of our common security, for the sake of our common values this must not be allowed to happen."

In the meantime Agence France Presse reports that an Iranian crackdown on all dissent since the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a disputed vote four weeks ago has failed to keep supporters of his defeated challenger off the streets of Tehran. There seems no doubt that the vote was rigged.

…  the Shah was replaced by a dangerous theocracy…

 

Earlier this month the son of the late Shah of Iran, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi,  warned of the consequences for the volatile Middle East and the rest of the world if the popular uprising in Iran is crushed, according to the Wall Street Journal 0f 22 June. 

    

                       [To watch the Crown Prince's address, follow this link.]

The defeat of the uprising would not only threaten global stability but could lead to nuclear war, the Crown Prince told a news conference here.  

"Their defeat will encourage extremism from the shores of the Levant to the energy jugular of the world. At worst, fanatical tyrants who know that the future is against them may end their present course on their terms: a nuclear holocaust," he told a room packed with reporters at the National Press Club in Washington.

The Crown Prince urged the Western media to continue to act as "the information artery connecting different parts of the freedom movement in Iran" by globally spreading the messages coming from the protesters inside the country.

Had President Carter and France not played the role they did in undermining the late Shah, Iran would not be in this situation today  (see " Iran a danger to the world" 24 June 2009).

The Iranian government has suppressed foreign media coverage of the protests in Iran, but Iranians have been sending messages and videos to news outlets or acquaintances outside the country using social networking sites, online video and photo outlets and the micro-blogging source, Twitter.

   


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