Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran—Or I Will

[LC EFA]

masuki bance  (243 posts) Tue Mar-31-09 02:38 PM
Original message
Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran—Or I Will
   
Edited on Tue Mar-31-09 02:39 PM by masuki bance
The message from Israel's new prime minister is stark: if the Obama administration doesn't prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, Israel may be forced to attack.
An Atlantic exclusive

In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly—or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself.

“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told me. He said the Iranian nuclear challenge represents a “hinge of history” and added that “Western civilization” will have failed if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

In unusually blunt language, Netanyahu said of the Iranian leadership, “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

History teaches Jews that threats against their collective existence should be taken seriously, and, if possible, preempted, he suggested. In recent years, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has regularly called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” and the supreme Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, this month called Israel a “cancerous tumor.”

But Netanyahu also said that Iran threatens many other countries apart from Israel, and so his mission over the next several months is to convince the world of the broad danger posed by Iran. One of his chief security advisers, Moshe Ya’alon, told me that a nuclear Iran could mean the end of American influence in the Middle East. “This is an existential threat for Israel, but it will be a blow for American interests, especially on the energy front. Who will dominate the oil in the region—Washington or Tehran?”

Netanyahu said he would support President Obama’s decision to engage Iran, so long as negotiations brought about a quick end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “How you achieve this goal is less important than achieving it,” he said, but he added that he was skeptical that Iran would respond positively to Obama’s appeals. In an hour-long conversation, held in the Knesset, Netanyahu tempered his aggressive rhetoric with an acknowledgement that nonmilitary pressure could yet work. “I think the Iranian economy is very weak, which makes Iran susceptible to sanctions that can be ratcheted up by a variety of means.” When I suggested that this statement contradicted his assertion that Iran, by its fanatic nature, is immune to pressure, Netanyahu smiled thinly and said, “Iran is a composite leadership, but in that composite leadership there are elements of wide-eyed fanaticism that do not exist right now in any other would-be nuclear power in the world. That’s what makes them so dangerous.”

He went on, “Since the dawn of the nuclear age, we have not had a fanatic regime that might put its zealotry above its self-interest. People say that they’ll behave like any other nuclear power. Can you take the risk? Can you assume that?” ....

Source


This guy hasn't learned that you cannot threaten Obama like that.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8308407

However would someone learn something like that when Obama is doing his best to make Carter look good.

o_hypocrisy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Tue Mar-31-09 02:43 PM
Response to Original message
1. What Obama should reply: Let the U.S. decide or lose your funding.

Too Funny. If a conservative suggest such an idea - verbatim - you'd be screaming about "American Imperialism"

Arctic Dave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Mar-31-09 02:44 PM
Response to Original message
2. By all means Israel, take them on yourself.

Like they've had to do for their whole existence ? Like they did in Iraq to the Osiris Reactor ?

Be careful of what you wish for.

WCGreen  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Tue Mar-31-09 02:50 PM
Response to Original message
4. BiBi...
   
You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran

That's sounds a lot like you...

Or the Right Wing Christians that offer conditioned support...
 
Every Man A King Donating Member (510 posts)  Tue Mar-31-09 02:54 PM
Response to Original message
5. "You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs"
   
Is he talking about Israel?

That sort of exchange speaks volumes.

jenmito  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Mar-31-09 02:55 PM
Response to Original message
6. He sounds like Cheney. Why is it OUR business to stop Iran from having nukes like ISRAEL has?
   
Edited on Tue Mar-31-09 02:58 PM by jenmito
Israel should be forced to get rid of their nukes. Why are THEY allowed to have them with our approval?! (I know the answer, but that doesn't make it right.)

Sebastian Doyle  (1000+ posts)  Tue Mar-31-09 02:56 PM
Response to Original message
7. This ******* lunatic is determined to start World War III
   
The Likud party is a handful of paranoid assholes determined to invent "the new Hitler" as an excuse for acting a lot like old Adolf themselves.

**cue the Alanis Morissette song**

Better Believe It  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Mar-31-09 03:17 PM
Response to Original message
13. So why should the right-wingnuts who rule Israel be allowed to have nuclear weapons?

   
jenmito Donating Member (1000+ posts)Tue Mar-31-09 03:26 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. They shouldn't. But they have way too much influence in Washington.

cboy4  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Tue Mar-31-09 06:04 PM
Response to Original message
28. Hopefully the IDF does start wiping out Iran's nuclear weapons
   
system.

Iran has said and acted aggressively enough to justify the devastating strikes.

This shall not go over well.

[NHSparky]

cboy--don't look up.  That shadow over your head is really a granite sandwich.

[Lord Undies]

This guy hasn't learned that you cannot threaten Obama like that.

How would he have learned?  All Ozero has done is campaign.  He has no referring history to consult.  Obama is just a flake puppet who rooms at the White House.

Besides, it wasn't a threat.  It was an educating statement, offering the puppet a chance to not be embarrassed again.

And the world laughs on.

[franksolich]

Oh my.

All along, I've been saying the cboy4 primitive has spunk.

That's why the cboy4 primitive is a second-tier primitive, ranked higher than 99.98% of the rest of the primitives on Skins's island.

[The Village Idiot]

Oh my.

All along, I've been saying the cboy4 primitive has spunk.

That's why the cboy4 primitive is a second-tier primitive, ranked higher than 99.98% of the rest of the primitives on Skins's island.

he might want to sleep with one eye open.

Bibi might have been talking about Obama being a cult with nuclear weapons

[Duke Nukum]

he might want to sleep with one eye open.

Bibi might have been talking about Obama being a cult with nuclear weapons

Well done!  H5!