Guess who's afraid of Iran?

[Cheetah786]

The Israel-Palestine peace meeting in Annapolis, Maryland was a success in at least one respect. It brought together every Arab state involved, including Saudi Arabia and Syria.

According to many Middle East experts, the coming together of Arab nations at the request of President Bush indicates that Arabs are in such fear of Iran and its efforts to dominate the region that they are willing to cooperate with the United States more than ever before.

In a New York Times op-ed article, author Michael B. Oren writes: "…participants in the conference were above all motivated by their fear of a radical and relentlessly aggressive Iran." He went on to point to "the success of the Iranian proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as the expansion of Iranian influence westward into the Iraqi vacuum."

That analysis reinforces my belief that the United States could get these same Arab states to recognize that they must help us in Iraq or suffer the consequences of an ultimate Iranian victory when we leave. "Helping us" means sending troops, spending money and apprehending and deterring terrorists in their countries who are seeking jihad – holy war – against the U.S. in Iraq and elsewhere. The U.S. has refused to make the threat of leaving Iraq dependent on the offers of help from these Arab countries in the region who have more to lose than we do by our withdrawal of military forces from Iraq. This is the moment for President Bush to deliver such an ultimatum to our Arab regional allies.
Many in the media are crowing about The Times’ recognition that the surge in Iraq has been successful. For so long, The Times printed article after article that we were losing the war on the various Iraqi battlefields.

What caused many in the media to chortle was the Times editorial of November 30th which opened with "There has been so much horrible news out of Iraq for so long that it is natural to celebrate better news. Sending another 30,000 American troops into Iraq has made life better: attacks are down, as are the number of American and Iraqi casualties."

Imagine how much better off we would have been today, if we had followed the advice of General Eric Shenseki, who was forced to retire after testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 25, 2003. The senior ranking Democrat on the committee asked, "Gen. Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?" Shinseki replied, "In specific numbers, I would have to rely on the combatant commander's exact requirements. But I …would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers, are probably, you know, a figure that would be required…[Iraq is a large country with competing ethnic groups] so it takes significant ground forces to maintain a safe and secure environment to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this."

On the other hand, the Times is right when it states time and time again that there cannot be a successful conclusion to Iraq’s dilemma unless and until the Iraqi government agrees to a political reconstruction of that government, sharing political power and oil revenues among the three groups – Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. The Shiites – a majority of 60 percent and supported by Iran – appear permanently unwilling to consent to such an arrangement.

In its November 30th editorial, The Times mentions that the day before, six bodies were removed from the Tigris River "handcuffed and showed signs of having been tortured. And five, including a child, had been beheaded."

We are never going to quell the refusal of the Shia to share power with the Sunni minority unless and until the overwhelmingly Sunni majority in the Arab world – 80 percent of all Muslims – flex their muscles in Iraq, offsetting the muscle of Iran in that country. If we were successful in marshalling those Sunni countries to help us, we could then turn to the leaders of the new France under Sarkozy, and the new Germany under Merkel, leaders who have made clear they see their future with the U.S. unlike their predecessors Chirac and Schroeder. They too might then join us with troops and funding. If they did, the United Kingdom under Gordon Brown might reverse its policy of leaving Iraq. Why doesn’t President Bush try that approach?

By near unanimous consent, the leading expert on Israel, Palestine and the Muslim world is Bernard Lewis. In a Wall Street Journal column of November 26th, Dr. Lewis made the key statement, commenting on a permanent peace between the Israelis and Palestinians: "Without genuine acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state…peace cannot be negotiated." We know that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, refused to allow Israel to be described as a Jewish state, as requested by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in any document signed by him, and the representatives of Saudi Arabia, in advance of the conference, stated they would not shake hands with representatives of Israel. Shaking hands is not an imprimatur of approval; it is a social grace. If you can’t even shake hands at a peace conference in advance of any final decisions, why should you be believed following a signed agreement when you do shake hands? I am discouraged, but still hopeful. In diplomacy, what we see in public is not necessarily what's happening behind the scenes. At some point, however, even the most belligerent of participants and their supporters must conclude that beheading any innocent person, but particularly a five-year-old child, is savagery at its worst. Shaking hands in public would have been a modest first step towards civilized behavior.
Edward I. Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, is a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave.

World Tribune — Koch: Guess who's afraid of Iran?

I call this Divide ane rule what do u guys think?

 

[Cheetah786]

he threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons must not be underestimated, was the message government officials sent out on Tuesday after the release of a US intelligence report claiming that Teheran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but was continuing to enrich uranium.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that he was familiar with the report that had been shown to him by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during the Annapolis peace summit last week.

"I am familiar with the American intelligence assessment," Barak said following a meeting with Hungarian Chief of Staff Gen. Andras Havril. "Nevertheless, I say again that Iran is today a central threat on the world and the State of Israel."

He said that the world and Israel needed to take steps to confront the threat and to thwart it. "There is a lot that can be done with regard to the Iranian nuclear program but it is important to mention that words do not stop missiles," the defense minister said. "Action is needed in the form of sanctions, in the diplomatic sphere and in other spheres as well."

Last month, Barak said that a military operation was a viable option for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.

"We cannot take any option off the table and we need to study operational aspects," Barak said at a Labor Party meeting in Beersheba. "This is not just for the coming months but also for the coming two years."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the opening of a meeting with the Italian deputy prime minister that the report only emphasizes and strengthens the need for the international community to tighten sanctions on Iran so that it will not be able to produce nuclear weapons.

According to Olmert, the report's findings were brought up during his meetings with Washington officials soon after the Middle East Peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland last week.

Regardless of the fact that the report said that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons plan, the fact was that such a plan did indeed exist until 2003.

"The US still plans to continue to try to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. We will make every effort - first and foremost with our friends in the US - to prevent the production of this type of weapon," he said.

In response to Israeli speculation that the report's findings would weaken American-backed support for military action against Iran, Barak emphasized that the issue of its nuclear program was still relevant.

"It is possible that this is correct, but I do not think that it is our place to make assessments about US [policy]. It is our responsibility to ensure that the correct things are done. Constantly speaking about the Iranian threat, as we have done recently, is not the right thing to do… words do not stop missiles," Barak told Army Radio.

"There are differences in the assessments of different organizations in the world about this, and only time will tell who is right," he added.

National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that irrespective of the US intelligence report, "Israel must continue to act in every way against the Iranian nuclear threat."

"This report is totally fine, it makes me smile, but on the other hand Israel and the defense establishment are working under the premise that Iran is in fact heading directly towards [a nuclear weapon]" Ben Eliezer told Army Radio, adding, "This is exactly one of the issues over which the state of Israel must take no risk."

Similarly, government officials said Monday night that the new report had not lessened Israeli concerns, since enriched uranium can be used both for civilian and military purposes.

According to the report, Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium. That means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior US intelligence officials said Monday.
'US report should not deter world' | Jerusalem Post