Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran—Or I Will
The Atlantic
by Jeffrey Goldberg
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.
This is a two page article and is excellent…… CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE
This is so good, it is Ben Nitay aka Bibi Netanyahu, 1978:
A 28-year old Benyamin Netanyahu, calling himself Ben Nitay, debates on the 1978 US TV show “The Advocate” against Palestinian self-determination and intriguingly suggests West Bank and Gaza Palestinians could have Israeli citizenship. He is debated (or rather questioned) by Fouad Ajami, now professor at Johns Hopkins University’s SAIS.
Wild Thing’s comment……….
GO BIBI!!!!! Thank God he’s now the Prime Minister of Israel!
Obama is a coward, a communist for sure, but a coward.
Netanyahu and Israel are going stag to this party now. Obama is riding the peace dove in dealing with Iran. The only other scenario I can think of is if a real resistance movement builds in Iran itsself. However, a resistance movement would likely need outside aid and I don’t see Obama giving any support.
This situation is getting very close to the flash point.
If we are going to elect Presidents who aren’t U.S. citizens why couldn’t we elect Netanyahu? He’s more of an American that most people in O’s government. But I think this is Bibi’s last shot at it. He’d better do more than threaten. Just do it!
Tom, good point, I wonder if the resistance movement was thinking Obama might help them
or if they too could see what he was all
about. I wish we could help the resistance movement in Iran, so many of them have
been jailed and killed.
Horace, I sure would trade any second
for BiBi to be our president over the
communist in power we have.