Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Power Line Blog points to this Jim Hoagland item on the Israel/Iran nuclear connection. Ariel Sharon's government has their eye on Iran's reactor, and they are getting close to the point where the plant is loaded with fuel - the point at which the Israelis struck against Iraq's facility all those years ago.
Israel's Red Flag on Iran (washingtonpost.com)
A grim warning from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to President Bush that Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than U.S. intelligence believes has triggered concern here that Israel is seriously considering a preemptive strike against Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor.
Sharon dramatized his forecast by bringing Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant, a three-star army officer who serves as his military secretary, to a meeting with Bush in the Oval Office two weeks ago, U.S. and Israeli sources tell me. Galant showered a worried-looking Bush with photographs and charts from a thick dossier on Iran's covert program.
So much for the news. Now the analysis: Oy. And vey...
Two years ago, "Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran":
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world"...
