Thursday, March 09, 2006

Israeli Military Options

Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's former chief of staff, said today that Israel has a military option against Iran and that it should keep it in mind. It should be used with the support of the American and European forces also but only once Iran is isolated both economically and diplomatically. He also said that air strikes would not destroy the program but put it back several years. Although Iran could retaliate with missiles Ya'alon said that he is confident that Israel could protect it's self with it's arrow 2 anti-missile systems.
More here

Iran Probably Biggest Challenge

Condoleezza Rice said today, "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran, whose policies are directed at developing a Middle East that would be 180 degrees different than the Middle East that we would like to see develop." She also branded Iran as a "central banker for terrorism".
More here

Iran Military Options Open

Martin Indyk, Former US Ambassador to Israel, said today while participating in an interview," Look, the Iranians have been for many years now building up cards that they can play in confrontation with what they refer to as "the great Satan, the United States". They have seen the United States as a threat to their ambitions in the region and that is why they have, first of all, built a position of influence in Lebanon through Hezbollah, which, by the way, also has an international infrastructure of terrorism that's sitting on the shelf and can be mobilized. They have gone to great pains to take control of a Palestinian card through direct control of Palestine Islamic Jihad - the terrorist organization that's been responsible for all the terrorist acts in the last year or so - and also through their relationship with Hamas, which is now going to take over the government in Palestinian areas. They also have a card now that they have built after we toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq, particularly in southern Iraq, where they have control over the Moqtada Sadr militia and the Bada brigades, which were trained in Iran before Saddam Hussein was toppled, something that the secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, has referred to today for the first time. But we've actually been watching it as the Iranians have built up this sphere of influence in Iraq which they can use, by the way, with Hezbollah people from Lebanon to cause, I think, considerable damage to American forces there if they so choose and can spur this sectarian warfare to a level that would make what we've seen in the last few weeks look like a picnic."
The full interview here

0 comments:

Post a Comment

 

Directory of News Blogs