Iranian threat should not to be taken lightly

The Looming Threat of a Nuclear Iran
By Bob Feferman @ American Thinker

Following the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel, we have seen a growing trend belittling the concerns of Netanyahu over the threat of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. These commentators contend that Iran is not really a serious threat to Israel or to world peace, and what really drives Iranian foreign policy is self-interest and survival rather than any evil intenions. This assertion flies in the face of reality and ignores basic historical facts. Armed with nuclear weapons, Iran would make the Middle East a much more dangerous part of the world. Israel has every right to be concerned, and so should all of us who value freedom.

The premise that Iran's key motivating factor is survival ignores the events of the past 30 years. Look at the list of Iranian sponsored terror attacks over this period, and you'll understand that these events had nothing to do with the "survival" of the Iranian regime. Indeed, the Islamic Republic of Iran has a much more sinister agenda in mind.


From The Israel Project

It funds terrorist groups in the following manner:

* Hamas: $20 million to $30 million annually. Iran pledged an additional $50 million to the Palestinians' Hamas-led government and lent its expertise as the group prepared to take over the Gaza Strip. Hamas members receive intensive training in Iran and from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas operates in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza;

* Hezbollah: $100 million to $200 million annually, plus a reported $300 million after the Hezbollah-Israel war in the summer of 2006. In violation of United Nations Resolution 1701, Iran has re-supplied the Shia terror group with Katyusha rockets, surface-to-air rockets and anti-tank weapons. Hezbollah uses Lebanon as its base;

* Iraq insurgents: $3 million monthly. Insurgents regularly receive intensive training in Iran. Iran provides explosively formed penetrators (EFP). Weapons captured from both Shia and Sunni groups bear markings of Iranian manufacture as recently as 2006;

* Palestinian Islamic Jihad: $2 million a year. PIJ operates in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza;

* Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command: No direct funding, but the terrorist organization runs Iranian training camps in Syria and Lebanon. PFLP-GC operates in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza;

* Taliban: Rocket-propelled grenades, C-4 explosives, 107mm mortars, small arms and surface-to-air missiles.

Iran's sponsorship of terror began in the 1980's. The government of Iran was responsible for masterminding the 1983 attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon that killed 241 Americans who were sent there on a peacekeeping mission. Those Marines were certainly no threat to the new Islamic Republic of Iran.

No one can claim that U.S. foreign policy during the Clinton era was a threat to anyone, yet Iranian sponsored terror actually increased during this period. In 1996, Iran was responsible for the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Dahran, Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. airmen who were supporting the U.N. mandated "no-fly zones" over Iraq. Few Americans know that it was also during this period that Iran reached out to the new terrorist on the block- Osama Bin-Laden.

Since the goal of Iran is exporting the Islamic revolution through its sponsorship of terror, things will only get worse if we allow the world's leading state sponsor of terror to acquire the ultimate weapon of terror. We ignore this threat at our own peril.

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