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Should Israel Have a Red Line on Iran?

(Boston Globe) Michael Oren - Iran's irrational rulers daily pledge to wipe Israel off the map while rapidly producing the nuclear capability to do it. Can they be stopped, and, if so, by whom? Is there still time? Israeli security experts agree that sanctions, though damaging to the Iranian economy, have not slowed Iran's nuclear program. They agree that diplomacy, in spite of increasing flexibility in the international community's bargaining position, has not produced a single Iranian concession. A nuclear-empowered Iran, Israeli commentators concur, presents not one but several existential threats to the Jewish state. The most obvious threat is that Iran will mount a nuclear warhead on one of its many long-range missiles and fire it at Tel Aviv. Israelis scarcely believe that the regime that cleared mine fields with Iranian children, championed the suicide bomber, and planned a terrorist attack in Washington can be deterred by a Western nuclear umbrella. When even "moderate" Iranian leaders declare that they can destroy Israel with a single nuclear bomb, Israelis must take the radicals seriously. When President Obama tells the UN that "a nuclear-armed Iran is a challenge that cannot be contained," Israelis could not agree more. "The relevant question is not when Iran will get the bomb," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently told the UN. "The relevant question is at what stage can we no longer stop Iran from getting the bomb." That question, Netanyahu explained, can only be answered by drawing a red line across the only observable - and vulnerable - component of Iran's nuclear program: enrichment. The writer is Israel's ambassador to the U.S.
2012-10-10 00:00:00
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