Thursday, November 10, 2011

Excuse us for being right

Boaz Bismuth

Even if the IAEA has finally woken up to reality, it did not tell those of us in Israel anything we didn't know. The world may have experienced a "revelation" in Vienna, as it found out that Iran is producing nuclear weapons, but Jerusalem has been raising the alarm about Iran for nearly 20 years. For a long time the international community has been calling Israel paranoid. What do they have to say now? Iran managed to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, including American intelligence. Remember the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, which claimed there was no evidence Iran had renewed its nuclear program?

The same enlightened world that failed to lift a finger 70 years ago once again chose to bury its head in the sand regarding the new threat gripping the Jewish people. Since its founding, the Islamic Republic of Iran has made no secret of its desire to exterminate the "Zionist entity." But for the world's intellectuals, this was merely rhetoric. In a 2001 sermon, then Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani said that "all we need to annihilate Israel is a single nuclear bomb." The speech did not ruffle anyone's Christmas preparations. Only after the Natanz reactor came to light in 2002 did Europe send its troika (the foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany) to Tehran. It's a good thing they didn't arrive by boat.

On November 15, 2004, the world breathed a sigh of relief. The European troika had signed a "historic" agreement with Iran in which the Islamic Republic agreed to suspend uranium enrichment. This was European diplomacy at its finest. Israel was unable to muster the proper level of enthusiasm, and excuse us for being right. In August 2005, Iran resumed uranium enrichment. A year before that, Iran's spiritual leader Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa saying that developing nuclear weapons is forbidden by Islam. It's unclear whether he made this statement before or after prayers.

By the way, the Times of London was already reporting by December 14, 2009 that Iranian documents from 2007 suggested Iran was building detonators for nuclear weapons. But it took the IAEA a while longer. Between 2006 and 2008, the U.N. Security Council passed four rounds of "lite" sanctions against Iran. The next round of sanctions are expected to be "crippling." In the meantime, they are crippling China and Russia more than anyone else.

The IAEA report has opened the world's eyes. It has driven home the point that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev can accuse Israel of "dangerous rhetoric" till the cows come home. The presidents of France and the U.S. can call Netanyahu a "liar" until they're blue in the face. That same "liar" had already warned in 1996 that Iran poses the greatest existential threat to Israel since 1948.

The ball is no longer in Iran's court. It is in the court of the international community, which is supposed to prevent another "never again." It is supposed to obviate the need for another "I stand here with Six Million Accusers," speech, in the words of Attorney General Gideon Hausner at the opening Eichmann trial. Yes, that is the level of danger we are facing.

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