The threat is to Israel

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/03/03/18483279.php


The threat is to Israel
by Ted Rudow III,MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.com )
Monday Mar 3rd, 2008 2:21 PM
In 2003, the Iranians sent a very comprehensive offer of negotiations to Washington. In that offer, they actually listed the points that they would be willing to negotiate, and they included the nuclear program in Iran; Iran’s support for Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic jihad, and even the Beirut Declaration, in which Arab states proposed that they all recognize Israel in exchange for the recognition of—


the establishment of a Palestinian state. So all the agenda items that we claim to be interested in were in this offer, which was delivered by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran to Washington. Not only did we not reply to that offer, but we actually reprimanded the Swiss ambassador for having the temerity to bring it to us.
Now, that was the policy of the old government in Tehran, the government headed by President Khatami. The policy was, let’s extend a hand of friendship to the United States, let’s offer to negotiate. The other hard-liners then said, you tried that, and it didn’t work. We’ve got to try another policy, which is, you’ve got to make life as miserable as you can for the United States, because the policy of trying have a dialogue with them didn’t produce any results.
Is US policy today shoring up Ahmadinejad? I think so, and I even think that, not just shoring him up, we helped bring him to power. So I think that actually helped create the climate in which a conservative, militantly anti-American figure like Ahmadinejad was able to rise. It’s because when we had a more moderate president who was talking about the dialogue of civilizations, we just pushed him aside and didn’t talk to him.
STEPHEN KINZER

Iran’s not a threat to the U.S., just as Iraq wasn’t a threat to the U.S. The threat is to Israel, which has always worried about any of its neighbors getting ahold of nuclear weapons. Israel, of course, has many nuclear weapons. So Israel is egging on the U.S. to do something about it, and is hinting that if the U.S. doesn’t stop the Iranian nuclear program, then Israel will—the same way it stopped Iraq’s nuclear program years ago, by blowing up their reactor. The U.S. professes that it supports democracy in the Middle East yet when there was a democratic government in Iran the U.S. destroyed it.
Ted Rudow III,MA