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  Wiping Israel from the Map: The Threat from Tehran

Wiping Israel from the Map The Threat from Tehran

By Dieter Bednarz and Erich Follath

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shocked the world when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." World reaction was prompt. But Iran insists. Just how much of a threat does the Iranian leadership pose to Israel and the world?

It was a promise to his religious conservative supporters, a warning to his pragmatic, liberal opponents, and a threat to the rest of the world. "Allah willing, this is the beginning of a new era in the life of our nation," said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 24, when he cast his vote in the country's presidential election. Soon afterwards, Ahmadinejad, the son of poor parents, a self-proclaimed clean-up man and mayor of Tehran felt that Allah had given him the mandate he required: For an outsider candidate, he had achieved a glowing electoral success, claiming more than 60 percent of votes.

Ahmadinejad, 49, initially seemed humbled by his success. At his inauguration, he respectfully kissed the hand of his mentor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 66. The new president seemed even more conciliatory at his first press conference, where he said that he had no intention of closing the stock exchange because, as he had suggested during the campaign, it is "un-Islamic." When asked about foreign policy, he insisted that Iran is a responsible member of the world community, that it is not interested in war and that it is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons. By September, Ahmadinejad, who may be well-versed in domestic policy but has no international political experience, made his first aggressive speech, taking the undiplomatic approach of sharply criticizing what he called the evil West in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

And now, with his recent anti-Israeli tirade, the political hardliner has outdone himself. He may have looked cheerful enough when he took to the podium in his shirtsleeves last Wednesday in Tehran, but his words sent a chill down the world's collective spine. Speaking as if he were a terrorist leader, and not the elected president of perhaps the most important regional power in the Middle East, he called for the destruction of an entire state: "Israel must be wiped off the map!" His audience of 4,000, at a conference in Tehran titled "A World without Zionism," broke out into the rhythmic chanting of what amounted to a call to arms: "Marg bar Israel!" (death for Israel). On Friday, the regime added flame to the president's fire, announcing a "Jerusalem Day" in Tehran and calling upon tens of thousands of Iranians to "rise up against Zionists and infidels."

Outrage and indignation

While the Islamic world has once again remained silent, the reaction in the West to Ahmadinejad's tirade of hate was sharp and unanimous. "Unbelievable and outrageous," said the US government. Iran's ambassador in Berlin was sent home. Even the Russians, closely allied with Tehran both economically and politically, expressed their outrage. But the sharpest reaction came from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who issued an unveiled threat, saying that the attitude of the Iranians toward Israel and towards terrorism and nuclear weapons was unacceptable. He also said that at some point people would start demanding the West to do something and that it seemed unimaginable that a country with such an attitude should ever possess atomic weapons.

Not surprisingly, the level of indignation against what Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres called this "insane regime" was especially high. The Tel Aviv daily newspaper Haaretz even compared Iran's president with Adolf Hitler, "that other elected leader who promised to destroy the Jews." A number of high-ranking politicians have called for Iran's exclusion from the United Nations, on the grounds that Tehran has violated the UN Charter -- a symbolic but unrealistic demand.

But the Iranian's president's hate speech did set off speculations among military and intelligence experts, as well as in the academic world, that it could prompt Israel to launch a preventive strike against Iran. It is widely believed that plans have been underway for months to launch surgical strikes against about a dozen Iranian nuclear facilities. The United States has delivered 500 of its so-called "bunker-busting" missiles to Israel, weapons that would be of no use in the Israelis' conflict with the Palestinians -- but would be effective in a coordinated Israeli-US attack on Iran's well-secured, frequently underground nuclear storage facilities on the outskirts of the major cities of Tehran, Isfahan and Natanz.

Efraim Kam, Deputy Director of the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Tel Aviv, believes that an attack "must be the last option." First, he says, the global community must once again try to isolate Iran internationally, and attempt to monitor the flow of funds out of the country. "Their financial assistance to the Palestinian terrorist organization Islamic Jihad has increased dramatically in recent years," says Kam.

And to make matters worse ...

Last Wednesday, at almost exactly the same time as Ahmadinejad's rabble-rousing speech, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Israeli city of Hadera, killing five Israelis. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing, and Israel retaliated with air strikes in the Gaza Strip -- dealing yet another blow to what had seemed to be a promising start to a workable relationship between the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships.

Rarely has there been so much fluctuation in the political situation in the Middle East as in recent weeks, when rays of hope have alternated with ominous dark clouds -- making the Iranian president's speech seem all the more explosive.

The Syrians have come under intense pressure following the publication of a UN report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis. The paper implicates Syria in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. In return for a guarantee that his regime will be allowed to survive, Syrian President Bashar Assad could yield to US pressure and curtail his support for radical Palestinian groups, as well as tighten Syrian control over the country's border with Iraq. This would potentially prevent many Al-Qaida fighters from infiltrating Baghdad.

If Assad were to pull out his last remaining intelligence agents from Lebanon, long dominated by Syria, the Hezbollah militia, which is supported by Tehran and Damascus, could ultimately be forced to yield to UN demands that it disarm. Lebanon's now-faltering cedar revolution could reemerge and transform the country into the Arab world's first democracy -- possibly with decisive consequences for countries like Egypt that have shown the beginnings of a willingness to reform.

Israel, the region's only nuclear power (although it has never officially admitted to that role), would soon be forced to rethink its occupation policies in the West Bank and grant the Palestinians a viable state.