Word out of Tehran is that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered fresh terror attacks on the West over its overt and covert support of opposition groups in Syria who are attempting to overthrow the regime there. Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus is Iran’s most important ally in the Middle East and Tehran believes his overthrow would have grave consequences for Iran and for Hesbollah, its terrorist proxy in Lebanon. Tehran has been assisting Assad in a wide variety of military and non-military ways and Khamenei’s order is an attempt to intimidate the West into withdrawing its support and letting the religious/civil war in Syria play itself out to its bloody end, an end which Iran hopes will see Assad remaining in power.
It's also the latest excuse for Iran’s terrorist attacks against the West, which Tehran has been carrying out for almost 35 years now, since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and long before the conflict in Syria erupted. In plain fact, Iran is at war with the West and has been since it became an Islamic state when the Shah was overthrown. It carries out terrorist attacks, funds and supports terrorist organizations and activities, is actively working towards the demise of the United States (the Great Satan) and Israel (the Little Satan) in particular and other Western powers in general and wants nothing more than to destroy the West and establish its hegemony in its stead, all in the name of Islam of course. It's using Western support of the opposition in Syria to excuse its terrorist activities and to mask their true intent and purpose...to destroy Israel and the U.S. first and the West second and to make Islam supreme everywhere after that. It's just the latest excuse alright and don’t think that there won’t be many others as Iran pursues its evil, maniacal, murderous intentions.
Of all that there is no doubt, which is of course why it is absolutely imperative to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran’s hands, to attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons development facilities and keep her from becoming a nuclear power. Iran wants to possess nuclear weapons for one reason and one reason only, to use them in a first strike against Israel in order to wipe the Jewish state off the map, to remove it from the face of the earth, and then to blackmail, threaten and intimidate the United States into submission. There is no doubt about any of that either, just as there is no doubt that Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons, that the United States under President Obama will not launch a preemptive military strike to prevent this from happening (which is the only thing that could possibly succeed), that even if Romney wins the presidential election in November it may be too late by the time he’s sworn in in January and that Israel will launch a preemptive military strike on its own soon because she’ll have to if she wants to survive.
Make no mistake, if Iran gets nuclear weapons she’ll launch them against Israel as soon as she can and Israel’s very survival will be jeopardized. A preemptive military strike by the Israelis will have terrible consequences for Israel and the Middle East but the consequences would be infinitely more terrible if Iran had nuclear weapons. Israel has no choice and knows it.
That’s no excuse, that’s reality. That’s also U.S. President Obama’s feckless foreign policy for you.
Jerry Philipson is a retired grandfather who has spent many years working in non-profit social service agencies in Canada and the United States. He holds dual Canadian and American citizenship and has been passionate about politics, civil liberties, freedom and democracy for virtually his whole life. He is particularly interested in the Middle East and America and believes that it is vital for people of good heart and good conscience to speak out against tyranny and dishonesty and to stand up and defend and protect Western values, principles and institutions.
