Wednesday, May 30, 2012

30-May-12: Not blunting the Iranian nuclear terrorism threat will have multiple consequences

The AP caption says this is Iranian "supreme leader", Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
 and the members of the "Experts Assembly" in Tehran [Image Source].
A living, actual nightmare: these are the people whose fingers
are on Iran's soon-to-be-nuclear button.
Chemi Shalev writing in yesterday's Haaretz: "Dennis Ross: Saudi King Vowed to Obtain Nuclear Bomb after Iran"
Former senior U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross confirmed Tuesday that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has explicitly warned the U.S. that if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will do so as well. "If they get nuclear weapons, we will get nuclear weapons," Abdullah told Ross in April 2009. Ross said he responded to the king's assertion with a lengthy appeal against nuclear proliferation, but after hearing him out, the king responded by repeating the same line. In February, the London Times quoted a "senior Saudi official" as saying that Riyadh would launch a "twin-track nuclear weapons program" should Tehran realize its ambition of obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Saudi threat is one of the prime factors motivating Washington's campaign to stop Tehran's nuclear program. 
An editorial entitled "Iran's Bid for Hegemony" in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Watan (translated from the Arabic) states their viewpoint plainly:
Quite simply, the Iranian nuclear program is proceeding as the leadership in Tehran wishes. It is based on the dream of reviving the Persian Empire and reinstating its control over the region. This agenda is based on territorial/confessional [Shiite] expansionism, digging up the past from its grave in the service of this expansionist policy. The Iranian project in the region is no longer a secret. Even if it assumes different forms and adopts various guises, such as "backing the resistance against Israel," it ultimately aims at ensuring Tehran's control over the so-called "Shiite Crescent." This is the prelude to taking over the rest of the region... [Al-Watan-Saudi Arabia, Middle East Mirror, May 29, 2012]

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