Nuclear Iran represents existential threatNuclear Iran represents existential threat: Israel
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
LONDON, May 2 - The Israeli chief of staff said Tuesday that Iran's nuclear programme represented an existential threat to the Jewish state which required a concerted international response, AFP reported.
In a series of interviews on the eve of Independence Day, General Dan Halutz acknowledged growing fears about the intentions of the regime in Iran whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for Israel to be wiped off the map and described the Holocaust as a myth.
"If Iran comes into possession of atomic weapons, that would represent an existential threat to Israel with the current regime," Halutz said on Israeli radio.
"The regime in Tehran is pulling hard at the leash but I hope that it will not take the risk of actually breaking it."
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Friday that Iran had ignored a UN Security Council demand to halt uranium enrichment, which makes reactor fuel but can also be extended to make the core of an atom bomb.
Tehran insists it is only developing a peaceful nuclear energy programme, but Western powers and Israel fear Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, Israel has come to view Tehran as its number one enemy.
Prime minister designate Ehud Olmert compared Ahmadinejad to Nazi leader Adolph Hitler in a weekend interview, describing him as "the worst kind of psychopath".
Olmert however has said that international diplomacy is the best way to resolve the crisis rather than military action, despite calls by some Israeli politicians for a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities in an echo of the 1981 bombing of Iraq's French-built Osirak nuclear plant.
"First of all let the international community find what it wants to find, I think that is appropriate," Halutz told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
"We are part of the international community, we are not the sheriff of the region here. We should not get carried away, and speed ourselves up and carry out acts that are not in the right place, not the right time, before others try and do what has to be done."
Halutz rejected the idea that there was a danger that the point of no return would soon be passed and that Israel should set itself a deadline to take matters into its own hands.
"This obligation is not on our shoulders at this time, because the world understands that this is its task and I suggest we should not jump the gun," Halutz told Yediot.