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Make love not war? Mahmoud Ahmedinejad takes a break from threatening Israel's destruction for a wet kiss from an admirer.
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| By Israel Insider staff April 15, 2008 |
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As the war of worlds in the geopolitical sandbox escalated to take in additional galaxies, an Iranian military official answered an Israeli minister's warning of mass destruction in the event Iran attacks the Jewish State with a fresh threat of his own. Iranian deputy chief of staff, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, said Tuesday that "We are not worried by the recent Israeli maneuvers, but "If Israel wants to take any action against the Islamic republic, we will eliminate Israel from the scene of the universe," the Iranian Mehr agency quoted him as saying.
Ben-Eliezer had warned that "Iran will be wiped off the face of the earth if it dares to fire any missile at us." Later in the week, confronted with restraints that Israel's policy has been to not respond tit-for-tat to existential threats, the corpulent Infrastructure Minister refused to retract his apoplectic apocalyptic statement: "I do not regret the threats I directed at Iran and its leaders. I am sick of receiving threats to Israel's existence on a daily basis."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad started the existential threat cycle by threatening to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and even holding a conference dedicated to envisioning "a world without Zionism."
Israel evidently is not amused, but it appears that the powers that be here have decided again to be BMEWSed. DebkaFile reports that Israel requested a hook-up to the BMEWS early warning to defend itself against a possible Iranian missile attack. Israel expects to be targeted in the event of a US or Israeli strike against Iran, or any war situation involving Israel, Syria or Hizballah. Tehran might also stage a pre-emptive strike if early intelligence was received of an impending US or Israeli attack.
DEBKAfile's military sources report the system operates from three global centers ? the US Thule Air Base in Greenland, the Clear Air Force Station in Alaska, and the British RAF long-range radar station at Fylingdales, Yorkshire.
This is, DEBKA reports, the third time Israel has been connected to the BMEWS. The first was in 1991 before the first Gulf War and the second in 2003 before the US invasion of Iraq.
These sources stressed that Iran could even decide to lash out against Israel after the event in reprisal for any American assault, not necessarily one against its nuclear sites. The hook-up to the US early warning system will improve Israel's chances of leveraging its Arrow and Patriot anti-missile assets, and the US to prepare its own Israel-based Patriot batteries.
American military sources says that any Iranian missile barrage targets Tel Aviv will prompt Israel to counter with a missile attack on Tehran, other Iranian sites, and quite possibly Damascus or other targets in Syria. |
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