Comment & Debate
Mortimer Zuckerman. “The World Cannot Live With the Threat of a Nuclear Iran”. US News and World Report. March 23, 2009 – Nuclear Iran will be a threat to U.S. national security, worldwide energy security, the efficacy of multilateralism, and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Having defied the world so brazenly, it might become overconfident enough to believe that its conventional or proxy forces could operate without fear of serious reprisals from the United States, Israel, or any other power. It will be emboldened to use terrorism to threaten or subvert others in the area—especially those who might be inclined to pursue peace with Israel. Pro-Western Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the gulf states sense the Iranian threat, and if Iran succeeds in going nuclear, they may decide to join Iran rather than fight it. And Iran, through its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and the Baath Party in Iraq, has the capacity to put direct pressure on Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinians, and the Iraqis. Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands would join radical Islamist groups in the belief that Islamism is on the march.
US President George Bush: “The international community must come together to make it very clear to Iran that we will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapons. Iran would be dangerous if it had a nuclear weapon.”[1]
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that it is ‘absolutely intolerable’ for Tel Aviv to accept the threat of a nuclear Iran.[2]