IRAN: A couple of very interesting articles I found today while

[Gloria]

rummaging around doing the WMW:

They involve the Iran situation...maybe there's hope?


The first is a commentary from the Daily Star in Lebanon:


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=79075


Israel never liked Bush's democratization scheme
By Yossi Alpher
Commentary by
Wednesday, January 31, 2007


The second is an analysis from a writer who shows up on other good sites like Asia Times Online....
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36369

Israeli Realism on Iran Belies Threat Rhetoric
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (IPS) - When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared last week at the Herzliya conference that Israel could not risk another "existential threat" such as the Nazi holocaust, he was repeating what has become the dominant theme in Israel's campaign against Iran -- that it cannot tolerate an Iran with the technology that could be used to make nuclear weapons, because Iran is fanatically committed to the physical destruction of Israel.

The internal assessment by the Israeli national security apparatus of the Iranian threat, however, is more realistic than the government's public rhetoric would indicate.

MORE

[leftchick]

1. well that certainly beats the US M$M reports

they are enough to make one build a bunker. :(

[applegrove]

2. Hopefully the whole thing is meant only to destabilize their leader's base.

We can still hope can't we.

[Gloria]

3. KICKING in light of all the sabre rattling

[oblivious]

4. Defence Minister explains Israel's real fear about Iran

From your second article:

Occasionally, Israeli officials do let slip indications that their fears of Iran are less extreme than the "second holocaust" rhetoric would indicate. Last November, Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh explained candidly in an interview with the Jerusalem Post that the fear was not that such weapons would be launched against Israel but that the existence of nuclear capability would interfere with Israel's recruitment of new immigrants and cause more Israelis to emigrate to other countries.