Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Photo: AFP
Iran Viewpoint: Strategic Assessment Of Leader Of Iran’s Latest Remarks
By Mahdi Mohammadi, Iran Review – March 27, 2013
Two years ago, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was addressing the audience at a university in the United States. During that address, he noted that in his opinion, in the absence of a credible military threat to accompany such options as sanctions, negotiations and intelligence operations, it would not be possible to change Iran’s policy on its nuclear energy program.
Since that day, the same allegation has been frequently heard from both Netanyahu and a group of other officials of Israel. It seems that by stressing on the need for credible military threat, they actually mean that a series of measures should be taken to make Iran really believe that in case of the final failure of negotiations as a result of Iran’s intransigent insistence on its positions, the road would end not in the recognition of Iran as a nuclear power, but in inevitable war. Form the viewpoint of Israeli officials, one of the most important problems in the current strategic standoff between the West and Iran is that Iran does not take the West’s threats seriously. By referring to “credible military threat” Israel is only pointing to one thing: the West must pose such a serious threat to Iran that it would be believed and taken seriously by the Islamic Republic.
