Iran can still be stopped

From THE JERUSALEM POST, translated from Binyamin Netanyahu's website, Jan. 1, 2007 ...

It is possible to prevent the political and security landslide. Iran can still be stopped.

The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is rapidly leading Israel to a political and security downfall while Iran is racing towards achieving a nuclear weapons capability.
While Iran's leaders are busy denying the Holocaust, they also continue to announce their intentions of wiping the State of Israel off the map....

Let's examine recent developments, which all have one common denominator: weak leadership.

• Hizbullah and Hamas are rapidly arming themselves ... The government continues not to react.
• Recently, the US secretary of defense said he was unable to rule out a possibility that Iran would launch a nuclear attack against Israel. ...
• The Baker-Hamilton Report recommends that the US engage in talks with Iran and Syria ...it encourages a fundamental change of direction in American policy: from isolation to negotiation.
• The Baker-Hamilton Report also argues that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a condition to stabilizing the rest of the Middle East's core problems....

What can be learned from these bleak developments? What is the connection between them?
Weakness invites pressure. The weakness of the Olmert government only expedites the decline of Israel's stature, both in the Middle East and around the world. If the Israeli government accepts the ongoing firing of Kassams at its cities, why shouldn't the world? If Olmert's government reacts limply to Iran's statements about its intentions to destroy Israel, why should we expect the world to act against them?

Baker and Hamilton described the current mood in their report: "The majority of the political establishment in Israel has grown tired of a continuous state of a nation at war." What can we say about such words when even Olmert himself said similar things during an address he gave last year in the US: "We are tired of fighting. We are tired of being heroes. Tired of winning. Tired of beating our enemies." When even Israel's leadership sends out a message of fatigue and weakness, why should we be surprised that the world agrees?

The main principle which we should follow is this: The key to promising the existence of Israel is developing strength. ...In the meantime, we must focus on one urgent task: to curb the security and political downfall and bring Iran to a halt. This mission is possible, but it demands action on parallel shores:

• The diplomatic and PR effort: We must immediately launch an intense, international, public relations front focusing first and foremost on the US. The goal being to encourage President Bush to take up his specific promises not to allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make it clear to the government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the US and the entire world, not only Israel. We must make it clear that it is in the utmost interest of the free world to prevent fundamental Islamic regimes from building an atom bomb.
• The independent defense effort: Simultaneously, and with no connection to our efforts overseas, Israel must make every necessary step that would enable it to independently protect its citizens. The government must subjugate all national efforts to this higher cause. It must instruct the IDF, security branches, intelligence agencies and the bodies charged with protecting the home front to take immediate action to remove the existential threat Israel faces.

....The time has come for the Israeli government to put our existence in its utmost priority. If it does so, I guarantee that both my party members and myself will give our full support in preparation against the Iranian threat, as we did in the Lebanon war. If the government does not come to its senses immediately, Mr. Olmert must make way for another leadership that would guarantee both our existence and our future.