IRAN AT CENTER OF THREAT

A Ring of Threats to Israel Emanating from Iran - Aluf Benn and Shmuel Rosner
As outgoing deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh waited Tuesday for his successor, Matan Vilnai, Sneh expressed concern over what he saw as complacency vis-a-vis Iran. The Iranians are approaching zero hour of nuclear operability, which they are projected to achieve between 2009 and 2011. Sneh sees Israel as being surrounded by a ring of threats emanating from Iran and its military industries. The Palestinian Grad missile [Katyusha] that hits Ashkelon tomorrow - from Iran. The weapons stockpiled by Hizbullah - from Iran. The Syrian army's rearmament - bought with Iranian money. Above all, there are Iran's attempts to obtain nuclear weapons, which translates into an intolerable existential threat to Israel. (Ha'aretz)

Iran's Proxy War: Tehran Is On the Offensive Against Us Throughout the Middle East - Joseph Lieberman (Wall Street Journal)

• The Iranian government has been using the Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah to train and organize Iraqi extremists, who are responsible in turn for the murder of American service members. In February, the U.S. military stated that forensic evidence has implicated Iran in the death of at least 170 U.S. soldiers.
• The Quds Force - a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps whose mission is to finance, arm and equip foreign Islamist terrorist movements - has taken groups of up to 60 Iraqi insurgents at a time and brought them to three camps near Tehran, where they have received instruction in the use of mortars, rockets, improvised explosive devices and other deadly tools of guerrilla warfare that they use against our troops. Iran has also funded its Iraqi proxies generously, to the tune of $3 million a month.
• Iran is acting aggressively and consistently to undermine moderate regimes in the Middle East, establish itself as the dominant regional power and reshape the region in its own ideological image.
• No responsible leader in Washington desires conflict with Iran. But every leader has a responsibility to acknowledge that the Iranian government, by its actions, has all but declared war on us and our allies in the Middle East. America now has a solemn responsibility to utilize the instruments of our national power to convince Tehran to change its behavior, including the immediate cessation of its training and equipping extremists who are killing our troops.
• It is of course everyone's hope that diplomacy alone can achieve this goal. However, any diplomacy with Iran is more likely to be effective if it is backed by a credible threat of force - credible in the dual sense that we mean it, and the Iranians believe it.