THE NUMBER ONE DANGER TO THE WORLD TODAY

Last April, famed theoretical physicist Haim Harari, Chairman of the Davidson Institute of Science Education and former president (1988-2001) of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, gave a speech entitled “View from the Eye of the Storm.” It is a fascinating discursion by a brilliant mind on the conflict between Western Civilization and Islam.

The key quote we’ll focus on is this:

The number one danger to the world today is Iran and its regime. It definitely has ambitions to rule vast areas and to expand in all directions. It has an ideology, which claims supremacy over Western culture. It is ruthless. It has proven that it can execute elaborate terrorist acts without leaving too many traces, using Iranian Embassies.

It is clearly trying to develop nuclear weapons. Its so-called moderates and conservatives play their own virtuoso version of the “good-cop versus bad-cop” game. Iran sponsors Syrian terrorism, it is certainly behind much of the action in Iraq, it is fully funding the Hezbolla and, through it, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it performed acts of terror at least in Europe and in South America and probably also in Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia, and it truly leads a multi-national terror consortium, which includes, as minor players, Syria, Lebanon and certain Shiite elements in Iraq. Nevertheless, most European countries still trade with Iran, try to appease it and refuse to read the clear signals.

From a different perspective, however, Iran is not “the number one danger to the world today.” Yes, Iran is waging war upon the United States, is the primary sponsor of terrorism in Iraq, and will soon be capable of indulging in nuclear blackmail and terror. Yet it is not Iran that is the world’s primary danger. It is Colin Powell’s State Department which is waging war against George W. Bush and is doing everything it can to keep Iran’s Islamofascist regime in power.

The State Department is not simply guilty of sins of omission – refusing to recognize the danger of Iran and refusing to do anything about it. Rather, it has actively taken the side of Iran in its desperation for a “détente” with the ayatollah terror-masters. This is far, far more heinous than the “Iran-Contra” scandal with which the liberals tried to destroy Ronald Reagan’s presidency in 1986-87.

William Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East and the bureau he heads is not only dedicated to keeping Iran’s ayatollahs in power, but also to help John Kerry in November by ruining President Bush’s attempts to bring peace and stability to Iraq. He is doing this not only out of treasonous conviction but at the direction of his boss, Colin Powell – who has been guaranteed to be Kerry’s Secretary of Defense.

Let me make this clear: Colin Powell’s State Department is cooperating with the government of Iran in a joint effort to defeat George Bush in November.

Here is an example. As Michael Ledeen revels in his column this week, The Iranian Election Strategy At Work, the British Royal Navy ships and sailors that were seized on June 21 were laying down sensors in Iranian waters to detect the movement of Iranian boats bound for terrorist attacks on Iraq’s oil terminals. Crippling Iraq’s oil exports could bring oil to $60 a barrel, hurting both the US economy and Bush in November.

There was not a peep of protest out of the State Department about this. In fact, Burns has given the green light to Iran for conducting whatever terrorist attacks it takes to destabilize Iraq enough to damage Bush in November.

Yes, these are serious charges. They can be refuted by Secretary Powell publicly disclosing Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism in Iraq and Burns’ Near East Bureau implementing strategies to oppose it. So far, the only thing Powell has done is to threaten Iran with UN sanctions if it continues with the development of nuclear weapons. UN sanctions certainly were effective with Saddam Hussein, weren’t they?

The best we can hope for from Bush with November looming so near is that he will clean State’s house in a second term – if there is one. Firing Powell is politically impossible now – GW can’t even fire Burns as Powell would scream too much. Thus we cannot depend on Washington to protect American security. We must depend on protection elsewhere, from the one country that has the nerve to stand up to Iran against the world: Israel.

In June of 1981, the world was outraged when Israel preemptively bombed Saddam’s Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad. Retrospectively, the attack is now seen as the one thing preventing Saddam from acquiring nukes. The only way to prevent Iran from doing so is another Israeli preemption. This time it can’t be with F-15s, but with sabotage destroying Iran’s well-dispersed nuclear facilities. Mossad has an entrenched network of agents in place throughout Iran. It has a sabotage plan ready to go. All Ariel Sharon has to do is call Mossad Director Meir Dagan and say, “Do it.”

Cross every finger you have that Sharon makes that call soon.

Such an attack will precipitate a crisis in the ayatollah regime, disenabling it from fully carrying out its terrorist destabilization of Iraq. The ayatollah regime would itself be destabilized, enough quite possibly to catalyze its removal by the millions of Iranians who hate and despise it.

Such an outcome is a nightmare for our State Department: few things would help Bush more than regime change in Iran and peace in Iraq. Which is why it is putting every ounce of pressure possible on Sharon not to make that call to Meir Dagan. If ever we needed Jews to be stiff-necked, it’s now. Sharon has the stiffest neck of all. Pray he’ll keep it that way.

[The full text of Haim Harari’s speech is here]