It was certainly undiplomatic of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to
call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" at a conference on Zionism in
Tehran. But the wave of Western fury, with countries such as Canada, France,
the UK and Spain hauling in the Iranian ambassador and protesting, looks
contrived.
Is this the same France that four years ago ignored the comments of its then
ambassador in London, Daniel Bernard, who called Israel "that shitty little
country"? Is this the same UK that likewise turned a deaf ear? Nor is it the
first time an Iranian leader has used such language.
Four years ago, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, regarded by the West as a moderate, called for
the nuclear annihilation of Israel. The West did not blink an eye. Ever
since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been consistently and vehemently
anti-Israel. The rest of the world has known it and lived with it. It lived
with the knowledge because it also knew that Iran was not in a position to
wipe Israel off the map and that the words were mere rhetoric from those who
wanted to give their people something other than their failures to think
about.
The rest of the world too has been happy to live with the knowledge
that most Muslims and Arabs would prefer that Israel did not exist. But it does exist. It is a question of accepting reality.
So why the apparent anger at something known? And why is it that only the
West is making a fuss?
This response has far more to do with Western fears about Iran's nuclear
intentions than with its views about Israel. Washington, which does not have
diplomatic relations with Tehran and so could not haul in the ambassador to
protest, let the cat out of the bag when it said that the comment showed it
was right to be concerned about Iran's nuclear program.
Yet that is a worrying leap of logic. It suggests that the US and the West
imagine that a nuclear Iran would bomb Israel. If they do, it is
frightening, given what happened with Iraq and the myth of weapons of mass
destruction there. Without a breakthrough on the Iran nuclear issue, it
makes an attack on its nuclear facilities a strong likelihood. Is the ground
being prepared for Israelis doing it, acting on Washington's behalf - a
carbon copy of what happened in 1981 when Israel destroyed the Osirak
nuclear plant near Baghdad? That cannot be ruled out. Last February
President Bush said that the US would back an Israeli attack on Iran if the
latter tried to make nuclear bombs and the former felt threatened. And now
we have President Ahmadinejad being as provocative as he can, using words
that are loaded: To wipe a country off the map involves something fairly
spectacular.
This, of course, is Ahmadinejad the radical speaking, Ahmadinejad the
politician who perhaps wants to divert attention from his government's
failure so far to deliver on his promises to Iran's poor. That is where he
needs to concentrate his energies and his passion. The danger is that with
such rhetoric he gives his nation's enemies the chance to act.
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