Iran bares its fangs

According to this New York Times report:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday Israel should be "wiped off the map," the official IRNA news agency reported, dampening hopes Iran could temper its hostility toward the Jewish state.

Support for the Palestinian cause is a central pillar of the Islamic Republic which officially refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.

"Israel must be wiped off the map," Ahmadinejad told a conference called "The World without Zionism," attended by some 3,000 conservative students who chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."

Is it not a little unsettling when heads of state say things like this?

Ahmadinejad, who took office in August, said Israel would be destroyed by a new wave of Palestinian attacks.

"Surely the new wave of (attacks) in Palestine ... will erase this stigma from the Islamic world," he said.

Tehran denies accusations it trains and arms Palestinian militant groups, saying it only offers moral support.

I'll wait till you stop laughing after that last statement.

In the Monday Winds of War Briefing, I linked to a paper published by the Institute for National Strategic Studies entitled Reassessing the Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran.

Part of that paper dealt with Israel, and the threat it perceives from Iran. Here are some excerpts from that paper concerning Israel and Iran.

From the Israeli perspective, the current Iranian regime is highly dangerous; its frequent emotion-filled declarations of intent to "wipe Israel off the map" are matched by actions. Armed with nuclear weapons, the radical Islamic leadership could trigger confrontations and crises that would quickly escalate out of control, particularly given its very limited knowledge of and contact with Israel, and its close links with terror groups such as Hizballah and Hamas.
...
Israeli leaders during the 1990s sought to avoid an armed confrontation that would create hostility and bitterness among the Iranian public, which is seen as far less obsessed with Israel than is the radical Islamic leadership. Thus, Israeli officials consistently refer to Iran as a military threat, but not an enemy (in contrast to Syria or Iraq under Saddam).
...
While Iran is not a confrontation state bordering Israel, and there is no history of direct military clashes, its extreme Islamic ideology, declarations of extreme hostility, rejection of the very concept of Jewish sovereignty, and support for terrorist groups such as Hizballah and Hamas are seen as posing an existential threat to Israel. Indeed, while threat levels posed by Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq have declined, and after Palestinian terror attacks have shown a major decrease, Iran has emerged as the major strategic threat to Israel. In the terminology of international relations theory, Iran is a revisionist state, uninterested in preserving the status quo, but rather seeking to expand and use its capabilities to alter the international and regional political framework.
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Missiles on parade in tehran are decorated with slogans such as "Wipe Israel off the map," and Israel is referred to as "the Zionist entity," reminiscent of the rejectionist slogans of the arab governments and Palestine liberation organization leadership in earlier decades. Iran’s direct role in Hizballah and Hamas terror attacks is an ongoing reflection of these objectives.

It's hard to imagine what more the regime in Iran could do to signal its dangerous intentions. And while Europe and the US try to woo the mullahs over tea and crumpets, Iran's nuclear program continues apace. Israel is watching. Are we?

Tick tick tick...

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Captain Ed comments on Ahmadinejad's statements.