What Happened to the Iranian Threat?!



The Iranian threat was top of the Middle East news for months - and this peaked with Binyamin Netanyahu's powerful speech, with the memorable cartoon bomb, at the UN in September.

It seemed that war against Iran was immediately on the horizon - the only question seemed to be whether Israel would attack alone, or together with the USA?

However, there's barely a mention of this imminent, existential threat to Israel in the past few months...

Has that threat disappeared or lessened - or are we all simply distracted by other issues?

Did Ahmadinejad throw in the towel and abandon his enormous investment his country has made in developing a nuclear bomb?

The US elections in November, and the re-shuffling of leadership, delayed any serious decision making about what the USA and, therefore, Israel, should be doing militarily or diplomatically.

And then Israeli elections presumably stymied any unilateral plans Israel may have had to nobble Iran...
not to mention the side-show of the Gaza/Israel campaign in November.

There is very little Israeli politicians are saying about Iran, as it is against election protocol in Israel to refer to external threats to the country, as part of a party political campaign.

In addition, there are indications that the ever-toughening international sanctions are having a major impact on Iran's economy. Iran's oil revenue has been slashed in half. Its currency has steeply declined in value (the main 60% collapse was in October).  

Furthermore, Iran seems to have taken a small step back from the 'red line' (however defined) by using some of its stock of enriched uranium for 'civilian' purposes.

And quiet diplomacy between the USA and Iran may be getting quiet results, for all we know.

In short, the reason Iran has fallen off the world's radar screen is not any change of heart by Ahmadinejad - but mainly due to a patchwork of other national interests in the USA and Israel.

Hopefully, while the world's armchair politicians and the news media are distracted, the real professionals are as focused as ever on Iran's evil Government - and are moving ahead with whatever needs to be done to neutralize their nuclear bomb program.

Hopefully....


 

 

Comments

  1. Anonymous31 December 2012 at 22:47

    My guess, based on nothing at all except gut feeling is that the Iranian threat was quietly downgraded following some 'arrangement' that was made with US when Hilary Clinton arrived here just before Israel invaded Gaza. Remember how that war quietly 'fizzled out'? Just saying....

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