What We Must Do About Ahmadinejad

"Believe him and stop him":

Tehran’s logic is compelling. While Arab states still may gripe about it, today Israel’s place in the region is not in serious doubt. The outcome of three regional wars in the three decades after Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 — and major Israeli investments in a “qualitative” military edge, and in strategic partnership with the United States since then — have made sure of that. Of course, regional radicals such as Hamas and al Qaeda continue to refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. As a practical matter, however, countries in the region are drifting — albeit very slowly — toward political detente with the Jewish state.

But Ahmadinejad clearly hopes that debunking the Holocaust can change all that. By discrediting the formative historical event that laid the groundwork for Israel’s establishment, Iran’s president is attempting to remove the rationale for its presence in the region — and by doing so, nudge Israel’s hostile neighbors into action. Indeed, as Ahmadinejad told conference attendees on December 12, “[t]he Zionist regime will disappear soon, the same way the Soviet Union disappeared” and “humanity will achieve freedom.”

Politicians in Israel are taking notice. “It’s 1938, and Iran is Germany, racing to arm itself with atomic bombs,” former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of Israel’s most influential politicians, warned an audience in Los Angeles last month. “Believe him and stop him,” Netanyahu said. “This is what we must do. Everything pales before it.”

Ahmadinejad may be a kook, but he's soon to be a kook with nukes.

We cannot let this happen. While there are no good options for us, a nuclear Iran represents an existential threat to Israel and the United States.