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Iran now constitutes the biggest strategic threat to Israel. This is the essence of the situation assessment that took place recently in the Israel Defense Forces, (IDF) and will soon be presented to the Israeli government inner security cabinet.
The situation assessment for 2009, which will be presented soon to the decision-makers, makes a significant distinction between the Iranian threat and the rest of the threats against Israel. The meetings, which took place in the General Staff’s Forum under the direction of Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, mentioned Iran specifically as constituting a threat in the first degree to Israel’s existence.
The combination of Iran’s effort to equip itself with nuclear arms, its developing capabilities in ballistics, its nuclear program, which continues at full force, and its intensive efforts to spread terrorism throughout the world in general and in Israel in particular, have earned Iran its current “supreme status” as a threat to Israel.
It should be noted that the Israel security establishment does not see the launch of the Iranian satellite as a significant or dramatic measure, as it was presented by Iranian propaganda.
More worrisome are Iran’s nuclear program, as mentioned, since at this moment it does not look as though there is enough international energy to stop it, and its investment in terrorism, which reaches enormous amounts set aside by the theocracy from its earnings from oil.
As the Israeli security establishment sees it, the purpose of Iran’s terrorist tentacles is mainly to create a ring of Islamic terrorism around Israel in order to strangle the Jewish state. Hezbollah is seen as an advance Iranian outpost, while Hamas is also influenced by Iran and receives information and inspiration from Hezbollah, even though it is a Shiite terrorist organization.
The IDF’s strategic situation assessment will soon be discussed in the security cabinet once the meetings about it in the security establishment have been completed.
©The Bulletin 2008
