"But there is another aspect of Iran's status as a threat to Israel, the US and the region that is often forgotten. In the years after the Iranian revolution in 1979 Israel was surprisingly relaxed about developments in Iran, but this changed with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Scott Peterson in his magisterial account of Iran in recent years, Let the Swords Encircle Me, succinctly summarises Israeli concerns: "Anxious that its own strategic utility as a 'bulwark' against Soviet-allied Arab states was losing its shine after the Cold War, Israel launched a campaign in 1992 to convince the US that a new and more dangerous threat had emerged from Iran and the Islamic extremism that the revolution inspired." It is a campaign that has never ended."
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Israeli calculations
"But there is another aspect of Iran's status as a threat to Israel, the US and the region that is often forgotten. In the years after the Iranian revolution in 1979 Israel was surprisingly relaxed about developments in Iran, but this changed with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Scott Peterson in his magisterial account of Iran in recent years, Let the Swords Encircle Me, succinctly summarises Israeli concerns: "Anxious that its own strategic utility as a 'bulwark' against Soviet-allied Arab states was losing its shine after the Cold War, Israel launched a campaign in 1992 to convince the US that a new and more dangerous threat had emerged from Iran and the Islamic extremism that the revolution inspired." It is a campaign that has never ended."
