Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit writes in Friday's Guardian (UK) over the ill-advised view some hold that the international community need not be concerned with Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons because Israel will handle the situation. His position seems to have been bolstered by a recent conversation with Israel's top diplomat to the United States. Reynolds' article is reproduced in full below:
"As the Iranian nuclear programme continues to worry people, I've noticed a hope on the part of a lot of commentators for a sort of Deus ex Tel Aviv, with people reassuring themselves that the Israelis will strike, as they did at the Iraqi Osirak facility in 1981.
I don't think that's very likely, and I think it's more of a way for people to avoid confronting the problem ("We don't have to worry: the Israelis will!") than a realistic solution. Certainly that's the message the Israelis are sending.
My wife and I do a regular series of podcasts and our most recent episode featured an interview with Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the United States. He made it quite clear that Israel regards the Iranian nuclear programme as the world's problem, not Israel's problem, and that the world shouldn't look to Israel to solve the world's problems.
Quite a few people (Jim Dunnigan and Austin Bay, for example) think that the military solution to Iranian nuclear weapons is dubious, or at least that talk of such an approach is premature. They suggest that we should be encouraging (and assisting) Iranians to overthrow the mullahs. That might not end the Iranian nuclear programme, but it would at least put it in the hands of a modern democracy, rather than a murderous theocracy. That would surely be an improvement.
Regardless, however, I don't think that the world can look to Israel to pull its chestnuts out of the fire. And, I have to say, I don't blame the Israelis for taking that attitude."
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