Asahrq Alawsat: "Ahmadinejad’s Dangerous Games"

This is about the most pro-Western viewpoint you can get in an Arab media source, and it isn't amused by Iran:

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come to resemble a young child playing with a dangerous toy. On a daily basis he issues a new statement about this new toy, namely, “the nuclear bomb”. One day he is celebrating the use of the centrifugation process, another day he announces the “national nuclear day” for the Islamic Republic of Iran and on another day, he rejects nuclear inspection in protection of “the dignity” of the republic!

Israel has a nuclear arsenal; however no Israeli politician would dare talk about this openly. Moreover, Israelis deny possessing such weapon. Even Pakistan had surprised the world with its nuclear explosion after such a long silence; if it had done half of what President Ahmadinejad has done, its project would have failed and the whole world would have moved against it.

President Ahmadinejad has a real weapon, namely the 50 billion dollars that Iran had obtained in the past year through the surge in oil prices. However, unemployment and poverty rates are on the rise and those billions are aimed at companies and deals with Russia and Korea to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has the opportunity to present itself as a force for peace to its neighbors and the world in order to gain everyone's respect and create an appropriate climate for investment and development, yet it continues to search for "divine victory" in Lebanon, militarize militias in Iraq and spread Shiism from the mountains of Yemen to Tajikistan in an attempt that Iran knows will not be successful.

Assuming that Ahmadinejad now owns a nuclear bomb and that missiles are capable of efficiently carrying it, what would he do with it? Does he want to create a balance of terror with Israel so that he could negotiate with Israelis? This would be impossible as he does not believe in peace with Jews in the first place! Will he shell Israel with his bomb, hoping that his nuclear Islamic bomb would kill the Jews of Israel and at the same time spare the lives of millions of Muslim and Christian Palestinians in the occupied territories and within the Green Line?! Does he believe that the world would just sit and watch if he uses the nuclear weapon or does he forget that the Iranian people would be the first victims of such action?!

The biggest problem is that the Iranian president disregards the prospect of a large-scale military strike on Iran, which is a major strategic error. There are two aircraft carriers in the region as well as decisive firepower. It is not true that the United States cannot act because of its status in Iraq; in fact perhaps the opposite is more accurate.

Everyday, the world awakes to President Ahmadinejad's dangerous games of which he does not realize their consequences. We all fear that the political messages that the Iranian president conveys to the Iranian public would make him forget the reality of the international situation itself, hence embroiling himself and the Iranians just as others did before him.

Tags: Iran, Ahmadinejad, nukes