Israel & Iran: Reaching For The 'Big Button'

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From Haaretz:

Iran filed a complaint Saturday to the UN Security Council over remarks by Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh that Israel must be ready to prevent Iran's nuclear program "at all costs."

(...) Sneh suggested in comments published Friday that Israel might be forced to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear program - the clearest statement yet of this possibility from a high-ranking Israeli official.

Which then prompted this ripost from Teheran:

"If Israel takes such a stupid step and attacks, the answer of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard will be rapid, firm and destructive and it will be given in a few seconds," he said.

And finally (umm - so to speak), from The Jerusalem Post:

Israel has to prepare for a full-scale war, in which Syria will be an important player, an Israeli military official told the British Sunday Times. "The challenge from Iran and Syria is now top of the Israeli defense agenda, higher than the Palestinian one," another official said.

For perspective, here are a few recent Iranian comments about Israel:

• "Israel must be wiped off the map of the world…and God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism."
  
  
• "the establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world"
  
  
• "the Islamic Umma (Nation) will not allow its historic enemy to live in its heartland"

and more recently:

• "All the conditions for the removal of the Zionist regime are at hand."
  
  
• "Nations in the region will be more furious every day. It won’t take long before the wrath of the people turns into a terrible explosion that will wipe the Zionist entity off the map."
  
  
• "The basic problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime, and the Islamic world and the region must mobilize to remove this problem."

(HT: Daled Amos)

More on this further down.

Kinda' makes you wonder if the preceding, bucolic "Field of Dreams" post, is fast morphing into a field of fused glass.

Ahh, and I wouldn't hold my breath on this
one, especially after the US midterms...

Click here or on the image
for the illustrator's site