A Guest Post by Dr. Harold Goldmeier

America's political leaders and her spies in defense and security agencies are casting doubts about Iran's intentions to build a nuclear bomb. Israel is being warned publicly and privately to not launch preemptive attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. President Obama's foreign policy staff and military intelligence analysts are inconsistent and incoherent in their public stands on the Iranian nuclear threat. Meanwhile, Israel faces what its Prime Minister and Minister of Defense label an existential threat of annihilation by Iran.

A thousand pages of documents from the International Atomic Energy Agency conclude that "Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device....", and that Iran's research and testing activities are designed to make a nuclear weapon. But before a recent hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the head of the CIA and one of his super spies told the Senators that "we don't believe (Iran) made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon." Just to be cautious, however, in a move to deter Iran from producing a nuclear bomb, America and European nations are strengthening financial sanctions and imposing oil embargoes against Iran.

Concomitantly Leon Panetta publicly and privately warns Israel about global economic consequences of an Israeli military strike against Iran. Such an attack will have dire consequences for the U. S. and world economies, and will drag America into the war. Before a recent hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the head of the CIA and one of his super spies told the Senators that "we don't believe (Iran) made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon." Appeasement of Hitler did not prevent World War II; neither will it stop a holy war launched by the bandersnatches in Iran.

Israel, and most of the Gulf oil states, face a real threat from the holy men of Iran, while America views the problem in the old Cold War terms; what Professor Hans Morgenthau called the Balance of Terror. If all the superpowers have nuclear arsenals, no one will use the bomb first for fear of nuclear retaliation by the others. This is a futilitarian approach in the Middle East where the holy men of Iran believe the way way to bring Allah's rule to the world is through Armageddon. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this week called on all friends of the Muslim people "to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.” He proudly warned that Iran's successful test firing of a solid fuel two-stage ballistic missile, and the launch of a satellite into outer space should be seen as a threat to Israel and the West that Iranian scientists will be able to send ballistic missiles against the Gulf oil states, Europe, and American targets. Why? To destroy the Western society, "because religion is for Allah..., and that even Jesus Christ...will convert to Islam." Saudi Arabia and other Arab states fear a nuclear armed Iran, and will join a military coalition against from Iranian attacks and attempts to destroy their regimes.

Israel is being portrayed by the news media as a warmonger ready to drag her allies into the conflict. Former Secretary of Defense put it best recently when he wrote, "Patience and diplomacy might be the virtues of statecraft, but when an avowed enemy is close to placing a nuclear knife on your throat, well, the demands for action are likely to override the pleas for restraint." Israel needs to take Iran at its words, and the West better be prepared for that action.