From www. kentimmerman.com
From www. kentimmerman.com
Uzi Landau:
'Israel's Churchill' Warns of Iran's
Hitler
Monday, Dec. 18,
2006
Former Israeli Interior Minister Uzi Landau, a leading
contender to succeed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, was in the United
States last week to sound the alarm on Iran.
He believes the world needs to wake up to the threat from Iran,
and compared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler in
1938.
"In 1938, the world faced a gathering storm, when there was a
fanatic enemy who publicly said he was going to destroy you, and the
world did nothing."
Today, Iran is presenting a similar dilemma to the world with
its nuclear weapons program, Landau believes. "Iran is Germany, and
Ahmadinejad is Hitler," he told NewsMax in an exclusive
interview.
Landau, who left the Israeli parliament (Knesset) last year
after losing a leadership battle within the conservative Likud party,
is poised to make a political comeback.
As minister of public security in the government of Ariel Sharon in
March 2002 when a Palestinian suicide bomber murdered scores of Jews
at a Passover dinner, he advocated a full-scale invasion of the
Palestinian territories and is known for his hard-line approach to
Israel's enemies.
During Hezbollah's attack on Israel this summer, he told NewsMax that
Israel should strike Damascus because the Syrian government was
harboring the Hezbollah leadership and allowing Iran to openly supply
missiles and other weapons to the terrorist militia in Lebanon
through the Damascus airport.
Landau says he was dismayed by the recommendation of the
Baker-Hamilton commission for the United States to open negotiations
with Iran and Syria. "This is 1938 revisited," he said.
That was when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned
from negotiations with Hitler in Munich and declared that Hitler had
promised "peace in our time."
"The Baker report recalls Chamberlain's policy of appeasement,"
Landau said. "One would have hoped, instead, for this report to sound
the alarm."
A stubborn British opposition leader named Winston Churchill
sounded the alarm against Hitler, but no one listened to him at the
time. While not pretending to be a reborn Churchill, Landau said he
believed it was critical to learn from the past "to make sure we
avoid a similarly bleak future."
The Islamic regime in Tehran is "motivated by a malignant
ideology," he said. "This is a regime that has no regard for freedom,
no regard for human life, that turns its own kids into suicide
bombers," he said. "You would have wished a study group of such
learned people would alert the American people" to the threat that
Iran is posing to U.S. forces in Iraq, the region, and the United
States.
"Instead, the Baker committee report reflects the belief that
if you throw sheep one after another to a hungry wolf, you will turn
it into a vegetarian," he said.
Landau noted with dismay the Baker-Hamilton report's repeated
calls for the United States to put pressure on Israel in response to
the deteriorating security situation in Iraq.
"What does Israel have to do with the United States getting
bogged down in Iraq?" he wondered. "This all goes back to Arab
rhetoric, and State Department rhetoric. This is a view that is
totally detached from the realities of the Middle East."
While the Iraq Study Group report acknowledges that Iran and Syria
have power to influence events in Iraq, it concluded that both
countries saw it in their interest to prevent Iraq from descending
into chaos.
"This is simply out of touch with reality," Landau said. "Iran
is very much behind the violence, as is Syria. Do the people on the
Baker commission really believe they want the United States to leave
Iraq as a free a democratic country? On the contrary: Syria and Iran
fear a free and democratic Iraq because that example will endanger
their own dictatorial regimes."
Understanding the goals of Iran and Syria was not all that
complicated, Landau said. "These things are clear to every boy in the
Middle East."
His real concern, even more than the Baker panel's suggestion
that the United States put pressure Israel, is the message the report
sends to other countries in the Middle East who would potentially
look to the United States for protection or support.
"Countries such as Sudan, Qatar, Yemen and others are wondering
with whom they should align themselves. Should they go with Iran,
which these days is backed by Russia and China, or with the United
States?"
By beating up on the Iraqi government and on Israel, a
long-standing American ally, the Baker-Hamilton report sends the
message that it is worse to be a friend of America than to be
America's enemy. "Who is going to make an alliance with a broken
reed?" Landau said.
Faced with Iran's nuclear program, Landau believes Israel must
take a "conservative" view. "We have to do whatever we can to stop
them," he said.
Whether Iran is two, three, or five years from the bomb, what
is clear is that they are building facilities "capable of producing
25 atomic bombs a year," he added.
Iran has already test-fired missiles capable of reaching
Europe, and have announced they are working on a future generation
missile that can reach the United States. "They mean business,"
Landau said.
Landau said the U.S. and its allies also needed to keep an eye
on Iranian subversion in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich eastern province.
"Iran's political objective is to gain dominance in this region, and
if they do, they will become a power with global influence that will
dominate the air and maritime routes connecting Southwest Asia and
the Far East to Europe and the West."
Should Iran ever reach that point, "it will be a totally
different kind of ball game," he said. "I think we need to alert the
free world. This is a global plan in the service of a mad
ideology."
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert broke 40 years of
ambiguity toward Israel's alleged nuclear weapons arsenal in an
interview with a German television network.
Olmert was widely condemned in Israel for his remarks, which openly
referred to Israel as a nuclear weapons state. Former Likud
colleague, Yuval Steinitz, called on him to resign.
Landau pointed out that "there is no change in Israel's policy"
of nuclear ambiguity, but said he would withhold further comment
until returning to Israel next week.
For some, politics still stops at the nation's shores.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is president of the Middle East Data Project,
author of "Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with
Iran," and a contributing editor to NewsMax.com.