If Iran gets a nuclear bomb it may actually use it, Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu said Monday, rejecting the notion that Tehran would act responsibly if
it became a member of the world’s nuclear “club.”
Netanyahu, in a meeting
with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, spelled out five things that
would likely happen, were Iran allowed to go nuclear: There will be nuclear
proliferation in the Middle East as various other actors will then want to have
a bomb; Iran will have a firmer hand on the “choke point of the world’s oil
supply,” namely the Strait of Hormuz; there will be a magnification of global
terrorism because the terrorists under Iran’s sway will believe that they have
immunity; and Israel’s cities will be rocketed even more because those firing
the rockets will feel that they enjoy a nuclear umbrella.
That the
Iranians might actually use the bomb is a reality that cannot be denied,
Netanyahu said.
“This is a regime that has broken every rule in the
book,” he added. “They very likely could use weapons of mass
death.”
Netanyahu said there was an illusion among many in the world that
if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, it would behave responsibly like the world’s
other nuclear states.
The prime minister, during the discussion dominated
by the Iranian issue, said Iran is governed by a “fanatical regime” that sees
itself on a sacred mission of global Islamic domination, and destroying Israel
was just one step toward its larger vision.
Everyone talks about the cost
of stopping Iran, “but they shouldn’t ignore the cost of not stopping Iran,” he
said.
Netanyahu’s comments come a week after he said that the decision to
attack Iran would be taken by the country’s elected political leadership, and
not by the defense and security establishment.
Those remarks followed
media reports of Israel’s top security officials being opposed to an Israeli
attack without US backing.
In a television interview last week, Netanyahu
said that he sees “the regime of the ayatollahs declaring what it has etched on
its banner – to destroy us. It is working to destroy us, and is preparing atom
bombs to destroy us. As much as it is dependent on me, I will not let that
happen.”