Ya'alon: Iran heading for a revolution

But strategic affairs minister says he doesn't believe developments will affect country's nuclear program.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Published: JUNE 20, 2009 13:32
yaalon disco dancer 248 88 aj (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimksi )
yaalon disco dancer 248 88 aj
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimksi )
Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon believes Iran is heading for a revolution but doesn't think it will have any effect on the country's nuclear program. "Since I was head of Military Intelligence, I have said, and I say it again now, that some 70 percent of Iranians are opposed to the ayatollah regime," Ya'alon said at a 'Shabbatarbut' event in Modi'in on Saturday. "[Opposition leader Mir Hossein] Mousavi and his wife have brought a new spirit of openness, and so I repeat - there will be a revolution in Iran." "It's impossible to hide the energy there now, and the Iranian regime is going to have to take that into consideration," he continued. "It makes no difference regarding the nuclear issue, but this regime will fall." However, he called the current turmoil in the Islamic republic "a very encouraging sign for the West," vis-à-vis the wider regional outlook, saying that essentially, it was a "confrontation between Jihadists and the West." The strategic affairs minister went on to express pessimism regarding Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. "Since the dawn of Zionism, there has never been a Palestinian leadership prepared to recognize the Jewish right to a homeland," he said. "We can hold negotiations, but I call upon Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] to prove that he's capable of governing over the Palestinians from the bottom up."