georgephillip
Diamond Member
Is not Iran in spite of what the Wall Street Journal would like you to believe:
"Reporting on the final U.S. presidential campaign debate, on foreign policy, The Wall Street Journal observed that 'the only country mentioned more (than Israel) was Iran, which is seen by most nations in the Middle East as the gravest security threat to the region...'"
"The Journal article, like countless others on Iran, leaves critical questions unanswered, among them: Who exactly sees Iran as the gravest security threat? And what do Arabs (and most of the world) think can be done about the threat, whatever they take it to be?
"The first question is easily answered. The 'Iranian threat' is overwhelmingly a Western obsession, shared by Arab dictators, though not Arab populations.
"As numerous polls have shown, although citizens of Arab countries generally dislike Iran, they do not regard it as a very serious threat. Rather, they perceive the threat to be Israel and the United States; and many, sometimes considerable majorities, regard Iranian nuclear weapons as a counter to these threats.
"In high places in the U.S., some concur with the Arab populations' perception, among them Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the Strategic Command. In 1998 he said, 'It is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East,' one nation, Israel, should have a powerful nuclear weapons arsenal, which 'inspires other nations to do so.'"
Noam Chomsky: The Gravest Threat to World Peace
"Reporting on the final U.S. presidential campaign debate, on foreign policy, The Wall Street Journal observed that 'the only country mentioned more (than Israel) was Iran, which is seen by most nations in the Middle East as the gravest security threat to the region...'"
"The Journal article, like countless others on Iran, leaves critical questions unanswered, among them: Who exactly sees Iran as the gravest security threat? And what do Arabs (and most of the world) think can be done about the threat, whatever they take it to be?
"The first question is easily answered. The 'Iranian threat' is overwhelmingly a Western obsession, shared by Arab dictators, though not Arab populations.
"As numerous polls have shown, although citizens of Arab countries generally dislike Iran, they do not regard it as a very serious threat. Rather, they perceive the threat to be Israel and the United States; and many, sometimes considerable majorities, regard Iranian nuclear weapons as a counter to these threats.
"In high places in the U.S., some concur with the Arab populations' perception, among them Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the Strategic Command. In 1998 he said, 'It is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East,' one nation, Israel, should have a powerful nuclear weapons arsenal, which 'inspires other nations to do so.'"
Noam Chomsky: The Gravest Threat to World Peace