Ahmadinejad's Clever Gambit: Shift Focus to Israelis

The United States lived under threat of nuclear attack for decades. Had there been a barometer, at different times throughout the 1950s and into the 1970s, the threat would have stood hairs on end on American necks. The threat was palpable at several crucial moments during the early years, as Soviet Union moved to solidify its hold on the Eastern bloc, and later during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Today the U.S. faces a much different kind of nuclear threat. Although there was always a distinct possibility that the former USSR or the US would, if relations deteriorated, resort to nuclear force, there developed a kind of attenuated peace; both sides realized that the Nuclear Option would produce no clear winner.

No such rationale exists in the mind of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the mullah-run regime that backs him. Holy war, in the minds of jihadists, produces victory, even in defeat. They always find a way to take "infidels" with them.

As noble as the idea of a worldwide union of nations may have been in the minds of Woodrow Wilson and FDR, America's current crisis with Iran is perhaps the best example of the folly of such a dream. The weak sanctions extended by the UN against Iran in the face of overwhelming evidence that the government there fully intends to build a nuclear arsenal, produced, as any objective thinker will observe, absolutely no results. It is difficult to take action against a rogue Islamic regime when the body that can levy the severest sanctions is full of rogue Islamics.

So, consequently, the U.S. and its allies in the European Union levied unilateral sanctions against the terrorist state. And now Iran, as it sees its oil imports choked off, is feeling the pinch. This week Ahmadinejad made what in the minds of those unfamiliar with Islamist history in the Middle East seemed a bizarre announcement. He said that Israel and the U.S. intend to attack at least two countries in the region in the next three months.

Why would Ahmadinejad make such a statement, when not a shred of evidence exists to warrant it? Israel will, barring U.S. action to staunch Iran's nuclear ambitions, eventually take out the country's nuclear reactors, but nothing suggests that the Israelis intend all out war with its neighbors.

As comical as Ahmadinejad seems to many Americans, he is a dangerous man. By planting the seed of an "unprovoked" Israeli attack on its neighbors (and the two countries would have to be Lebanon and Syria), he diverts attention from his country and shifts it to Israel.

It is a ridiculous charge in the eyes of most of the western world, but in the minds of Syrians and Hezbollah's stooges in Lebanon it is gospel. They not only believe it but they are armed and ready to make a preemptive strike to stop it.

Ahmadinejad has made a clever move; he is attempting to set off a series of events that could result in a war between Syria, Lebanon and Israel. It happened in much the same manner in 1967, when the Soviets seeded a similar rumor with Egypt.

Pressure is mounting in the Middle East for the U.S. to take action against Iran. Arab nations are now openly suggesting that America take out Iran's nuclear reactors and support is growing for the Western sanctions. Ahmadinejad is becoming desperate to shift the focus from Iran's nuclear ambitions and onto the world favorite whipping boy, Israel.

A war between Israel and Syria and Hezbollah right now is the only way that Iran can worm its way out of a very tight squeeze. The United States and its allies will have to act soon if it is to sideline a war between Israel and its northern neighbors.