Jerusalem Post Editor David Horovitz writes that, despite the scary recent predictions of Israel’s military intelligence chief, the effort to confront Iran’s advancing nuclear program would have been far more hindered had the mullahs taken a more pragmatic approach to the masses angry about the recent election. The fact that they took a hard line, Horovitz suggests, implies the regime is brittle and weak, and it may have strengthened the resolve of Europeans who were previously, at best, pretty unserious about taking harsh punitive measures against Tehran.
The previous mindset in Europe, runs this argument, was to accept Ahmadinejad’s talk of the ostensibly inevitable: Yes, Iran is going to get the bomb. Now let’s move on.
But Western Europe doesn’t take kindly to the disenfranchising of the masses. And while before, there were those in Europe who argued that stricter sanctions would hurt the ordinary good people of Iran more than the regime that represses them, today there is an awareness that the good people of Iran are essentially demanding the imposition of tougher sanctions – anything to help bring down the mullahs.
A greater international readiness for harsher diplomatic and economic pressures? An improved prospect of the Iranian regime being deterred or, whisper it, perhaps being mortally wounded by its mishandled election process? Does Israel truly believe there is now a better prospect of Khamenei’s Iran failing to reach the bomb?
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