Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
צילום: איי פי
Expert: Iran can be deterred
During counter-terrorism conference, Professor Gerald Steinberg says, 'Iran, terrorist organizations can be deterred from using weapons of mass destruction'
The Iranian regime and Islamic terror groups can be deterred from using weapons of mass destruction, Professor Gerald Steinberg told the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya on Wednesday.
Responding to Knesset Member Benjamin Netanyahu's description of Iran as a "suicidal regime," Steinberg, of Bar Ilan University, and director of the Interdisciplinary Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation, told Ynetnews: "I don't think the Israeli people should rest assured on Iran. But I do think the burden is now on Iran to demonstrate that it is in fact not suicidal. That it understands the dangers of threatening mass destruction, of calling for wiping out a country like Israel off the map, that it understands it endangers its own survival."
Earlier, Steinberg said it was clear that "a country targeted by mass destruction weapons… will respond massively," and that weapons of mass destruction can be traced back to their origin, decreasing the chances of a state passing on unconventional weapons to terror groups for attacks.
"States, their leaders, supporters, have interests which are sensitive enough to be threatened," Steinberg said. "It's hard to make the argument that the Iranian regime, Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, are suicidal. They are clearly deterrable," he added, arguing that this was the reason Iran resorted to using proxies like Hizbullah.
'Al-Qaeda will never set up caliphate'
Steinberg said chemical weapons were not weapons of mass destruction, and added that "the probability of a terrorist group using nuclear weapons are very low," citing extreme difficulties in obtaining, stealing, or producing nuclear weapons or fissile materials."On core issues, (with) Islamic terror groups, deterrence is a possibility," Steinberg said, "except those interested in destruction purely for destruction's sake."
US Ambassador Richard Jones told the conference that Osama Bin Laden's true target in launching the 9/11 attacks was the toppling of the Saudi regime. "It's pretty clear now that Bin Laden's real target in attacking the United States was the Saudi royal family," he said. "Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda failed to achieve all of their core goals, but did succeed in popularizing violent jihad."
Jones added that al-Qaeda's vision of restoring the caliphate is "a goal that will never be realized."
