VIDEO - "We have to confront the Iranian
revolution immediately. There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped. All tools, all options, should be considered," former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon was
quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday.
Video courtesy of Infolive.tv
According to the report, asked whether "all options" included the decimation of the Iranian leadership by military strikes, including on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Yaalon replied, "We have to consider killing him."
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Sydney Morning Herald reporter Paul Sheehan, who interviewed Yaalon at Jerusalem's Shalem Center last week, further quoted the new Likud Party member as saying "I was chief of staff during Operation Iraqi Freedom (the US invasion of Iraq in 2003) and I was surprised the US decided to go into Iraq instead of Iran … Unfortunately, the American public didn't have the political stomach to go into Iran.
"Military intervention (in Iran) would not be one strike. It needs to be a sustained operation … Any military strike in Iran will be quietly applauded by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states. It is a misconception to think that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most important in the Middle-East. The Shiite-Sunni schism is much bigger, the Persian-Arab divide is bigger, the struggle between national regimes and jihadism is much bigger. And I can't imagine the US will want to share power in the Middle East with a nuclear-armed Iran," the newspaper quoted Yaalon as saying.
Yaalon said in response to the article that he did in fact say the Iranian regime could be defeated through
political, diplomatic and economic means, with a military strike being the last resort.
According to him, any other quote on the matter "was "taken out of context".
Top-ranking Labor MK Ophir Pines addressed the former chief of staff's comments, saying "Yaalon's wet dreams and irresponsible statements about killing Ahmadinejad may be good for the Likud's primary elections, but they will set the Middle East on fire, lead to the international isolation of Israel and interfere with efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear program."
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