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No more appeasement By Haaretz Editorial Tags: bush Less than half a year before the American presidential elections and eight months before he is slated to leave the White House, U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday set a high bar for his successor: to continue the determined struggle against terrorist organizations - Al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah - and to thwart Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons that would threaten Israel's existence. Accepting Iran's nuclearization would be a betrayal of future generations, Bush said. This was an all-clear signal to Israel, a warning to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme spiritual leader Ali Khamenei, and an announcement to the Democratic Party's leading presidential candidate, Barack Obama, that Bush will make use of his authority until his last day as president to shape a belligerent policy toward Iran. If Obama is elected rather than Republican candidate John McCain, whose positions are identical to those of Bush, the outgoing president is liable to take military action even during the two and a half months between the elections and the inauguration of the new president. In his speech to the Knesset, Bush addressed his visit to Masada and the Israeli vow, saying, "Masada shall never fall again." It is possible to interpret this statement on two levels: determination to prevent Iran from obtaining the capacity to destroy Israel, and understanding of Israel's position should it be pushed to the wall and take action to deter its enemies. Advertisement Bush's declared positions do not officially commit either the next administration or Congress, which the Democratic Party, which has reservations about getting embroiled in the Middle East, is expected to control. But they do reflect an assessment whose logic will hold true even if Obama and the left wing of the Democratic Party are in charge in Washington after January 2009. The Iranian problem will not go away all by itself, and it will not be solved through dialogue and appeasement. The outgoing commander of the air force, Major General Eliezer Shkedy, has spoken on various occasions recently in a spirit similar to Bush's. This is not election campaign rhetoric. If the government of Israel decides on a military operation against Iran's nuclear program, as it decided to act against Syria's nuclear program last year and the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981, the decision will also be influenced by the positions of senior members of the Israel Defense Forces and the intelligence community. A Jewish state, in which key governmental and military officials are convinced that 75 years after Hitler's rise to power, a similar threat hovers over it, is not entitled to content itself with grumbling. Bush's legacy speech in the Knesset should signal to Iran, and not only to Iran, that it is facing determined countries and a definite policy of not allowing it to develop nuclear weapons. The proposals that several leading European countries and the U.S. have made to Iran in order to encourage it to cease developing nuclear technology have been answered by Tehran with a counterproposal whose thrust is a desire to be a partner in solving "the world's problems." But with his wild threats, Ahmadinejad negates any possibility of viewing this Iranian suggestion as serious and made in good faith. And he thereby reinforces the resolute voices that are calling for a military solution. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Animated massacre Animated Israeli film at Cannes explores Sabra and Shatila massacre. Kowtowing to funders When papers are sponsored, can their reporting be truly independent?

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