The sooner the West draws a red line that Iran will not be allowed to cross, “The greater the chances that we won’t need other types of action,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Sunday night.
“Iran will not stop unless it sees clear determination by the democratic countries of the world and a clear red line,” Netanyahu said. “I don’t think that they see a clear red line.”
The Prime Minister has been harping away at the subject of Iran the past month in an effort to pressure the Obama administration to take a more aggressive stand against Iran instead of relying on negotiations and sanctions.
The American government’s reaction has sharpened the differences between the two countries and is becoming an untimely election issue for President Barack Obama, who Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said has displayed his “biggest failure” in his policies towards Tehran.
Last year, President Obama was speaking of “engaging” Iran, an idea he no longer mentions as it becomes increasingly clear that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has no intention to slow down his race towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. He insists the program is for peaceful purposes but continues to repeat assertions that Israel is a “cancer” and must be eliminated.
Netanyahu’s “red lines” demand so far has been rejected by the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday morning, hours after the Canadian telecast, “We’re not setting deadlines. We’re watching very carefully about what they do, because it’s always been more about their actions than their words.”
In his interview with the CBC, Prime Minister Netanyahu also praised Ottawa for closing its embassy in Tehran, saying Canada set an example for the rest of the world.
“We have to build a wall, not of silence, but of condemnation and resolve. Canada just put a very big brick in that wall that is necessary for the peace of the world,” he said.
Canada has been a consistent supporter of Israel and is virtually the only country in the world to fully back Israel’s counterterrorist campaign and its stated need to attack Iran if it does not stop its race for nuclear weapons.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Russia on Sunday, “We know what Iran’s record is, not just in terms of treatment of diplomatic personnel, but we know Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism that is pursuing a nuclear program contrary to its international obligations, that it engages in anti-Semitism and genocidal threats against the state of Israel, that it is arming the Assad regime.”
