In Wednesday's Times, Anatole Kaletsky assembles the reasons, as he sees them, for the folly that would be involved if any country tried to destroy Iran's nuclear programme. Fair enough - there are some cogent reasons of this kind. But look here (£) at the last reason he gives, in talking specifically about the inadvisability of an attack by Israel on Iran:
Israel, with a population of only seven million, would proclaim by its actions that it considers the hundreds of millions of Muslims living around it as permanent and implacable military enemies. It is this attitude, far more than any nuclear programme, that poses the real "existential threat" to Israel's long-term survival.
Rich or what? It is not an Israeli leader who has spoken of wiping Iran from the map, but rather an Iranian leader of doing precisely that to Israel. And while Israel has never, ever, pronounced hundreds of millions of Muslims to be 'permanent and implacable military enemies', there are organizations on Israel's very borders that have pronounced their undying enmity for Israel. Yet, by a suave reversal Kaletsky decides a hostile attitude of Israel's poses the existential threat to its survival.
Perhaps Kaletsky might like to consider writing for the Guardian, where sentiments of that stripe are meat and drink.