Commentary: Bibi"s Cartoon Bomb TEHRAN (FNA)- Commander of Iran"s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari has said Iran"s armed forces are fully ready to deter the enemy"s provocations.

Jafari also said the reason the enemies have stopped using the language of threat and military strike is because they have finally realized that their war rhetoric will have no impact on Iran"s resolve, and that under international law the country will continue its civilian nuclear program come what may.

However, Jafari further said despite the new development, Iranian commanders will continue to take any American-Israeli drumbeat of war seriously, because in the past these warmongers have eventually gone beyond threats and attacked and invaded countries like Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya.

It is the Iranian commander"s final statement that once again begs the question of whether an Israeli war against Iran is inevitable before the November presidential election in the US - despite Washington"s toned-down rhetoric? Well, the "long-overdue battle" apparently got a boost recently, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the UN General Assembly, once again claimed that Iran"s nuclear program is a threat to global peace and security.

But this time something was rather different and odd. Netanyahu held up a diagram during his speech, supposedly showing Iran"s progress toward a bomb, drawn in the crude shape of a cartoon bomb that many four-year-olds could have also produced using MS Paint! He took out a red magic marker to draw on the chart depicting an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Needless to say, some mainstream media outlets were quick to react. They teased the Israeli prime minister by saying that "Netanyahu"s endless warnings about "the Iranian threat" are just as cartoonish as his bomb."

Netanyahu"s bizarre cartoon bomb also got some reaction from Tehran. For instance, Iran"s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said Israel long ago crossed the "red line" and remains the only regime in the Middle East with a nuclear weapons arsenal.

Aside from Netanyahu"s cartoon bomb, we know that it was at the same UN gathering earlier that US President Barack Obama had said time was running out to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. "The United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," he said.

Under the circumstances, it is, therefore, wise for the Iranian military brass and officials to take any war rhetoric seriously and be ready for any wrenching round of American-Israeli deployments to the region - even though the Washington pundit class and conventional wisdom suggest the war-weary Americans and well-informed populace do not support another senseless war.

The Obama administration seemingly complains about Israel"s escalation of war rhetoric, but it is immature to assume that Tel Aviv is not at it again without the endorsement of the Capitol Hill. More importantly, the well-informed populace knows that the US (and Israel) and its overgrown military complex is addicted to war and cannot kick militarism or a crusade to spread "democratic capitalism" in the Middle East, and reshape the region through Iran and Syria - after failing to do so in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

But American pundits are also agreed that Iran is not Iraq or Afghanistan, and that if the ever-deepening militarization of US policy turns its guns toward Iran, "it would threaten to leave the US isolated and bankrupt, both morally and economically."

On the other hand, the truth is that Washington, Israel and their allies have already been at war with Iran since the victory of its Islamic Revolution back in 1979. Since then, they have been waging a campaign of unilateral sanctions, assassinations, terror, cyber-warfare, and covert operations against Iran in a bid to stop its growing regional influence and/or its nuclear energy program among others. Needless to say, Iran has stood its ground, but if it had taken similar actions toward Israel or the US, they would have certainly considered it a declaration of open war.

So the recent statement by Iran"s top military commander that "Iran"s armed forces are fully ready to deter the enemy"s provocations" does really fit with a perfectly rational strategic calculus, because since 1979, Iran has been trying to preserve stability in the region by counterbalancing the aggressive Washington-Tel Aviv axis.

As for Netanyahu"s cartoonish claim that in less than a year Iran will cross the red line and build an alleged nuclear bomb, it suffices to remember that back in 1992, as a Member of the Knesset, Netanyahu predicted that Iran was "three to five years" from a nuclear weapon. He was wrong in 1992, and he is wrong now! Ehud Barak - now Bibi"s Defense Minister - also said in 1996 that Iran would have a nuke by 2004! He was also wrong!

Why? Because based on a recent report by the Board of Governors at the International Atomic Energy Agency, "the IAEA is confident about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and can conclude that all nuclear materials in Iran are in peaceful activities."

In other words, an honest reading of the IAEA report does show that despite Netanyahu"s allegations and memory loss, there is little anticipation that Iran is close to or even interested in a nuclear weapons program

by: farsnews