Amir Oren: Danger If Egypt Falls Under The Influence Of Fanatic

2006-02-11

Triple threat to NATO

Amir Oren

Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/ pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=681100 &contrassID=2&subContrassID=15 &sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

... If Iran's supreme religious leader, Ali Khamenei, succeeds in helping put a new Nasser into power in Egypt, and this time of the uncompromising Islamic type, the shift there might carry the entire region into an anti-West posture.

Twice in the past month the IDF's GOC Southern Command, Major General Yoav Galant, has utilized internal forums to warn against cuts in the armored forces in general and in his sector in particular. Galant convened senior officers, many of them reservists, for a seminar on Egypt at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva. The experts who addressed the officers mentioned a series of dangers - political, economic, demographic. If there is "an iota of an iota of risk" that Egyptian policy will change along with the regime, Galant warned in his summation, Israel must be prepared for this.

Galant is currently in the minority. Mofaz, as the political figure whose task it is to give the defense establishment directives, did not adopt Galant's view; nor would it have been polite to do so on the eve of meetings with senior officials from Egypt and other Arab states in Taormina. But it is wrong simply to shrug off the apprehension that after three decades of peace with Egypt, with its strategic advantages, the strongest Arab army is liable to fall under the influence of fanatic Islam. When NATO officials speak - very guardedly - about the looming need to take action against the Tehran regime, as distinct from the Iranian nation, they are referring also to these kinds of gloomy scenarios.

In order to avoid them, the Americans, if pressed, are capable of doing what is contrary to their declarations and, it would seem, to their principles as well: to reach a practical compromise with Tehran. As described by Peter Robb in his book "Midnight in Sicily," which skirts Taormina and focuses on Palermo in the northwest of the island, the U.S. Armed Forces drew on the aid of the Mafia against Hitler and Mussolini, and against the Soviets was assisted by Italy's right wing, which also hooked up with the Mafia. The Americans are not against a deal with the devil, as long as he keeps his word and does his part.

Source: IMRA – Independent Media Review and Analysis

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