Ex-IDF Chief Ya'alon: "We must consider killing Ahmadinejad"

Taken from Haaretz, Israel, 23/11/2008

Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon was quoted as saying by an Australian newspaper this week that the West must consider all options necessary to stop Tehran's nuclear program, including assassinating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



"We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately," Ya'alon said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, published Monday morning in Australia. "There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped."

When asked whether "all options" included a military deposition of Ahmadinejad and the rest of Iran's current leadership, Ya'alon told The Herald: "We have to consider killing him. All options must be considered." The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, quoted an aide to Ya'alon as saying the former chief of staff never suggested assassination, just defeating the Iranian regime.

Ya'alon, who served as IDF chief from 2002 through the final year of the Palestinian Intifada in 2005, also told The Herald that a military strike on Iran would be welcomed by regional elements as quelling the most divisive conflict in the Middle East today.

"Any military strike in Iran will be quietly applauded by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states," he was quoted by The Herald as saying.

"It is a misconception to think that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most important in the Middle-East. The Shiite-Sunni schism is much bigger, the Persian-Arab divide is bigger, the struggle between national regimes and jihadism is much bigger," he was quoted as saying. "And I can't imagine the U.S. will want to share power in the Middle East with a nuclear-armed Iran."

The former army chief told the paper he has long seen Iran as the source of regional terrorism and was surprised the United States chosen to invade Iraq in its stead.

"I was chief of staff during Operation Iraqi Freedom and I was surprised the U.S. decided to go into Iraq instead of Iran," The Herald quoted him as saying. "Unfortunately, the American public didn't have the political stomach to go into Iran."

Ya'alon made headlines last week when he announced that he would be running for the Knesset on hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud list, after weeks of being courted by the opposition leader.

Interesting reading:
(1) Israeli hawks ready to fly on Iran - Brisbane Times - Click here!
(2) NZ Government overrules war-crimes arrest order against Moshe Ya'alon - New Zealand Herald Click Here!