Vestlige medier har en tendens til ikke å ta president Mahmoud Ahmadinejads trusler seriøst, fordi de er så bombastiske. Men før helgen uttalte han seg konkret om muligheten for en ny krig i Libanon til sommeren.

Da ville nabolandene gjøre kort prosess med Israel, sa han.

It’s hardly surprising any more when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens Israel with destruction. It wasn’t so long ago that he suggested the country be moved to Alaska. Or just wiped off the map.

But in a Thursday speech at Isfahan broadcast on state television, he issued a threat more direct than any that had come before. If Israel, he said, were to go to war against Lebanon again this summer, it would be destroyed.

«If this year you repeat the same mistake of the last year,» the Iranian president intoned, «the ocean of nations of the region will get angry and will cut the root of the Zionist regime from its stem.»

The speech came just hours after a report by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warning that Iran’s ongoing enrichment of uranium meant that the country could have a nuclear bomb within three to eight years.
..
In his speech, Ahmadinejad also referenced recent violence in the Gaza strip. «If you think that by bombing and assassinating Palestinian leaders,» he said addressing Israel, «you are preparing ground for new attacks on Lebanon in the summer, I am telling you that you are seriously wrong.»

He went on to reference Israeli history. «Sixty years of invasion and assassination are enough. If you do not cease invasion and massacre, soon the hand of power of the nations of the region will rub you criminals with Earth,» he said.

Ahmadinejad Threatens Israel with Destruction