Iran

"We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."

-- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1980)

Khomeini, Khamenei. 1980, 2010. It's all much the same. What changes is Iran’s growing ability to carry out its threat. To Israel, George Will reports after visiting with Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran constitutes the greatest threat to its existence since Israelis fought with mostly small arms against Arab tanks in 1948.

Iran’s threat stems from the Iranian revolutionary government’s take-over in 1979, its unflagging militancy since, its aggressive encouragement and arming of Hezbollah and Hamas starting in the early 1980s, the Hezbollah victory over the Israeli army in 2006, the present-day threat Hezbollah and its rockets on Israel’s northern border pose to the Jewish homeland today, Hamas’ emergence unfazed from Israel’s invasion of Gaza last year, with virtually the entire world condemning Israel’s action (condemnation repeated when Israeli commandos repulsed a Muslim-supported effort to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza in May), and the current threat of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel.

Then there’s Iran with the bomb—perhaps within two short years. Khamenei calls Israel the "enemy of God." Iran's former president, Ali Rafsanjani, considered a "moderate" by many, calls Israel a "one-bomb country," meaning, fairly accurately, one bomb, and Israel is no more.

The only threat comparable to a nuclear Iran is an already-nuclear Pakistan under militant Islamic control. Our foreign policy must continue to be fixed on Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.