Is Iran’s Khamenei Dead Man Walking? Is Erdoğan? by Michael Rubin

Recommendable! Israel is in a very tough neighborhood! Too many Arabs are still very hostile towards Israel!

I blogged here yesterday about the possibility of Israel using nuclear weapons against Iran. I speculated here recently that Nasrallah was a dead man walking just days before he and other terrorist leaders were obliterated in a bunker.

How far are we already into World War III with Ukraine and the Middle East?

"... Over the decades, the Islamic Republic crossed many red lines that should have triggered assassinations of senior leaders. Had the United States responded militarily to the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, as Admiral James “Ace” Lyons counseled during the Carter administration, Iranian leaders might have reconsidered subsequent acts of terror. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might have warned its Hezbollah proxies that seizing American hostages in Lebanon, let alone bombing the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and/or the Marine Barracks in Beirut, would force them to pay too high a price. Certainly, bombing the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, and later the Jewish cultural center, crossed a red line. So, too, did attacking or seeking to attack Israel’s embassies in India, Thailand, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. ...

With Iran’s nuclear program already exceeding the uranium enrichment level of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, Israel feels it faces an existential threat. American policymakers may define Iranian nuclear bomb acquisition as 20 kilograms of 90 percent-enriched uranium, but Iranian leaders may not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good when it comes to their desire for genocide against the Israeli people. ...

The regime is already primed for Khamenei’s death ... reports suggest they have evacuated Khamenei to a secure location.

Khamenei is not the only world leader who should be concerned. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made support for Hamas his brand. Hamas leaders openly plot attacks from their Istanbul office. ...

Erdoğan may believe his status as a NATO member protects him, but if he attacked Israel first, directly or by proxy, NATO Article V would not apply—nor is it clear an assassination absent a claim of responsibility would trigger it.

Iraqi leaders also should question whether distance will protect them from Israeli retaliation. Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq leader Qais Khazali or firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr could soon find themselves in the same crosshairs as their friend Nasrallah. ...

Diplomatically, the time is right for Israel to up its campaign to eliminate terror sponsors. The United States, Europe, and the United Nations will criticize Israel no matter what it does, so Israel might as well act with a bunk buster rather than a fly swatter. ..."

Is Iran’s Khamenei Dead Man Walking? Is Erdoğan? | American Enterprise Institute - AEI