Benny Avni

Benny Avni

Opinion

Netanyahu’s warning on Iran

IsraelI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to somewhat blunt the mullahs’ charm offensive yesterday, but he failed to reverse the gains made last week by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

This inning, then, goes to the Tehran pitchman.

But appeasers shouldn’t rejoice: Losing an international PR battle may force Jerusalem to soon act militarily, and do it by its lonely self if necessary.

As Netanyahu warned the United Nations yesterday, he’ll never agree to a nuclear-armed Iran, and if “Israel is forced to stand alone, it will stand alone.”

A day earlier, after a long and chummy White House session, Netanyahu managed to get his frenemy, President Obama, to at least reiterate an old American formula: “All options are on the table.”

Ever since his budding love affair with Rouhani began in an exchange of letters some weeks ago, Obama somehow forgot that line. Now, with Bibi at his side, it was back.

Yet for weeks Washington had clearly trended away from confronting the mullahs, looking for ways to smile back at Rouhani instead.

Bibi came to reverse that trend. “I wish I could believe Rouhani, but I don’t because facts are stubborn things,” he said.

He then countered as many of Rouhani’s speeches, interviews, Christiane Am­an­pour exposés and press conferences as one can in a single UN speech.

Amazingly, during all that media blitz last week, no one bothered to ask Rouhani one impolite question: Will his “new” Iran accept the Jewish state, or continue to contend — as the mullahs have since assuming power in 1979 — that Israel should be wiped off the map?

In lieu of an answer, Israel must assume that the Tehran regime’s race to arm itself with nukes remains an existential threat.

“The last century has taught us that when a radical regime with global ambitions gets awesome power, sooner or later its appetite for aggression knows no bounds,” Netanyahu said, adding, “The world may have forgotten this lesson. The Jewish people have not.”

In trying to convince the world that no one should forget, Netanyahu already had one strike against him: The high Jewish holidays arrived early this year, so he was forced to address the General Assembly as its final speaker — long after most heads of state left town.

By the time Netanyahu spoke to a half-empty Turtle Bay hall yesterday, the shiny new plaything — the smiley, charm-ey Rouhani — was already gone too, with all his PR gains in pocket.

Strike two, as Netanyahu acknowledged yesterday: “The world is weary of war.” Appeasing Iran is much more “now” than listening to a combative cartoon-man of yesteryear lecture on long-forgotten lessons of last century.

America has no appetite for Mideast complications either, and Obama has shown no inclination to seriously convince us that, for our own interest, we may need to get involved.

Aware of all this, Netanyahu is fighting to at least preserve the tough economic pressure that has forced Iran to ask for clemency.

Before lifting any sanctions, Bibi said, the world must ensure that Iran stops enriching uranium, sends whatever it has already enriched out of the country and destroys all its hidden nuclear facilities and long-range missile sites.

Paraphrasing President Ronald Reagan, Netanyahu said that when it comes to Iran we must “distrust, dismantle and verify.”

Rouhani, he warned, is trying to free Iran of sanctions while leaving the nuclear infrastructure intact: He “thinks he can have his yellowcake and eat it too.”

With the sanctions, the world “has Iran on the ropes,” Netanyahu pleaded, adding, “If you want to knock out Iran’s nuclear-weapons program peacefully, don’t let up the pressure. Keep it up.”

Yet, as he spoke, a campaign to offer a gradual easing of sanctions was already in high gear.

No, Obama isn’t likely to soon publicly spell a roadmap for ending Iran sanctions. (And, anyway, Congress imposed these sanctions, so only Congress, where Bibi’s positions are highly appreciated, can undo them.)

But this is a game of inches. Europeans, Asians and others have long itched to resume business with Iran. At the mere signal out of Washington that sanction removal is contemplated, they’ll look for ways to crack the current, fairly tight economic blockade.

The push to ease sanctions may start Oct. 15, when Iran is to give its counter offer, in Geneva, to a disarmament plan suggested months ago by the world’s top powers.

If Iran succeeds, Netanyahu may soon conclude that he’s all alone with his “outdated” Jewish fears.

And that — rather than a single inning — is when the ballgame will be decided.