The clock is ticking on Iran

Matthew Levitt is the president of Hillel and a CAMERA campus fellow.

Emily Berman is the campus liason for the Indiana Israel Public Affairs Committee.

A nuclear Iran will change the world forever. Iran’s ambitions should not be looked at as a quest to obtain a political bargaining chip, but rather as a way to impose hegemony over the region.

Iran’s continued refusal to cease nuclear development undermines the United States’ efforts to strengthen moderate Arab nations, as well as endangering the security of our allies in the Middle East.

Iran has severely complicated efforts to move forward with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

 Iran is the leading state sponsor of international terrorism, including funding Hamas and Hezbollah with money and weapons. The United States is not the only country that worries about the threat of Iran.

In Jeffrey Fleishman’s Los Angeles Times article “In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, succession looms,” he reports from Cairo, “King Abdullah from Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have pushed aside historical animosities between their nations to cooperate in confronting what they regard as major threats to the Sunni Muslim Arab world: the prospect of a nuclear-armed Shiite Iran.”

We should learn from our mistakes of the past and take tyrannical dictators with repeatedly stated militant interests seriously. According to Amnesty International, “Iranian authorities have been engaged in the brutal repression of the Iranian civil society.”

Targets of the regime include labor activists, women’s rights activists and people trying to further cultural rights.

During talks with Iran this month, President Obama stressed their previous dishonesty to both the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency about its nuclear facilities.

 Iran’s continued progress on their nuclear program has violated three U.N. Security Council resolutions. America and its allies are prepared to move quickly on sanctions if Iran continues to break international law.

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., told reporters, “We need to bring a real sense of urgency to this issue. The clock is running, and the Iranians will have a nuclear capability before long if something doesn’t happen to change their minds.”

We must begin to act now so nuclear arms will not be in the hands of an irresponsible, racist theocracy, something that none of us can afford.