Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's red lines speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday probably did not stop the Iranian centrifuges; they continue to spin on. The speech did, however, present to the world the dangers of a nuclear Iran in the clearest and simplest way. In recent months, the average citizen of the world may have gotten the impression that an Iranian nuclear bomb and an Israeli bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities are equally dangerous. But Thursday's speech put things into the proper perspective: Israel is "only" issuing warnings (for now), and Iran is "only" enriching uranium (all the time). When it comes to the Iranian issue, we need to review the basics: Iran is the aggressor, Israel is behaving defensively, and the U.S. is Israel's ally, not its enemy. The speech, as well as the simple diagram, illustrated that an Israeli attack is not the hot potato the entire world should fear; instead, the world should fear the Iranian nuclear bomb. On Saturday, the French newspaper Le Monde compared Netanyahu's speech to the globally successful American guidebook series, "For Dummies. These books turn any one of a variety of subjects, such as wine, computers or Spanish, into a simple curriculum "for dummies," teaching the basics to people who do not specialize in these areas. In France, "dummies" is translated as "losers," and the series is wildly popular at French bookstores, featured between Zola and Voltaire. "The Iranian bomb for losers," Le Monde dubbed Netanyahu's speech. "Netanyahu's strategy paid off," it said. "Thanks to the simplicity of the presentation, and the diagram, the message has dominated the Internet." It is worth mentioning that Le Monde usually tends to take a hard line with Netanyahu. But the newspaper cannot know how the speech will affect world leaders. Neither can we. At least now, after Netanyahu's speech, no one can say "we didn't know." Netanyahu's speech also won an additional victory: It served to soften the tension between Jerusalem and Washington, and as such, it may also remove Israel from the American agenda in the lead-up to the presidential election. After this speech it is clear to everyone that the bad guys in this story aren't in Jerusalem and they aren't in Washington. They're in Tehran. To us, this has always been obvious. But now, it is obvious not only to us. In conclusion, one might still say that Iran has not yet reached the red line of 90 percent capability to produce nuclear weapons; but Netanyahu has reached 100 percent in explaining the dangers of an Iranian nuclear bomb.
