Speaking at the 2013 Herzliya Conference, Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, told a packed Herzliya Conference auditorium that even if Iran acted rationally with nuclear weapons they would pose an unacceptable global threat, stating that: “Under its own nuclear umbrella, Teheran would be free to raise and lower the volume of regional tension as best suits its national interest… “With a nuclear Iran, the rules of the Middle Eastern game would not only change overnight; they would change irreversibly.”

The Italian Foreign Minister went on to suggest that: “In the end, however “regional” the trigger, a nuclear crisis will always have a global impact…Should Teheran acquire nuclear capabilities, others would follow and the Middle East – the very doorstep of Europe – would enter this new regional nuclear race.”

Addressing the ongoing bloodshed in Syria he told Herzliya Conference participants: “We can no longer afford delays in our action. No example is better than Syria to remind us that the Assad regime and its allies do not necessarily act under similar constraints. We are witnessing the emergence of fast-rising economic and military powers, in different regions, which pursue their interest with the power of a State and the flexibility of a non-state actor. These are decades of asymmetric diplomacy.”

He concluded by pointing to Israel as a regional stabilizer stating that “Israel not only lies at their geographical center. It is also at their frontline. As the dust settles, and room grows for new ideas, Israel will be the first and foremost engine of a new path towards a more secure and peaceful Middle East.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)