Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah threaten Middle East: McCain (Roundup)

Mar 19, 2008, 15:38 GMT

Jerusalem - US Republican presidential hopeful John McCain slammed Iran, Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement in an interview published Wednesday, saying that they threatened the Middle East and were a danger to US national interests.

He also said, in a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was keen on getting the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks going.

'I believe that President Abbas ... wants to get this process started,' McCain said, of the peace talks, which were renewed in December after a seven-year hiatus, but have since threatened to run aground over continued Israeli settlement activity, Palestinian militant rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, and an intense Israeli air and ground campaign in the salient to try and thwart the missiles, but which left over 120 Palestinians dead.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who met the Arizona senator in the afternoon, said Israel could halt the almost daily rocket fire from the Gaza Strip without a major ground offensive in the salient, as an increasing number of Israelis are demanding.

'We will stop the (rocket) fire by the creation of deterrence in the South which will make (the Gaza militants) think twice before they shoot again,' the Ha'aretz daily quoted the premier as saying.

McCain, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post daily, said he could not provide an answer how to halt the rocket attacks.

But, he added, 'I can tell you that I believe that if rocket attacks came across the border of the United States of America, that the American people would probably demand pretty vigorous actions in response.'

The main focus of the interview, however, was on Iran, which McCain said flatly 'is a threat to the region.'

He said that while Tehran was 'obviously pursuing nuclear weapons,' it was also arming and training extremists to send into Iraq, supporting Hezbollah and influencing Syria.

'At the end of the day, we can still not afford to have Iran with nuclear weapons,' McCain said. 'We know they have ambitions that are not just aimed at the State of Israel,' but also included 'destabilization of the entire region upon which the United States' national security interests rest.'

Hamas and Hezbollah represented a similar threat, he maintained, saying that if the two militant groups 'succeed here, they are going to succeed everywhere, not only in the Middle East, but everywhere.'

'They are dedicated to the extinction of everything that the US, Israel and the West believe and stand for,' he said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who met McCain in the morning, said Israel had the same understanding 'of the nature of the threat in the region, starting with Iran, its connections to Hamas and to the others.'

'It is impossible to achieve peace without dealing with the fundamental issues of terrorism and extreme Islamism,' she said.

She added that a change in the Gaza Strip, which is administered by Hamas, was 'essential.'

McCain told the minister that he believed President Abbas 'does not support this kind of activity that is taking place in Gaza.'

He said, in the Jerusalem Post interview, that he backed Israel's refusal to negotiate with Hamas.

'Someone is going to have to answer me the question of how you are going to negotiate with an organization that is dedicated to your extinction,' he said, in reference to the Hamas charter which calls for Israel to be replaced by an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine.

McCain, arrived in Israel Tuesday evening, accompanied by Senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for a lightning visit.

In addition to meeting Livni, Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud Barak Wednesday, and Israeli President Shimon Peres Tuesday night, he also toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Centre, and visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest shrine.

He leaves Wednesday night for France and Britain, the next stage of his current week-long tour, which he says is a fact-finding mission rather than a campaign trip.