Ahmadinejad arrived in Damascus on Thursday upon the official invitation of his Syrian counterpart -- President Bashar al-Assad.

He spoke of the importance of the Palestinian cause and stressed the cause will not come be materialized if occupiers continue to occupy even a tiny part of Palestine's territories.

He stressed that unity, coordination and sympathy among resistance groups for the Palestinian cause is the only guarantee for Palestine's liberation.

The Islamic Republic of Iran supports the Palestinian cause of statehood and liberation of Islamic territories from occupiers, he added.

Elsewhere, he noted that one of the reasons westerners were lined up against Iran's undeniable right to gain peaceful nuclear technology was because of Iran's uncompromising support for Palestine.

The visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Syria is considered another gesture of political support to Damascus and the Islamic resistance, said Hamas political leader Khaled Mishaal.

The Hamas official extended his thanks to the Iranian president for his firm stance on the Palestinian issue, saying the resistance group, Hamas, considers resistance the only way to resolve the Palestinians' rights and success of their avowed goals.

"Look at the fate of others who sought the destruction of the Jewish people. They only brought havoc and destruction to the own people," Mofaz said.

"I know that a large part of the people of Iran do not support his policies but his despicable acts could bring destruction to all of you. You understand what must be done to prevent this," Mofaz added, directly addressing the Iranian people.

It was the toughest statement of Israel's determination to block Iran's nuclear ambitions since the stroke that felled Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon two weeks ago, and it came just two days before the next scheduled international inspection of Iran's nuclear research facilities.

Mofaz's speech to an international conference of security experts in Herzliya, an exclusive resort just north of Tel Aviv, contained a clear warning that Israel if the United Nations and the international community failed to act, Israel would do so.

"Israel has to be able to defend itself," Mofaz said. "This we can do, and we are working on it now."

The Mofaz speech was intended not only for Iran and an international audience but also for Israeli voters, who go to the polls in March in a general election that seems likely to elect a new government led by the new Kadima party, founded by Sharon, to which Mofaz has rallied along with the acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. With the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran looming heavily over the Israeli elections, Mofaz's speech was aimed to reassure the voters that Israel's security would be safe in Kadima's hands.

Iran's nuclear development program is "an existential risk to the entire world, not just Israel," Mofaz went on, and said that Ahmadinejad led "an extremist regime that denies the existence of Israel and calls for its obliteration."

"I believe everyone present here understands the extent to which the combination of an extremist regime with long-range ballistic capability, ongoing effort to obtain nuclear weapons and support in terror constitutes a danger not only to Israel, but to the entire world," Mofaz added.

Mofaz, formerly chief of staff of Israeli defense forces, told the annual Herzliya Conference on the Israel's national security that in addition to Tehran's nuclear ambitions, Iran was directly sponsoring the Hizbollah terrorist organization to the tune of $100 million a year.

"Money is the fuel for terror," Mofaz said. "The financial assistance Iran transfers to Hizbollah totals some 100 million dollars each year. Some of these funds are funneled from Hizbollah to Palestinian terror groups. In addition, Iran is the main sponsor of the Islamic Jihad, which carried out most suicide attacks in Israel last year, including the attack in Tel Aviv's central bus station."

He added that Islamic Jihad cells in the West Bank received about 10 million dollars from Hizbullah in 2005, compared to just 5 million dollars in 2004.

In his combative speech, Mofaz described last week's Damascus meeting between Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad as "the summit of terror," and called the two leaders "representatives of the past."

But Mofaz made it clear that while Israel could act alone of it had to, the Jewish state was also wary of being isolated diplomatically, and would work hard to build regional alliances and cooperate with the international community.

"In the coming years we need to boost the strategic coordination with the U.S. and Europe, as well as with the peaceful countries Egypt and Jordan. Jihad draws near to us, and so we must combine efforts with the countries of the West," the defense minister said.

"Syria is under international pressure, while we have peace agreements with Arab states and the reality does not allow for the formation of an Arab coalition against Israel. The strength of the peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt contributes to stability in the region, which is why they must continue to be nurtured," Mofaz concluded.

When pressed on the details of military assistance, Cheney said: “Obviously, we would support our friends in Israel under those circumstances were they attacked.” Cheney warned against seeing US military intervention in Iraq as a precedent for possible action to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“It would be a mistake to go back and try to predict what might or might not happen, based on what happened in some other country in the past,” Cheney said in an interview with the Fox News Channel Neil Cavuto program.

“The fact of the matter is, it is a problem for the world if the Iranians have nuclear weapons, especially with a government headed up by the kind of individual that’s there today,” he said. “We are working aggressively to avoid having that situation arise.”

Earlier, the White House condemned a suicide bombing that wounded about 19 people in Tel Aviv, and called on the Palestinians to step up efforts to crack down on extremists who target Israel.

“We condemn this atrocious attack in the strongest possible terms. It has wounded tens of innocent civilians. We call upon the Palestinian Authority, again, to do everything it can to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure,” spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. “It is important that the Palestinian Authority ... act in accordance with their road map obligations to dismantle terror groups,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

Bin Laden says that the US should withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans have said they don't want the war to continue indefinitely. Why should we? The war is not benefiting us. It is killing us and our children. It is putting us all at the risk of further terrorist attacks. It is bleeding dry the government that is supposed to serve us, causing us to get less and less for our hard-earned tax dollars. The deficit that the federal government is running up will burden our children and grandchildren.

In short, we've won. Most Americans initially supported the "War on Terror" as a way of reducing the threat of terrorist attacks. They do not support it so that we could control the oil and other resources in the Arab world. The war's not about that, its supporters have (often angrily) maintained.

If we ended the war now, the president could focus on things he says he cares about: education, jobs, clean energy, the environment. He could re-direct toward these causes the billions of dollars (our dollars) that are being shoveled into the furnace of war. Call it a "Victory Dividend."

The president has been given a rare second chance: The Taliban offered to turn bin Laden over after 9/11, if the US would present evidence that bin Laden perpetrated those attacks. The president refused. More than four years later, all of the president's unmanned aircraft, Tomahawk missiles, 2000-lb bombs, and overworked and underpaid troops still can't catch bin Laden. We've killed many others, though, including tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children. We've tortured. We've built secret prisons and run a gulag in Cuba. Yet after all this effort and all this money, bin Laden is still capable of attacking our homeland. We aren't even prepared: all sorts of soft spots remain vulnerable.

To refuse even to negotiate is irresponsible and reckless, and unrealistic. We cannot destroy an invisible enemy, no matter how many bombs we drop, no matter how many civil rights we erase. We will merely impoverish ourselves, and our brutality will only win the enemy more recruits--who will attack us again and again. A truce is what we need. It is better than anything we could have hoped for in the dark days after 9/11.

We should not let the president pull defeat and misery out of the jaws of victory.

BRIAN J. FOLEY is a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law. The views expressed are his own. He can be reached at brian_j_foley@yahoo.com.

Visit his website at www.brianjfoley.com.