There is a very troubling wind blowing from the Middle
East, and it bares the latent potential to engulf that entire region and the
world as we have come to know it. If the state of Iran is left to its own
devices, without doubt, they will develop a nuclear weapon. It may surprise and
horrify many, but I say so what - let them.
First of all, what gives the government of the United States the power or right to determine, at will, what sovereign nation shall and shall not have the right to develop nuclear weapons? And if such a power is to be welded, by what rules is America to go by?
Can a nation once led by a former terrorist (Israeli PM Menachem Begin) be allowed a free pass to development, possession or purchase of WMD, while another country in the same region led by a suspected hostage taker (Iran's new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) be forbidden the same rights? If this is to be the working American foreign policy in the Middle East, clearly, it begs to be viewed as morally flawed, culturally bigoted, politically biased and a tad bit schizoid in its expectations.
The genesis of this American- Israeli rush to panic was a speech by the new
hard line Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he stated (along with questioning of the validity of the Jewish Holocaust) the following:
" ...Israel is a disgraceful blot that should be wiped from the face of
the Earth!" and, "... a new wave of Palestinian attacks will wipe this
stigma from the face of the Islamic world!"
The American led furor over his ill chosen remarks and this inevitable
nuclear 'coming of age' event, is based upon two future
prospects of dubious probability:
(1) The Iranians will give to terrorists factions nuclear devices or
materials to make dirty bombs.
(2) The Iranians will use nuclear weapons to attack Israel.
The incredulity of the first becomes obvious when faced with the fact that Iran
has had more than enough highly radioactive waste material on hand, for years,
to make available to terrorists factions had they any desire to do so. To date,
despite serious provocation from the from the Bush administration, they have
made no moves in this perilous direction. In fact, there is no evidence on
record that they have ever made a threat to execute such a plan.
On the other hand,. the matter of Israel is a bit more complex. America has
created a diplomatic quagmire for itself in the Middle East by insisting that
the region be 'nuclear free' while, simultaneously, allowing the Jewish state
total exclusion from the edict.
In point of fact, Israel has steadfastly refused to admit it has a nuclear
weapons program or field ready operational devices, despite the fact that many
credible sources have confirmed their possession of such
an arsenal. And to make matters worse from a negotiating stance, they resolutely
refused to sign the 19 Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty banning the development
of WMD; making it absolutely clear in the process of refusal that they would
tolerate no international inspection of their 'peaceful' nuclear research sites
by outside agencies - even by the United States.
The leaders of neighboring Arab states, including Iran, would have to be
willing to appear fools in the eyes of their own people, to agree to or keep to
any such treaty. The fact that most of them signed such a treaty in the first
place, was more a testament to western-arm twisting in the shadow of threatened
economic and socially crippling embargos. However, the times they have changed and
the tables they have turned.
The present day world in this new age of global prosperity for developed
countries, has to deal with needs of competing economic superpowers, not just
the dominate United States of yesteryear. China, India and Japan have an ever
growing thirst for oil and the hard cash to pay for it. They are not likely to
go along with any such embargo of Iran, for they have far too much to lose;
their growing economies must be fed without interruption for them to survive
upon the path they've chosen - rampant capitalism..
Therefore, to understand this dangerous insistence by the Bush administration
to an Iranian abandonment of its nuclear program, we must come back to the
Israel Equation and how it fares in these ongoing events.
It is well known in the international world of 'open secrets' that Israel has
had, for many decades, a major nuclear weapons program, and that over the
intervening years it has grown to major proportions.. And in a small country like
Israel, the concealment of such a program is a very difficult, if well nigh
impossible task.
So the Israelis have to resorted to the only alternative left
open to them, which is the blunt denial of the existence of any such a program
on their soil: the ploy is generally, off record, referred to by Israelis as -
nuclear ambiguity. Such bold face denials are quite troubling and problematic,
however, in the light of events such as the Vanunu scandal of 1986.
In that year, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician within Israel's nuclear
industry became a whistle blower. He'd managed to smuggle out about 60 photographs to
the British Sunday Times, revealing much of Israel's nuclear bomb factory at its key nuclear development
site where he once worked. The site, Dimona, is located in the Negev Desert.
Vanunu's revelations confirmed what much of the developed world long suspected,
namely, that Israel was well into the process of building advanced nuclear
weapons.
After the United Kingdom's Sunday Times published his revelations with the indisputable photographs as proof, Vanunu was lured to Italy for a
supposed television interview, kidnapped by Mossad agents and clandestinely
smuggled out of the country and back to Israel. In this supposedly democratic country, he
was tried in secret, convicted of treason, and sentenced to 18 years in solitary
confinement.
The Israeli authorities have also shown a marked interest in Israeli writer,
Avner Cohen, who is living in a self imposed exile in the United States. They
have expressed a deep and troubling determination to, eventually, by whatever means, question Mr.
Cohen concerning revelations about their nuclear development efforts as
revealed in his 1998 book, "Israel and the Bomb."
The book effectively argues that there was an Israeli-U.S. 'understanding'
that Washington would turn a blind eye to Israel's nuclear weapons development,
provided Israel refrained from carrying out nuclear tests.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has carried out an in depth
series of studies of the capabilities of the Israeli nuclear program, based upon
the operational start date of the Dimona Plant in1965, and the fact that
(verified by satellite imagery) no new cooling towers were added between 1971 to
2000. The FAS final report concludes the following:
"This strongly suggests that the reactor's power level has not been
increased significantly during this period. This in turn would suggest an annual
production rate of plutonium of about 20 Kg."
It is their estimation that, based upon the upper and lower limits of the
operating practices of the reactor, Israel could have produced enough Plutonium
for 100- 150 nuclear bombs, but not significantly exceeding 200. U.S.
intelligence in the 1990's estimated that Israel possessed 75- 130 nuclear
weapons. The stockpiled weaponry would include warheads for their medium range
missiles the Jericho 1 and 2, bombs for aircraft and possibly other tactical
nuclear weapons.
All of this speculation means nothing, of course, unless it can be proved (or
reasonably surmised from verifiable events), that the Israelis actually tested
their nuclear weapons system. Such proof my have been offered to the world on
February 21, 1980, based upon a CBS news report that Israel may have carried out
its first atomic bomb test the previous Fall.
The CBS report indicated that the then apartheid South African government had
assisted the Israelis in carrying out a 'low yield' nuclear test, somewhere, in
an area over the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic on September 22, 1979 (the
approximate time of the widely reported ultra bright 'double flashes'). And even
though the U.S. admitted to 'something significant' happening at this time in
this area of the world, no corroborating evidence has ever been offered to
substantiate matters one way or the other.
What we do know, however, is that at the time there was a collaboration
between South Africa and Israel involving the development and testing of
Israel's Jericho 2 missile system.
All of this brings us back to the Iranian Presidents remarks listed in the
beginning of this editorial. Are they cause for alarm? Yes, but not on their
own. However, when taken in concert with some very dangerous remarks made by his
Israeli adversaries over the years, the matter becomes grave.
Former Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon once remarked in an interview in
reference to Israel's nuclear capabilities: "Arabs may have the oil, but we
have the matches."
But far more troubling were remarks openly stated by Martin Van Reveled, a
lead professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as
quoted in The War Game on September 21, 2003:
"We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and we can launch
them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals
are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel
must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
"I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to
prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces,
however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or
third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure
you that will happen before Israel goes under."
Such a dire scenario may have, indeed, come far closer to fruition than most
of us realize. As reported in the highly respected Jane's Military Guide, the
1973 Def Con alert was initiated by a possible Israeli reaction to the then
ongoing Yom Kipper War. In the middle of that war, President Nixon ordered a Def
Con 3 alert
DEF CON stands for defense readiness activation level, and is a portmanteau
of "Defense [Readiness] Condition.". There are five levels: Def Con - 5 is
peacetime; Def Con -1 is maximum readiness (on the precipice of war - fingers on
the triggers and buttons); Def Con - 3 is increased force readiness. Needless to
say the nation does not go to Def Con - 3 on a whim.
After the war was over, there were several theories placed in the open as
possible reasons for the Def Con - 3 alert. One was that President Nixon was
about to order a takeover of the Saudi oilfields to blunt the economic affect on
the U.S. of the Arab oil boycott in support of the Yom Kipper War launched by
Egypt and Syria. There was, however, another reported by the renowned Jane's Military
Review that had a more credible tone to it. Based upon the known fact that the Soviet Union went to their version of Def
Con first, which then prompted our response in kind, here is Jane's plausible
explanation:
The Arab attack on Israel was so successful in it's initial stages, most
Israeli generals, including Moshe Dayan, thought it possible the Arab forces
from Egypt would break through the strategic and heavily defended
Miti and Gadi Passes directly into the heart of Israel. Once that happened, all
would be lost.
So the country's high military authorities ordered the rapid deployment of
some early first generation nuclear warheads, to be mounted on the one mid-range
missile system Israel had available. The missiles were then aimed at Russia and
- the Saudi oilfields.
The hoped for result from the Israelis was to halt the massive ongoing
re-supply of the Egyptian war machine by the Russians. And more to the point,
the very real threat as openly implied by the Russians of actual intervention on
behalf of their most valuable Middle East client. The result the Israelis
achieved by their drastic and irresponsible actions was to bring the world to
the brink of nuclear war.
If that event actually took place as it has been envisioned from intelligence
data garnered at the time, we have every reason to fear, equally, the suicidal
survival mentality resident in the minds of the leaders of Israel as we do
anything spouted from the mouth of the current Iranian President.
If there is to be a nuclear free Middle East, all nations in that region must be equally free of nuclear weapons or potential and under strict verification. This requires as a first step the re-editing of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to include Israel.
What should immediately trouble Americans and the world as a
whole, is the mind set of the Bush administration. Their leader is a 'born
again' Christian who declaratively is as religiously dedicated as Iran's Mahmoud
Ahmadimejad. Add the combined state of the two minds to the Israeli mind set of
.." If we go, everybody goes..", what we have in this mix is an explosive
powder keg, open to ignition by a single match in a moment's deployment of bad
decision.
Keep in mind, George W. Bush and his administration have developed the art of making catastrophic bad decisions -
to a science. |