[A-List] Israel's nukes serve to justify Iran's

[Bill Totten <shimogamo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Deterring the deterrents

by Jonathan Power

International Herald Tribune Op-Ed (September 22 2004)

LONDON The more nuclear arms are lying around, the more the chances of them
being used. So to persuade Iran to forgo nuclear weapons is a laudable objective.
But for the United States, Britain and France to insist on it is hypocritical.

These Western powers have argued convincingly for decades that nuclear
deterrence keeps the peace - and themselves maintain nuclear armories
long after the cold war has ended. So why shouldn't Iran, which is in
one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods, have a deterrent too?

And where is the source of the threat that makes Iran, a country that has never
started a war in 200 years, feel so nervous that it must now take the nuclear
road? If Saddam Hussein's Iraq, with its nuclear ambitions, used to be one
reason, the other is certainly Israel, the country that hard-liners in the
United States are encouraging to mount a pre-emptive strike against Iran's
nuclear industry before it produces bombs.

The United States refuses to acknowledge formally that Israel has nuclear
weapons, even though top officials will tell you privately that it has 200 of
them. Until this issue is openly acknowledged, America, Britain and France are
probably wasting their time trying to persuade Iran to forgo nuclear weapons.

The supposition is that Israel lives in an even more dangerous neighborhood
than Iran. It is said to be a beleaguered nation under constant threat of
being eliminated by the combined muscle of its Arab opponents.

There is no evidence, however, that Arab states have invested the financial and
human resources necessary to fight the kind of war that would be catastrophic
for Israel. And there is no evidence that Israel's nuclear weapons have deterred
the Arabs from more limited wars or prevented Palestinian intifadas and suicide
bombers.

Nor have Israel's nuclear weapons influenced Arab attitudes toward making peace.
In the 1973 Arab war against Israel and in the 1991 Gulf war, they clearly
failed in their supposed deterrent effect. The Arabs knew, as the North
Vietnamese knew during the Vietnam War, that their opponent would not dare
to use its nuclear weapons.

Israelis say that they need nuclear weapons in case one day an opportunistic
Egypt and Syria, sensing that Israel's guard is down, revert to their old stance
of total hostility and attack Israel. But, as Zeev Maoz has argued in the
journal International Security, these countries keep to their treaty obligations.

Egypt did not violate its peace treaty with Israel when Israel attacked Syria
and Lebanon in 1982. Syria did not violate the May 1974 disengagement agreement
with Israel even when its forces were under Israeli attack. Nor did Egypt,
Jordan and Syria violate their treaty commitments when the second Palestinian
intifada broke out in September 2000.

Since its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Egypt has reduced its defense spending
from 22 percent of its gross national product in 1974 to a mere 2.75 percent in
2002. Syria's has fallen from 26 percent to 6.7 percent. The combined defense
expenditures of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon amount to only 58 percent of
Israel's. It is the Arabs who should be worried by Israel's might, rather than
the other way round.

Israel's nuclear weapons are politically unusable and militarily irrelevant,
given the real threats it faces. But they have been very effective in allowing
India, Pakistan, Libya, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, North Korea and now
Iran to think that they, too, had good reason to build a nuclear deterrent.

Four of these nations have dismantled their nuclear arms factories, which shows
that nuclear policies are not cast in stone. The way to deal with Iran is to
prove to its leadership that nuclear weapons will add nothing to its security,
just as they add nothing to Israel's.

This may require a grand bargain, which would mean the United States offering a
mutual nonaggression pact, ending its embargo over access to the International
Monetary Fund and allowing American investment in Iran. It would also mean
America coming clean about Israel's nuclear armory and pressuring Israel to
forgo its nuclear deterrent.

If Western powers want to grasp the nettle of nuclear proliferation, they need
to take hold of the whole plant, not just one leaf.

http://www.iht.com/articles/539860.html

Jonathan Power is a commentator on foreign affairs.

See also "If Americans Knew: What every American needs to know about Israel/
Palestine (Pressure Groups and Censorship in Israel/Palestine)" by Alison Weir,
Founder and Executive Director of If Americans Knew (September 15 2004)

Bill Totten     http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/