[Marxism] Times' Veterans of Judith Miller Brigade juice up weakened drive against Iran

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This could be primarily an attempt to set the stage for a Clinton
administration to take on the task of pushing back Iran.

It is written in fully Judith-Miller mode, complete with predictions that
Iran might have a bomb in 2 years and references to relations between the
"ostensibly peaceful program" and the Iranian army.

And, of course, the experts who assure everybody that the Arab governments
will "quietly" support a US war against Iran.  (This is to make sure that
nobody takes statements to the contrary seriously.)

I think it is quite likely that other Arab states are planning to rev up
their nuclear programs.  That is primarily because Iran shows signs of
getting away with it,  Washington having insisted on a US-Israeli nuclear
monopoly in the region.
Fred Feldman




April 15, 2007
Eye on Iran, Rivals Pursuing Nuclear Power 
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
Two years ago, the leaders of Saudi Arabia told international atomic
regulators that they could foresee no need for the kingdom to develop
nuclear power. Today, they are scrambling to hire atomic contractors, buy
nuclear hardware and build support for a regional system of reactors.

So, too, Turkey is preparing for its first atomic plant. And Egypt has
announced plans to build one on its Mediterranean coast. In all, roughly a
dozen states in the region have recently turned to the International Atomic
Energy Agency in Vienna for help in starting their own nuclear programs.
While interest in nuclear energy is rising globally, it is unusually strong
in the Middle East. 

"The rules have changed," King Abdullah II of Jordan recently told the
Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "Everybody's going for nuclear programs." 

The Middle East states say they only want atomic power. Some probably do.
But United States government and private analysts say they believe that the
rush of activity is also intended to counter the threat of a nuclear Iran.

By nature, the underlying technologies of nuclear power can make electricity
or, with more effort, warheads, as nations have demonstrated over the
decades by turning ostensibly civilian programs into sources of bomb fuel.
Iran's uneasy neighbors, analysts say, may be positioning themselves to do
the same.

"One danger of Iran going nuclear has always been that it might provoke
others," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London. "So when
you see the development of nuclear power elsewhere in the region, it's a
cause for some concern."

Some analysts ask why Arab states in the Persian Gulf, which hold nearly
half the world's oil reserves, would want to shoulder the high costs and
obligations of a temperamental form of energy. They reply that they must
invest in the future, for the day when the flow of oil dries up.

But with Shiite Iran increasingly ascendant in the region, Sunni countries
have alluded to other motives. Officials from 21 governments in and around
the Middle East warned at a meeting of Arab leaders in March that Iran's
drive for atomic technology could result in the beginning of "a grave and
destructive nuclear arms race in the region."

In Washington, officials are seizing on such developments to build their
case for stepping up pressure on Iran. President Bush has talked privately
to experts on the Middle East about his fears of a "Sunni bomb," and his
concerns that countries in the Middle East may turn to the only
nuclear-armed Sunni state, Pakistan, for help.

Even so, that concern is tempered by caution. In an interview on Thursday, a
senior administration official said that the recent announcements were
"clearly part of an effort to send a signal to Iran that two can play this
game." And, he added, "among the non-Iranian programs I've heard about in
the region, I have not heard talk of reprocessing or enrichment, which is
what would worry us the most."

The Middle East has seen hints of a regional nuclear-arms race before. After
Israel obtained its first weapon four decades ago, several countries took
steps down the nuclear road. But many analysts say it is Iran's atomic
intransigence that has now prodded the Sunni powers into getting serious
about hedging their bets and, like Iran, financing them with $65-a-barrel
oil. 

"Now's the time to worry," said Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East expert at the
Nixon Center, a Washington policy institute. "The Iranians have to worry,
too. The idea that they'll emerge as the regional hegemon is silly. There
will be a very serious counterreaction, certainly in conventional military
buildups but also in examining the nuclear option."

No Arab country now has a power reactor, whose spent fuel can be mined for
plutonium, one of the two favored materials - along with uranium - for
making the cores of atom bombs. Some Arab states do, however, engage in
civilian atomic research.

Analysts caution that a chain reaction of nuclear emulation is not
foreordained. States in the Middle East appear to be waiting to see which
way Tehran's nuclear standoff with the United Nations Security Council goes
before committing themselves wholeheartedly to costly programs of atomic
development.

Even if Middle Eastern nations do obtain nuclear power, political alliances
and arms-control agreements could still make individual states hesitate
before crossing the line to obtain warheads. Many may eventually decide that
the costs and risks outweigh the benefits - as South Korea, Taiwan, South
Africa and Libya did after investing heavily in arms programs.

But many diplomats and analysts say that the Sunni Arab governments are so
anxious about Iran's nuclear progress that they would even, grudgingly,
support a United States military strike against Iran.

"If push comes to shove, if the choice is between an Iranian nuclear bomb
and a U.S. military strike, then the Arab gulf states have no choice but to
quietly support the U.S.," said Christian Koch, director of international
studies at the Gulf Research Center, a private group in Dubai.

Decades ago, it was Israel's drive for nuclear arms that brought about the
region's first atomic jitters. Even some Israeli leaders found themselves
"preaching caution because of the reaction," said Avner Cohen, a senior
fellow at the University of Maryland and the author of "Israel and the
Bomb." 

Egypt responded first. In 1960, after the disclosure of Israel's work on a
nuclear reactor, Cairo threatened to acquire atomic arms and sought its own
reactor. Years of technical and political hurdles ultimately ended that
plan. 

Iraq came next. But in June 1981, Israeli fighter jets bombed its reactor
just days before engineers planned to install the radioactive core. The
bombing ignited a global debate over how close Iraq had come to nuclear
arms. It also prompted Iran, then fighting a war with Iraq, to embark on a
covert response.

Alireza Assar, a nuclear adviser to Iran's Ministry of Defense who later
defected, said he attended a secret meeting in 1987 at which the commander
in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Iran had to do
whatever was necessary to achieve victory. "We need to have all the
technical requirements in our possession," Dr. Assar recalled the commander
as saying, even the means to "build a nuclear bomb."

In all, Iran toiled in secret for 18 years before its nuclear efforts were
disclosed in 2003. Intelligence agencies and nuclear experts now estimate
that the Iranians are 2 to 10 years away from having the means to make a
uranium-based bomb. It says its uranium enrichment work is entirely peaceful
and meant only to fuel reactors.
[snip]



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