| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:56 am Post subject: 'JINSA John' Bolton: Bush won't tolerate nuclear Iran |
| http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1137605900030&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Bolton: Bush won't tolerate nuclear Iran
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Herb Keinon, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 23, 2006
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US President George W. Bush will not accept a nuclear Iran, John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday.
Bolton, speaking from New York via video hook-up to the Interdisciplinary Center's Herzliya Conference, said that Bush was determined to pursue the issue through peaceful and diplomatic means, "but has made clear that a nuclear Iran is not acceptable."
According to Bolton, Bush worries that a nuclear-equipped Iran under its current leadership could well engage in a nuclear holocaust, "and that is just not something he is going to accept."
Bolton said that if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) referred the Iranian nuclear issue to the UN Security Council in early February, it would still be unlikely for the UN to immediately slap sanctions on Teheran.
"In the first instance I suspect that if it comes to the Security Council in a few weeks we would look for a statement that essentially calls on Iran to comply with the existing IAEA resolutions," Bolton said. "I think that would be a gut check for the Iranians, and if they don't heed that warning we would have to consider what to do next."
Bolton said that referring the issue to the Security Council was a form of pressure on Iran to convince them to make the same strategic decision Libya made in 2004 - that their national interests would be better served, and they would be safer in giving up the purist of nuclear weapons, than in continuing that pursuit.
Bolton, who was very critical during his comments of the UN's treatment of Israel, said - in an answer to a question - that the time had come to re-evaluate UNRWA, the UN body devoted to Palestinian refuges.
When looking toward a two state solution, Bolton said, "you have to ask why one state, Palestine, has an entire UN agency devoted entirely to it."
Bolton asked why the UN Development Program, and other UN programs present in other countries around the world, would not be applicable to a Palestinian state as well.
"Looking at the future of UNRWA is definitely something we should all be doing, thinking about how to transition to a new UN involvement in the region," Bolton said. | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 7:10 am Post subject: Bush's Dilemma: Iran vs. Israel |
| Bush's Dilemma: Iran vs. Israel
antiwar.com
January 25, 2006
by Patrick J. Buchanan
In the test of wills between the West and Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows no sign of backing down.
The Iranian president has said Israel should be "wiped off the map," called the Holocaust a "myth," and said Israelis should be given a province in Austria, but they should get out of Palestine. Whatever was done to the Jews, said Ahmadinejad, we didn't do it. Europeans did. Why should we pay the price?
This weekend, The New York Times provided supporting testimony for Ahmadinejad, citing secret Cabinet notes of Winston Churchill's in 1943:
"I'm committed to creation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Let us go on with that; and at end of war we shall have plenty of force with which to compel the Arabs to acquiesce in our designs. Don't shirk our duties because of difficulties…"
This weekend, Ahmadinejad was in Damascus, Syria, winning the backing of President Assad for Iran's nuclear program, meeting with Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, and scoffing at Israeli threats. Iran has also reasserted its right to enrich uranium for nuclear power.
This has caused much threatening talk in Israel and here. This weekend, Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman were again speaking of "military options" being "on the table." And Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz went further, speaking directly to Iran's president:
"I address you as someone who leads his country with an ideology of hate, terror, and anti-Semitism. I suggest you look at history and see what happened to others who tried to wipe out the Jewish people. … Israel is not prepared to accept the nuclear arming of Iran, and it must prepare to defend itself, with all that implies."
But Ahmadinejad is not backing off. And his provocative rhetoric has paid off. He has strengthened his position at home and made himself the toast of the Muslim street. And panic over a possible war sent the Dow plunging 200 points last Friday, wiping out $200 billion in U.S. shareholders' equity, a loss almost equal to the cost of the Iraq war.
And with the price of a barrel of oil spiking $10 to near $70, Iran, which exports 2.5 million barrels daily, has seen revenues rise $25 million a day. Other oil-producing nations, like Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, also are reaping windfall profits.
The jolts to the Dow and NASDAQ, and Tehran's warnings that sanctions could be met with an oil embargo that could send prices to $100 a barrel, seem to have caused second thoughts in the Bush camp about the wisdom of a confrontation.
In a week, the International Atomic Energy Agency will decide whether to send Iran to the Security Council. But as there is no hard evidence Iran is building weapons or is even in noncompliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Russia may oppose sanctions and China may veto them.
As for the military option, no one knows what U.S. air strikes might produce. Possibilities include tens of thousands of Iranian volunteers streaming into Iraq to attack U.S. troops, Iran's inciting of the Shia south to rise against us, an oil embargo, Silkworm missiles fired at tankers, the closing of the Straits of Hormuz with mines, and terror attacks on U.S. allies and installations across the Middle East – driving the price of oil to $200 a barrel.
With 160,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. strikes, which could kill hundreds of Iranians and silence the pro-American voices there, uniting Iran behind Ahmadinejad, would seem an option that could cost us everything. Can we really afford another war, against a nation three times as populous and four times as large as Iraq?
Bush and Cheney seem aware of the risks of the "military option." But if they rule it out, they will see a bad moon rising on the Right. Not only will the neoconservatives howl, Israelis will see themselves as the odd man out, if Bush should move to negotiations with Tehran, which is the only real alternative to confrontation.
If America does not strike, Mofaz is saying, Israel will. Yet, as that could produce the same results as an American attack, without the same assurance of success, Bush may have to restrain Israel, if he does not want a wider war.
In short, if Bush does not confront Iran on the nuclear issue with sanctions or air strikes, he may find himself confronted by Israelis and their U.S. auxiliaries. Hearken to Hillary Clinton:
"I don't believe you face threats like Iran and North Korea by outsourcing it to others and standing on the sidelines. But let's be clear about the threat we face now: A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond."
Hillary is saying that if George Bush does not confront Iran, he is open to the charge of leaving Israel to face a nuclear attack by a regime that has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Political hardball.
Over to you, Mr. President. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:10 am Post subject: Military Action Against Iran? |
| http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1658
Commentary
Military Action Against Iran?
January 23, 2006
Ivan Eland
The Bush administration is moving toward military action against Iran, despite its current public support for multilateral diplomacy. Surprisingly, that eventual outcome may also comport with the interests of the Iranian government. The real losers in this arms-length conspiracy between the two hostile governments will be the American and Iranian peoples.
For the moment, the Bush administration is playing a more sophisticated diplomatic game against Iran than it did during the ham-handed run-up to the unpopular invasion of Iraq, which led to U.S. isolation from most of the rest of the world. The administration has allowed France, Britain, and Germany to take the lead in trying to negotiate away Iran’s nuclear program. Having failed in that effort, the Europeans are now on board with an International Atomic Energy Agency referral to the United Nations Security Council for the possible imposition of sanctions. The United States is now working to convince China and Russia that stiffer actions against Iran are warranted. Rather than taking rash, almost unilateral, action as it did against Iraq, the Bush administration apparently has learned its lesson and seems to be willing to let multilateral diplomacy play out in order to build international support for a military response.
President Bush has said that Iran should not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon and recently used the term “grave” to describe the threat from Iran, eerily, the same term he used to describe the threat from Iraq before the U.S. invasion. A source on Capitol Hill told me that anti-Iranian hawks are already making speeches and introducing bills to build the case for a military attack.
But after the disaster in Iraq, an invasion probably will not be the preferred course of military action against Iran. Although the Bush administration likes to flex its muscles, it does seem capable of learning—at least in a tactical sense. Any invasion of Iran would be a daunting task, especially with almost 150,000 U.S. forces tied down in the quagmires in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran has two-and-a-half times the population of Iraq, almost four times the area of that country, and is mountainous rather than flat. If the challenge of winning a counterinsurgency war against the mainly secular Sunnis in Iraq seems impossible now, fighting the fanatical religious zealots in Iran on unfavorable terrain would likely prove to be horrific.
Instead, the Bush administration would probably opt for air strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear sites. Although aerial bombardment might set back the Iranian nuclear program, it would probably not eliminate it. After Israeli air strikes against the Iraq’s Osirik nuclear reactor in 1981, nuclear aspirants dispersed and hid atomic facilities, buried them, or placed them in highly populated areas where bombing would kill many innocent civilians. If the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is any indication, U.S. intelligence on Iranian nuclear facilities probably isn’t that good, and air strikes would thus likely be ineffective. Why then would the Bush administration go down this route? Because much of government policy—U.S. or other—is to show the domestic audience that something is being done about a problem, especially when the threat from an external “enemy” has been embellished. With a long confrontation with Iran and eventual air strikes, the Bush administration could distract attention from the deteriorating situations in Iraq and Afghanistan for many months without risking yet another quagmire in Iran.
First, only mild international economic sanctions will likely be placed on Iran. Here the United States will fall victim to the first consequence of its invasion of Iraq. Other countries are suspicious that a hard-line approach against Iran will encourage the United States to do what it did against Iraq. Yet economic sanctions, no matter how strong, will be unlikely to compel the Iranian government to get rid of its nuclear program, which has wide public support in Iran. The second consequence of the invasion of Iraq, a country that was not even close to getting a nuclear weapon, was that Iran, which was much closer to that goal, saw how the U.S. superpower treated non-nuclear “rogue” states and accelerated its nuclear program to acquire the ultimate deterrent against the United States and Israel. No wonder Iran has been unwilling to accept Western trade and investment goodies to negotiate away its nuclear program.
But if the aggressive Bush administration is prone to military action, why is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Iranian president, making inflammatory comments that could allow the United States to portray him as madman who requires a military drubbing? Perhaps Ahmadinejad realizes that a U.S. invasion is unlikely and that air strikes by the “Great Satan” would be ineffectual but would help him win over a young population that is tired of Islamic radicalism and wants to reestablish ties with the world. Thus, U.S. air strikes could benefit both the U.S. and Iranian governments at the expense of their peoples.
Instead the U.S. should accept the fact that Iran will probably obtain nuclear weapons and use the massive U.S. nuclear arsenal to deter the use of any puny Iranian nuclear force. Something similar was done when radical Maoist China obtained nuclear weapons in the mid- to late-1960s. Also, “the return of the radicals”—as represented by Ahmadinejad—will likely generate a counterrevolution among the Iranian people, who want to reconnect with the world, according to Professor Jack A. Goldstone of George Mason University, an expert on revolutions. According to Goldstone, this counterrevolution happened in China after radicals returned during the Cultural Revolution and in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s purges.
So instead of the Bush administration’s activist stance against the fulminating Iranian regime and its nuclear program, perhaps a “do-nothing” policy would achieve better results with much less cost in blood and treasure.
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Ivan Eland is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, Director of the Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, and author of the books The Empire Has No Clothes, and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:35 pm Post subject: Bush commits US to defence of Israel in face of Iran threat |
| http://www.guardian.co.uk
Bush commits US to defence of Israel in face of Iran threat
President issues warning over Tehran nuclear plans
Pressure rises for referral to UN Security Council
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday January 24, 2006
Guardian
George Bush yesterday committed the US to the defence of Israel against threats from Iran, saying he would not allow the world to be "blackmailed" by an Iranian nuclear weapon.
The US president's warning, issued in an exchange with students in Kansas, came at a tense time in relations with Iran, after Tehran vowed to restart nuclear research. The US is leading a diplomatic attempt to persuade other countries to refer Iran to the UN security council for failure to cooperate with United Nations inspectors. Tehran insists it is interested only in a civilian nuclear energy programme, and has threatened to return to full-scale production of nuclear fuel if it is referred to the UN.
"I am deeply concerned about Iran, as should a lot of people be concerned about Iran. I am concerned when the country of Iran's president announces his desire to see that Israel gets destroyed," Mr Bush said, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threat to "wipe Israel off the map".
He added: "Israel's our ally. We're committed to the safety of Israel, and it's a commitment we will keep.
"Secondly, I'm concerned about a nontransparent society's desire to develop a nuclear weapon. The world cannot be put in a position where we can be blackmailed by a nuclear weapon. I believe it is very important for the Iranian government to hear loud and clear from not only the United States, but also from other nations around the world."
The president's appearance in Kansas took the form of a short speech followed by an unscripted question-and-answer session of the kind being tried out by Mr Bush's handlers as a means of showing him at his most relaxed and responsive.
He defended his decision to allow wiretaps on telephone calls and emails between American residents and foreigners without court warrants, insisting it was legal. "I'm mindful of your civil liberties and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process," he told his audience of about 9,000 mostly students and soldiers at Kansas State University.
The president paid tribute to Tony Blair, after being asked by a British questioner whether he had talked to the prime minister about the common perception of him in Britain as Mr Bush's "yes man".
"I'm sorry that his relationship with me causes him political problems at home. You know, sometimes I can be little allergic for people overseas, if you know what I mean," the president said to laughter from a mostly supportive crowd.
"I'm aware that that is a criticism of Tony, and I just strongly disagree with that. He's an independent thinker. He and I share this interesting moment in history together, and we also share this deep belief that liberty will transform the world or can transform the world. That's what we believe. In other words, there is a philosophical core of Tony Blair, core beliefs that Tony and I share."
The president listed the issues on which he disagreed with Mr Blair, including the Kyoto accord on climate change and the international criminal court, both of which are opposed by Mr Bush. But, the president went on, they agreed "strategically, and that's what's important". He said they tried to talk once a week.
"And it's a really interesting way to share, just thoughts and concerns," Mr Bush said. "And the British-US relationship is unique. It's been unique in the past. It is unique today. And I'm convinced it will be unique in the future, for the good of the world." | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:22 am Post subject: Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persi |
| Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 22:57:31 -0800
From: "Jeff Blankfort" <jblankfort@earthlink.net>
Subject: Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persian Gulf
This will most assuredly happen if Iran is attacked.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=674159
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
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Last update - 09:26 24/01/2006
Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persian Gulf
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
A senior Iranian official threatened that Tehran may forcibly prevent oil export via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions due to Iran's nuclear program, an Iranian news Web site said on Monday.
This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a public statement on Tehran's recent disagreements with the West.
The news site, affiliated with the radical student movement in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was once a member, quoted Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.
According to the report, Rudaki said that "if Europe does not act wisely with the Iranian nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the UN Security Council and economic or air travel restrictions are imposed unjustly, we have the power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the shores of the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz."
25% of the world's oil production passes through the Straits of Hormuz, which connect the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean. The meaning of Rudaki's threat is that not only will Tehran stop its oil production from reaching the West, it may also use force to prevent the other oil prodoucers in the region (the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait) from exporting to the West.
Raduki also warned that his country might quit from its membership in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
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/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=674159 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:23 am Post subject: Iran: Israel will be put in 'eternal coma' if it attacks nuc |
| http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/674719.html
Last update - 19:32 25/01/2006
Iran: Israel will be put in 'eternal coma' if it attacks nuclear sites
By News Agencies
TEHRAN, Iran - Were Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran would respond so strongly that it would put the Jewish state into "an eternal coma" like Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's, the Iranian defense minister said Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has said Israel would not accept Iran's acquiring nuclear weapons under any circumstances. He stopped short of threatening a military strike against Iran - as Israel destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 - but he said Israel was preparing for the possible failure of diplomatic negotiations with Iran.
A newscaster on Iranian state television read out a response from Iran's minister of defense, Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, on Wednesday.
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"Zionists should know that if they do anything evil against Iran, the response of Iran's armed forces will be so firm that it will send them into eternal coma, like Sharon," Najjar said.
Sharon suffered a massive stroke on January 4 and has been in a coma ever since.
Najjar said the United States and Israel have been trying to frighten Iran, but neither country would dare attack to Iran.
Israel views Iran as its biggest threat and has joined the U.S. in accusing the Islamic republic of trying to produce a nuclear bomb.
Iran denies the allegation and says the sole aim of its nuclear program is to generate electricity.
Iran has been under increasing international pressure to halt its nuclear program. On January 10, Iran broke the seals of the United Nations nuclear agency at its main uranium enrichment plant and resumed small-scale enrichment - a process that can produce the fuel for nuclear reactors or the material for atomic bombs.
The step provoked strong protests in Europe, which has been negotiating with Iran, and the U.S. It also sparked moves to refer Iran's nuclear file to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions on the country.
Israel has consistently refrained from confirming press reports that it has about 200 nuclear warheads deployed on ballistic missiles, aircraft and submarines.
UN Security Council members to meet Monday on Iran
Foreign ministers of the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany will meet on Monday to seek consensus on Iran's disputed atomic work before a meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog, a senior diplomat said.
He said Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany would strive to overcome differences before the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) holds an emergency meeting on Iran in Vienna on Feb. 2.
The United States and its European allies want the IAEA to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions. Russia and China are urging caution, preferring something like an IAEA statement of concern about Iran without a referral now.
"There are still differences, certainly, and things are still in flux, but we are not too far apart. We need to agree on a common approach," the senior diplomat said, asking not to be identified because of the delicacy of current consultations.
The New York Times reported from Vienna that IAEA officials had flown to Tehran on Tuesday where it said they would give Iran a last chance to cooperate fully with the agency's demands on the country's past nuclear activities.
It quoted agency officials as saying Olli Heinonen, deputy director general for safeguards, would press demands for access to a former military site in Tehran, information about Iran's dealings with an international nuclear black market and information about possible work related to nuclear weapons.
Britain, France and Germany, negotiating with Iran on behalf of the European Union with U.S. support, broke off talks this month after Tehran removed IAEA seals on uranium enrichment equipment and announced it was resuming nuclear fuel research.
The West suspects Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic program. Tehran denies this. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:23 pm Post subject: PINR - The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal: The End Game Begins |
| Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 14:59:22 -0800
From: "Jeff Blankfort" <jblankfort@earthlink.net>
Subject: PINR - The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal: The End Game Begins
"Members of Congress were angered by the visit of the Indian foreign minister to Iran and scolded India during a hearing on the U.S.-India nuclear pact. U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos went so far as to say that India "will pay a heavy price for a total disregard of U.S. concerns vis--vis Iran."
"The Bush administration made it clear that if India voted against the U.S. motion on Iran, Congress would likely not approve the U.S.-India nuclear agreement. Lantos later hailed the Indian vote in the I.A.E.A. and argued that it would promote a positive consideration in Congress of the new U.S.-India nuclear agreement. India, on its part, has continued to claim that its vote had nothing to do with its nuclear agreement with the United States."
Israeli agent and US Congress member (in that order) Tom Lantos (D-CA) periodically represents Israel diplomatically in countries that do not formally recognize Israel according to the Jerusalem Post. India buys billions of dollars of natural gas from Iran which is key to its economy. If it should vote against Iran again, it is likely that their deal will evaporate.
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=428&language_id=1 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:56 pm Post subject: The Panic about Iran |
| The Panic about Iran
International Herald Tribune
By William Pfaff (for a copy of this article go to: www.williampfaff.com)
Paris, January 24, 2006 €“ Why is all the pressure being mounted against
Iran when both Washington and Jerusalem unofficially concede that there
is nothing to be done to prevent Iran's government from continuing along
its present course of nuclear development?
The contradictions in western official and unofficial discourse about
Iran and its nuclear ambitions are so blatant that one might suspect
disinformation, but it probably is simply the cacophony of single-minded
bureaucracies working at cross purposes, an effect of the multiple
lobbies involved and of U.S. domestic political exploitation, and the
paradox of American policy itself, whose non-proliferation efforts
actually provoke nuclear proliferation.
The Washington official line seems meant to build pressure for UN
Security Council sanctions on Iran, even while conceding that nothing
practical is expected to result, and that nothing can be done about
Iran€™s resumption of nuclear processing. Iran at present is doing no
more than it has a right to do in international law.
The cross-fire of public pronouncements draws attention to the inherent
cynicism of the western position. The United States and the other
Security Council members can have nuclear weapons, and Israel, Pakistan
and India (non-Security Council members), can have them too, but you €“
Iran --can€™t proceed with your (currently) non-military program. The
United States is even in discussion with weapons-builder India to supply
nuclear materials (for strictly peaceful purposes, of course).
All of this piles up in righteous Iranian eyes as evidence that Iran
needs to go beyond its present program and actually build nuclear
weapons. National prestige and pride are involved, obviously €“ and
nationalism is probably the most powerful of all political forces.
Military strategy is also involved. So far as anyone in the non-western
world can see, Iraq€™s mistake in 2003 was not to have a nuclear bomb or
two in working order. That would have kept the U.S. at bay, just as
uncertainty about North Korea€™s nuclear arms inhibits U.S. policy in the
Far East.
Iran already possesses non-nuclear deterrents to American attack, which
Iraq did not, and they are probably strong enough to keep both the U.S.
and Israel away from Iranian nuclear sites.
Iran can close down a major part of Middle Eastern oil shipments by
closing the Hormuz strait. It has combined Revolutionary Guard and army
ground forces three times the total of the American forces now active in
Iraq, where Teheran also has influence on the Shi€™ite clerical
leadership, which holds the key to Iraq€™s future.
Nuclear weapons proliferation in the non-western world is an old
American preoccupation, but it is directly linked to Third World
perceptions of the threat of American military intervention. The main if
not the only advantage nuclear weapons provide a country such as Iran is
deterrence of intervention by the United States or Israel. The urge to
possess these weapons is directly reciprocal to American
non-proliferation pressures, and the threat of attack.
(The India-Pakistan case is an exception to these generalizations, since
there the perceived threats are strictly bilateral, and the two
countries have simply replicated for themselves, at great cost, the
balance of terror that existed between the United States and the Soviet
Union during the cold war.)
Possession of the bomb would also bring comfort and prestige to Iran in
dealing with its near neighbors, which include nuclear-armed Pakistan
and Russia, as well as Israel.
In theory, a threat of aggressive use of nuclear weapons exists, but in
the Middle East it is accompanied by the certainty of overwhelming
Israeli (or even American) retaliation. Warnings by American politicians
that €œrogue states€ might attack Israel, the United States, British
bases on Cyprus, or Western Europe, are manipulation or propaganda.
Individual Moslems may welcome martyrdom, but nations, even Moslem
nations, do not.
Israel, with its conventional and mass destruction arms, is amply
capable of assuring its own military deterrence and defense, whatever
the ex-mayor of Teheran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, thinks or says. However it
cannot expect long-term security without diplomatic and political
resolution of its conflict with the Palestinians. As Israeli leaders
know, solving that problem is chiefly up to Israel. Forty years of
American involvement have mainly enabled the Israelis to avoid doing so.
The danger of terrorist-held nuclear weapons exists, if barely. This
would be possible only with a nuclear state€™s complicity. The political
plausibility of any government giving terrorists control of such weapons
is next to nil, considering the risks involved for the benefactor state.
The technical and logistical complexity of such an operation would also
be great. There are serious problems in international affairs and there
are baroque ones; this one is baroque.
Copyright 2006 by Tribune Media Services. All Rights Reserved. | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
