Avner Cohen's brief comment on this post over at your blog is a reminder that there are two senses in which Israel's nukes are a kind of taboo: not only is there relatively little debate about the issue in the U.S., but Israel of course has never acknowledged the existence of its nuclear arsenal. I don't see how Israel's open acknowledgment that it is a nuclear state would harm Israel, and it might actually improve matters in the region.
While I agree with you that there should be public debate in the U.S. about the issues Butler raises, it is not absurd for the U.S. to view Israel's nukes differently from, say, North Korea's. The not-yet-implemented U.S.-India nuclear agreement indicates that American policy has been moving toward a highly 'pragmatic' posture in this area, and that is not necessarily a completely bad thing. The original five nuclear powers have never taken very seriously their obligation under NPT Article VI to move toward their own nuclear disarmament, and in that sense there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around. But the more egregious failings of the Bush administration in this area have not been the India deal (for which, as I've already suggested, a pragmatic case can be made) or the situation with North Korea or Iran (though one can certainly argue about those), but rather the Bush admin's insistence on pressing ahead with a new generation of *U.S.* nuclear weapons. This is really the most retrograde, worrying, and (if you want to talk hypocrisy) hypocritical aspect of current U.S. policy.
"How can the US put pressure on Iran or North Korea about their proliferation if it turns a blind eye to Israel?"
Because if North Korea or Iran were the Asian and Persian equivalents of Switzerland, no one would care if they had nuclear weapons.
But they are not like Switzerland.
This isn't a moral question but one of risk and interests. Only a fool celebrates the idea of Kim Jong il playing with atom bombs.
We might not be able to prevent these states from full-fledged membership in the nuclear club short of a massive invasion but throwing as many sticks into their spokes to delay the day of reckoning works for me. At least until we can come to some kind of a deal.
The thing is Israel is not the equivalent of Switzerland either, as zenpundit implies. In fact, one cannot take the question of nukes without looking at the environmental effect of having nukes, and frankly the Israelis having nukes *and* acting as aggressively expansionist as they have in the last few years (well, ok, always) it just drives others to want to have nukes too.
No one here is celebrating North Korean nukes. My argument is primarily about transparency. Pretending Israel is Switzerland doesn't help either.
Israel's non-nuclear status has been false for decades; yet, US policymakers refuse to discuss the strategic implications of its very real nuclear status.
If the US (and Israel) want Iran and other regional states to remain non-nuclear, then I think this issue has to be debated openly.
There are layers of hypocrisy that need to be peeled away in order to reveal some kind of meaningful resolution.
"Israel's non-nuclear status has been false for decades; yet, US policymakers refuse to discuss the strategic implications of its very real nuclear status."
The status quo also suits most of the Arab states, which is why you do not hear Arab leaders invoking Israel's nuclear status very often. Or reacting to Israel's longstanding nuclear program the way they have to Teheran's more recent one.
Israel may not be Switzerland; apparently it is not Iran either, at least not in the eyes of the Saudis and Egyptians.
zenpundit,
The Arab states, as you probably know, are not a united bloc on Israel or Iran. The states that have peace treaties with Israel or those whose close relations with the US mean that they cannot actively oppose Israel's behavior do not raise the nuclear issue with respect to Israel. They in fact avoid any confrontation with Israel. There are Arab states that do raise Israel's nuclear capacity, notably Syria, as Syria is really the only Arab state that is really in active and real opposition to Israel. It is allied with Iran, and its policy in Lebanon and towards the Palestinians irritates most of the other Arab states and America. Iran and Syria are the countries that Israel's nuclear program concerns most. Iran's desire to counter this makes the Arabs nervous. And all the while, there is only one state in the region with nuclear weapons.
The U.S. policy during the Cold War was the possible nuclear response if Russia threatened Israel through her Middle East surrogate actors. Russia supported Israel's enemies and Russia has a long tradition of anti-Semitism.
Israel has a right to exist and protect herself. She will do so against any enemy that threatens to wipe her off the map or drive her to the sea. Nuclear weapons have served as that deterrent. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons it will be for that purpose because Israel has never threatened Iran's existence, as Iran and Iraq backed Nazi Germany against the Jewish people before the existence of Israel. Israel has only had a defensive posture against Iran and Iraq.
It is embarrassing that academics can be so anti Israel in the name of nonproliferation. The U.S. Government does see a huge difference between Israeli nukes and Korean nukes. The Israelis are the good guys. They share our values. The North Koreans are totalitarian communist. Israel--pro individual rights. The North Koreans--anti individual rights.
The proliferation debate does not take place in a cultural or political vacuum. Would you think that there are no differences between Korean and French nukes? No difference between British nukes and Iranian nukes.
Not every academic is so naive.
"If Iran acquires nuclear weapons it will be for that purpose [i.e. to use against Israel]..."
Not necessarily. There are a variety of "purposes" for which Iran could acquire nukes, and actually *using* them (against anyone) is not one of those likely "purposes."
It isn't about who's the good guys and who's the bad guys. There's a very simple logic here.
A nuclear nation that gets into conflicts with nonnuclear nations, will eventually face a nuclear opponent. That's just how it works. The USA had a monopoly on nuclear weapons for a few years, and then the USSR had them too. China had nukes and then india did. India had nukes and then pakistan did. It doesn't help to argue which of china and india are the good guys -- if one of them has nukes the other will get them too. This is not rocket science, this is obvious.
Israel has nuclear weapons and has threatened to use them. Israel will face a nuclear enemy. If it was possible to turn the whole middle east into a verifiable nuclear-free zone, would israel be better off? This is another easy question. Israel would be far better off without nukes and with only nonnuclear neighbors. Israel is not a country that can "win" a nuclear war when the other guys have nukes too.
These are easy questions with unambiguous answers. Why do zionists find them so tough? Because they're so used to making moral arguments -- we're the good guys, anything we do is good, anything our enemies do is bad, so support us in anything we want to do -- that they have little experience thinking about practicality.
How can Israel have threatened to use nuclear weapons when it has not even acknowledged that it possesses nuclear weapons? What Israel has done is hint that it may be prepared to use whatever forces are at its disposal in the event that should be necessary to preserve the state; at most this is a very veiled "threat".
Israel may face a nuclear Iran not b/c it has threatened to use nukes vs Iran but b/c Iran's desires for regional influence and prestige seem to be pushing in the direction of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are still a status symbol in some contexts. It has relatively little to do w response to concrete threats, very much to do w symbolism.
As far as I know, the Iranians have never threatened to nuke Israel; but Israel, a nuclear power, has threatened to attack Iran. So has the United States.
Iran is not Switzerland. Unfortunately, neither is Israel or the United States. If I were an Iranian, I'd certainly want to acquire a credible deterrent against these two aggressive and erratic countries.
LC, it's commonly believed among people who have access to the data that in 1973, after essentially losing a war, israel threatened to nuke egypt. The USSR then shipped some sort of nuclear material through the dardanelles, apparently heading to egypt. The USA then publicly anounced DefCon 3, but many servicemen who were serving at the time say that the signal they actually received was DefCon 1. The USA privately threatened the USSR with nuclear destruction unless those ships went home, and they did go home. Then the USA gave israel the supplies, secret hi-tech weapons, intelligence, strategy, and tactics to win the war. And we did most of the negotiation for them after the war, and we gave them a considerable sum of money to agree to the terms we negotiated.
Israel has never publicly announced that they have nuclear weapons. That did not keep them from explicitly threatening to nuke egypt in 1973. Not a hidden implication. Not a veiled threat. An explicit threat to, among other things, nuke the Aswan dam and send a big surge of radioactive water down the length of the nile river. (And into the mediterranean sea.)
To actually produce enough radioactivity to make a big difference they would have had to use a "dirty" weapon, a cobalt bomb or something like that, but I have seen no evidence that they actually threatened that detail.
J Thomas, The detailed history of the Oct 1973 (a/k/a Yom Kippur) war is not something I know much about, so I'll take your word that Israel threatened to "nuke the Aswan dam" after its setback in the war's opening stage. As far as I'm aware, however, Israel has not made a comparable threat vs. Iran, but of course I do not know what (if anything) the Israeli and Iranian govts have been saying to each other through back-channels or 3rd parties or privately. Though not an expert on Iran, I am inclined to stand by my statement about the importance of symbolism and prestige vis-a-vis the Iranian nuclear program. Desire for deterrence against a perceived threat from Israel and/or the US could also be entering into the equation.
LC, suppose we treat the iranian position the way we'd treat the israeli one. That is, we read what they claim and give it the most favorable possible reading.
The iranian government claims they are not attempting to make nuclear weapons. Period. They need nuclear power because currently they have no good alternative to oil, and their oil is getting too valuable for them to burn in large quantities for electric power.
Giving them a favorable reading, why would they want to enrich their own U235 instead of reactor fuel from a legitimate source? Well, imagine you were them, what would you do? You mine uranium. Do you enrich it yourself, or do you sell it to foreigners who then enrich it and sell it back to you? Then you pay them to take back the spent fuel rods, and they recycle them and sell them back to you again. And if you somehow offend the USA (very easy to do considering israel) then the USA will try to impose sanctions. They will do their best to get whoever sells you nuclear fuel to quit, so you will have to shut down your civilian power plants.
Does it make sense to buy fuel instead of make your own, given those circumstances?
But if you try to make your own fuel, it will look to the USA exactly like you are trying to make bombs. So what then? If you let inspectors watch what you are doing they will get the coordinates to bomb your facilities. That's what we did with Saddam, we sent in inspectors who looked at everything they wanted and took GPS readings at every useful target site. If you could trust the USA not to bomb you once they see you aren't actually making nukes.... But you can't.
If you're willing to give a favorable reading to iran's position, they might not be making nukes at all. But of course the more we threaten war the more tempted they'll be to build nukes.
http://
www.jewishworldreview.com...2004_10_05.php3
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/
...ear8730918.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/
0,2...,242243,00.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Internatio...tory?
id=4129631
If you go by the media that claims to have listened to israeli government sources, israel is planning a small nuclear strike on iran and has been for a few years. Olmert says he doesn't rule it out.
The situation is inevitably confused. The israeli government might be leaking attack plans to encourage the iranians to concede in lieu of negotiations. Or they could be doing it to soften public opinion. Or to coerce the US government into taking action itself rather than deal with the consequences of an israeli attack.
And in fact the various predicted attacks did not happen. The israeli government announced that iran would have nukes by 2006 and it would be too late to attack after that. Do the iranians actually have nukes now, or was the prediction wrong?
When israel's national security advisor publicly announces that the "point of no return" is quickly approaching for taking out the iranian nuclear program, that's a fairly explicit threat. it certainly sends a strong signal that israel is seriously considering initiating war. Iranians must have been pretty relieved when the date came and went with no attack. That was 2004. And then they said the iranians would get nukes in 2006. Now the israelis say that iran may get nukes in 2009.
It's all pretty confused.
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