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Published on Monday, June 29, 2009 by Electronic Intifada
The Elephant in the Room: Israel's Nuclear Weapons
At a White House press
conference on 18 May 2009, US President Barack Obama expressed
"deepening concern" about "the potential pursuit of a nuclear weapon by
Iran." He continued:
"Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would not only be a threat to Israel and a threat to the United States, but would be profoundly destabilizing in the international community as a whole and could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East."
By his side was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the room with them, there was an elephant, a large and formidably destructive elephant, which they and the assembled press pretended not to see.
I am, of course, referring to Israel's actual nuclear weapons systems, with which Netanyahu is capable of doing to numerous cities in the Middle East, including Tehran, what the US did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Iran, by contrast, has no nuclear weapons. The US President said so himself in Prague on 5 April 2009 in his major speech on nuclear disarmament. "Iran has yet to build a nuclear weapon," he admitted.
Obama's remark that "Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon" would be "profoundly destabilizing" and "could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East" is profoundly dishonest. In reality, the race started in the early 1950s when Israel launched its nuclear weapons program.
Let us suppose for a moment that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, capable of producing effective nuclear warheads and the means of delivering them to Israel, within a few years. Would that make Iran a serious threat to Israel, as Obama said? Of course not.
Rulers of Iran don't want their cities devastated and they know that if Iran were to make a nuclear strike on Israel, it is absolutely certain that Israel would retaliate by making multiple nuclear strikes on Iran and raze many Iranian cities to the ground -- so Iran won't do it. Israel possesses a nuclear arsenal, and the ruthlessness to use it, that is more than adequate to deter Iran from making a nuclear strike on the country.
Likewise, it is unimaginable that Iran would attack the US, or US interests abroad, for fear of overwhelming retaliation.
However, taking account of the elephant in the room puts a very different perspective on the impact of a nuclear-armed Iran.
The significance of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is not that Iran would become a threat to Israel and the US, but that Israel and the US would no longer contemplate attacking Iran. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapons of self-defense -- a state that possesses nuclear weapons doesn't get attacked by other states.
One thing is certain: attacking Iran, ostensibly to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, would make the case for it acquiring them like nothing else. It would then be abundantly clear that Iran could not protect itself by other means -- and it can be guaranteed that it would then make a supreme effort to acquire them.
Has Iran got a nuclear weapons program, in violation of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?
Iran has repeatedly denied that it has such a program. Furthermore, the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa on September 2004 that "the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons" ("Iran's Statement at IAEA Emergency Meeting," Mehr News Agency, 10 August 2005) . In doing so, he was following in the footsteps of his predecessor and founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini.
That's what Iran says. As required by the NPT, Iran's nuclear facilities are subject to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). And, despite many years of inspection and investigation, the IAEA has found no evidence that Iran has, or ever had, a nuclear weapons program, though Western media consistently give the opposite impression. True, the possibility exists that Iran has nuclear facilities for military purposes, which it hasn't declared to the IAEA. The IAEA has found no evidence for this, but the possibility cannot be completely ruled out.
Iran's possession of uranium enrichment facilities is not in breach of the NPT, so long as they are for civil nuclear purposes. The operation of these facilities at Natanz is subject to rigorous IAEA scrutiny. The IAEA has testified that only low enriched uranium suitable for a power generation reactor is being produced there and that none of it is being diverted from the plant for other purposes, for example, to further enrich uranium to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon. That being so, the ongoing demands that Iran suspend these enrichment facilities is a denial of its "inalienable right" under Article IV(1) of the NPT to engage in nuclear activities for peaceful purposes.
What is the current US intelligence assessment? A US National Intelligence Estimate, the key judgments of which were published in December 2007, concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the autumn of 2003, and hadn't restarted its program in the interim (see David Morrison, "Iran hasn't a nuclear weapons programme says US intelligence," Labour and Trade Union Review, 14 December 2007).
Commenting on this, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, noted on 4 December 2007 that:
"[T]he Estimate tallies with the Agency's consistent statements over the last few years that, although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the Agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran."
The present position of the US/EU seems to be that Iran should not have uranium enrichment facilities on its own territory, under any circumstances. As I have said above, this is a denial of Iran's "inalienable right" under Article IV(1) of the NPT to engage in nuclear activities for peaceful purposes. It is also discriminatory against Iran, since no objection has ever been raised to other states, for example, Brazil and Japan, having enrichment facilities on their own territory in order to manufacture reactor fuel.
Iran entered into negotiations with the UK, France and Germany about its nuclear facilities in October 2003. During these negotiations, Iran voluntarily suspended a range of nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment. The negotiations came to an abrupt halt in August 2005 when the European states made proposals, which required Iran to abandon all processing of domestically mined uranium, including enrichment, and to import all fuel for nuclear power reactors.
Had Iran accepted these proposals, its nuclear power generation would have been dependent on fuel from abroad, which could be cut off at any time, even though Iran has a domestic supply of uranium ore. It was no surprise, therefore, that Iran rejected these proposals out of hand -- and later resumed those activities it had suspended, including uranium enrichment.
Since then, the US/EU took Iran to the UN Security Council about its nuclear activities. The council has passed various resolutions demanding, inter alia, that Iran suspend uranium enrichment and imposing (rather mild) economic sanctions on it in an attempt to compel it to do so. Russia and China have gone along with this rather reluctantly, while using their veto power to keep the sanctions mild.
The key question is: are there any circumstances in which the US/EU would be content for Iran to have uranium enrichment facilities on its own territory? For example, could additional measures be put in place to provide assurance that these, and other nuclear facilities, are being used for peaceful purposes only?
In the past, Iran did allow an enhanced form of IAEA inspection, under a so-called Additional Protocol to its basic inspection agreement with the IAEA. This isn't mandatory on a state under the NPT (and Brazil, which also has uranium enrichment facilities, doesn't allow it). The Additional Protocol is designed to allow the IAEA to get a full picture of a state's nuclear activities by providing the agency with authority to visit any facility, declared or not, and to visit unannounced -- and thereby seek to eliminate the possibility that a state is engaging in nuclear activity for military purposes at sites that it hasn't declared to the agency.
Iran signed an Additional Protocol in 2003 and allowed the IAEA to operate under it from December 2003 until February 2006. But, it withdrew permission in February 2006 when it was referred to the Security Council. There is little doubt that Iran would be prepared to allow the IAEA to operate under an Additional Protocol again, if the Security Council dogs were called off and the economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council were lifted.
That is one additional measure that could be taken to help provide assurance that Iran's nuclear facilities are being used for peaceful purposes only. Another measure was suggested by Iran, as long ago as 17 September 2005. Then, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the following extraordinary offer, which goes way beyond the requirements of the NPT:
"... as a further confidence-building measure and in order to provide the greatest degree of transparency, the Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to engage in serious partnership with private and public sectors of other countries in the implementation of [a] uranium enrichment program in Iran."
Needless to say, the US/EU have ignored this proposal, which would have put Iran's uranium enrichment facilities under a degree of international control. Perhaps, President Obama's staff should draw this proposal to his attention.
"Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would not only be a threat to Israel and a threat to the United States, but would be profoundly destabilizing in the international community as a whole and could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East."
By his side was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the room with them, there was an elephant, a large and formidably destructive elephant, which they and the assembled press pretended not to see.
I am, of course, referring to Israel's actual nuclear weapons systems, with which Netanyahu is capable of doing to numerous cities in the Middle East, including Tehran, what the US did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Iran, by contrast, has no nuclear weapons. The US President said so himself in Prague on 5 April 2009 in his major speech on nuclear disarmament. "Iran has yet to build a nuclear weapon," he admitted.
Obama's remark that "Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon" would be "profoundly destabilizing" and "could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East" is profoundly dishonest. In reality, the race started in the early 1950s when Israel launched its nuclear weapons program.
Let us suppose for a moment that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, capable of producing effective nuclear warheads and the means of delivering them to Israel, within a few years. Would that make Iran a serious threat to Israel, as Obama said? Of course not.
Rulers of Iran don't want their cities devastated and they know that if Iran were to make a nuclear strike on Israel, it is absolutely certain that Israel would retaliate by making multiple nuclear strikes on Iran and raze many Iranian cities to the ground -- so Iran won't do it. Israel possesses a nuclear arsenal, and the ruthlessness to use it, that is more than adequate to deter Iran from making a nuclear strike on the country.
Likewise, it is unimaginable that Iran would attack the US, or US interests abroad, for fear of overwhelming retaliation.
However, taking account of the elephant in the room puts a very different perspective on the impact of a nuclear-armed Iran.
The significance of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is not that Iran would become a threat to Israel and the US, but that Israel and the US would no longer contemplate attacking Iran. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapons of self-defense -- a state that possesses nuclear weapons doesn't get attacked by other states.
One thing is certain: attacking Iran, ostensibly to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, would make the case for it acquiring them like nothing else. It would then be abundantly clear that Iran could not protect itself by other means -- and it can be guaranteed that it would then make a supreme effort to acquire them.
Has Iran got a nuclear weapons program, in violation of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?
Iran has repeatedly denied that it has such a program. Furthermore, the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa on September 2004 that "the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons" ("Iran's Statement at IAEA Emergency Meeting," Mehr News Agency, 10 August 2005) . In doing so, he was following in the footsteps of his predecessor and founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini.
That's what Iran says. As required by the NPT, Iran's nuclear facilities are subject to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). And, despite many years of inspection and investigation, the IAEA has found no evidence that Iran has, or ever had, a nuclear weapons program, though Western media consistently give the opposite impression. True, the possibility exists that Iran has nuclear facilities for military purposes, which it hasn't declared to the IAEA. The IAEA has found no evidence for this, but the possibility cannot be completely ruled out.
Iran's possession of uranium enrichment facilities is not in breach of the NPT, so long as they are for civil nuclear purposes. The operation of these facilities at Natanz is subject to rigorous IAEA scrutiny. The IAEA has testified that only low enriched uranium suitable for a power generation reactor is being produced there and that none of it is being diverted from the plant for other purposes, for example, to further enrich uranium to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon. That being so, the ongoing demands that Iran suspend these enrichment facilities is a denial of its "inalienable right" under Article IV(1) of the NPT to engage in nuclear activities for peaceful purposes.
What is the current US intelligence assessment? A US National Intelligence Estimate, the key judgments of which were published in December 2007, concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the autumn of 2003, and hadn't restarted its program in the interim (see David Morrison, "Iran hasn't a nuclear weapons programme says US intelligence," Labour and Trade Union Review, 14 December 2007).
Commenting on this, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, noted on 4 December 2007 that:
"[T]he Estimate tallies with the Agency's consistent statements over the last few years that, although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the Agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran."
The present position of the US/EU seems to be that Iran should not have uranium enrichment facilities on its own territory, under any circumstances. As I have said above, this is a denial of Iran's "inalienable right" under Article IV(1) of the NPT to engage in nuclear activities for peaceful purposes. It is also discriminatory against Iran, since no objection has ever been raised to other states, for example, Brazil and Japan, having enrichment facilities on their own territory in order to manufacture reactor fuel.
Iran entered into negotiations with the UK, France and Germany about its nuclear facilities in October 2003. During these negotiations, Iran voluntarily suspended a range of nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment. The negotiations came to an abrupt halt in August 2005 when the European states made proposals, which required Iran to abandon all processing of domestically mined uranium, including enrichment, and to import all fuel for nuclear power reactors.
Had Iran accepted these proposals, its nuclear power generation would have been dependent on fuel from abroad, which could be cut off at any time, even though Iran has a domestic supply of uranium ore. It was no surprise, therefore, that Iran rejected these proposals out of hand -- and later resumed those activities it had suspended, including uranium enrichment.
Since then, the US/EU took Iran to the UN Security Council about its nuclear activities. The council has passed various resolutions demanding, inter alia, that Iran suspend uranium enrichment and imposing (rather mild) economic sanctions on it in an attempt to compel it to do so. Russia and China have gone along with this rather reluctantly, while using their veto power to keep the sanctions mild.
The key question is: are there any circumstances in which the US/EU would be content for Iran to have uranium enrichment facilities on its own territory? For example, could additional measures be put in place to provide assurance that these, and other nuclear facilities, are being used for peaceful purposes only?
In the past, Iran did allow an enhanced form of IAEA inspection, under a so-called Additional Protocol to its basic inspection agreement with the IAEA. This isn't mandatory on a state under the NPT (and Brazil, which also has uranium enrichment facilities, doesn't allow it). The Additional Protocol is designed to allow the IAEA to get a full picture of a state's nuclear activities by providing the agency with authority to visit any facility, declared or not, and to visit unannounced -- and thereby seek to eliminate the possibility that a state is engaging in nuclear activity for military purposes at sites that it hasn't declared to the agency.
Iran signed an Additional Protocol in 2003 and allowed the IAEA to operate under it from December 2003 until February 2006. But, it withdrew permission in February 2006 when it was referred to the Security Council. There is little doubt that Iran would be prepared to allow the IAEA to operate under an Additional Protocol again, if the Security Council dogs were called off and the economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council were lifted.
That is one additional measure that could be taken to help provide assurance that Iran's nuclear facilities are being used for peaceful purposes only. Another measure was suggested by Iran, as long ago as 17 September 2005. Then, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the following extraordinary offer, which goes way beyond the requirements of the NPT:
"... as a further confidence-building measure and in order to provide the greatest degree of transparency, the Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to engage in serious partnership with private and public sectors of other countries in the implementation of [a] uranium enrichment program in Iran."
Needless to say, the US/EU have ignored this proposal, which would have put Iran's uranium enrichment facilities under a degree of international control. Perhaps, President Obama's staff should draw this proposal to his attention.
© 2009 Electronic Intifada
17 Comments so far
Show AllThe article, while reiterating well-known facts, ignores the TRUE elephant in the room, hiding behind the curtain.
If the POUS officially acknowledged Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, it would require a halt of of all aid to Israel, both economic and military.
That result would be according to laws passed by the alleged "representatives" of Amerikan subjects, er, citizens in Congress.
That is the real real reason why such acknowledgement has never been made.
While ending aid to a terrorist state would be a worthy goal, it would be political (and probably actual) suicide for any politician. If any president were to cause the dollars to stop flowing to Israel, I suspect he or she would live only as long as it took Mossad to get assets in place.
Report finds Israel still torturing Palestinians
Mel Frykberg, The Electronic Intifada, 26 June 2009
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has accused the Israeli security forces of deliberately shackling Palestinian prisoners in a painful and dangerous manner, amounting to a form of torture.
Read full story @:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10625.shtml
From another article I was just reading, which was talking about how the Islamic Revolution is at odds with moderate Islamic and secular sectors of Iranian society and the power is shifting, I think the threat of a nuclear weapon is less now than it was before. Not to mention that many of the specialists are insisting that Iran is NOT building a bomb.
Seems to me that anyone who is facing the possibility of Israeli nuclear attack has the right to create a deterrence. Israel won't use theirs if they know that it will bring retaliation.
Personally, I believe that Israel is the destabilizing factor in the Middle East, not Iran, or Syria, or Gaza, or Lebanon, or the Palestinians.
Continued:
The problem is first the USA and its MIC, then Israel, the rouge adjunct or the tail that wags the dog, and certainly it is not Iran's hypothetical threat. America is the country that exports war and killing with economic hegemony.
One 9/11 per week on the USA, for the next 10 years would just start to equal the death and destruction meted out in Iraq and Afghanistan so far.
Think about it. Really, does that level of destruction of human life, does that much suffering need to come home to the USA before empathy makes ordinary American people realize their responsibility as humans, and take control of their government?
Stop unchanging the subject!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Why is the discussion in this article and on this page about removing an unsubstantiated Iranian nuclear threat rather than the urgent global need to remove the real WMD threat of a Zionist rouge state, illegally occupying and resettling its citizens in lands acquired by acts of war in defiance of international law and UN SC resolutions; a country sited for war crimes by the UN....
Why is the USA breaking its own laws to supply weaponry and other aid to this racist apartheid state that is not an NPT signatory yet threatens countries with 200 plus nuclear weapons as well as the 3rd or 4th most powerful sophisticated military arsenal in the world, including un-controlled and also very illegal, chemical and biological stockpiles?
""Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would not only be a threat to Israel and a threat to the United States, but would be profoundly destabilizing in the international community as a whole and could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East."
Endorsing the two state solution and removal of settlements against Netanyahu's wishes made Obama appear strong. Appeasing the Zionist power with ingratiating rationalizations makes Obama appear weak.
The electorate doesn't want wishy washy. Against the money-power, community organizing tactics can only take him so far. Voter initiatives and binding referendums can take us the rest of the way. See Senator Gravel's website to learn why and how.
"Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapons of self-defense -- a state that possesses nuclear weapons doesn't get attacked by other states."
While this is historically correct, it is not absolutely correct. The concept of MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction - requires a nuclear stockpile measured in dozens, if not hundreds of nukes. Many strategists believe that a limited nuclear exchange between opponents having an extremely limited stockpile is viable, and maybe even likely.
Israel's supposed 200 nukes are completely insufficient to turn Iran (or any country except tiny Kuwait) to glass, and it will be quite a while before Iran could (if ever) match this stockpile. To ensure MAD become a strategic policy in the ME would require that Iran make a nuke production their #1 national interest, and still it would take years (with matching production by Israel).
Having said all of that, Zionists are religious wingnuts that are likely contenders for the Darwin Award.
WTF - Once upon a time in an earlier Ivory Tower incarnation, I actually hung out at some graduate level seminars with "strategists" like those you refer to - guys (invariably guys) who were so wrapped up into thinking about the unthinkable that they felt right at home with Dr. Strangelove. Scary folks. Scarier still to realize that RAND and DARPA type A personalities still pull down major paychecks advising the Pentagon, State Department, and our elected political leadership behind closed doors at the very pinnacle of power.
You are right that MAD envisions "dozens, if not hundreds of nukes" to theoretically create stability and equilibrium between rival nation states, ostensibly preserving something called "peace" through mutually assured destruction. And you are also right that many think tanker strategists believe the risk of a nuclear exchange is greatest early on, when there are only a few nuclear weapons known to be operational or deployed - but with the prospect of many more a virtual inevitability.
Still, I wouldn't be so cavalier about what Israel's existing 200 nukes could do to Iran if I were you, or especially if I were Iranian. 100 or 200 nukes hitting the continental United States, even, would make most of North America unlivable. You don't need to turn your whole target into glass to "win" in such a context. Just make the landscape and infrastructure ungovernable and unfit for civilized life, sort of like the world of Mad Max.
Anyway, what needs to be emphasized here is the deceptive historical truth about your observation that (so far at least) "a state that possesses nuclear weapons doesn't get attacked by other states." True enough, as far as it goes. The huge worries here in terms of nuclear proliferation are (1) launch by technological mistake or Strangelovian rogue human action, (2) state-sponsored attacks that are clandestinely facilitated but actually carried out by non-state actors so as to leave no fingerprints, and (3) black market nukes, purely in the private, non-state hands, with those hands and arms in the control of terrorist or criminal nutcakes.
The moment President George W. Bush publicly named Iran and North Korea as the next two members of the Axis of Evil right behind Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it immediately became entirely rational for both of those regimes to get their hands on functional nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. That one sabre rattling speech of Little George may go down as the most stupid and fateful public utterance by any US president in history. Remember how Congress - almost in Politburo-style unison - leapt to its feet to applaud, and the pundits all fawned over George W's steely eyed, Texas size swagger?
Yet today, in the mainstream US media nobody calls blowback by its real name when there is news reporting about growing dangers of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East or in northern Asia. The culprit is always their crazy man over there, rather than any of ours over here.
Bill from Saginaw
The term 'blowback' is overused. Its Agency slang, and since the moment you guys have learned that term you've said it like it was going out of style.
Countries with nuclear and other WMDs have managed to turn nations who have no nukes into another Dresden or Carthage. Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza etc. Slaughterhouse Five anyone?
"Schlachthof" meant "slaughterhouse".
"Fünf" was good old "five".
· Yr Obd't Servant
If you catch my 22,
I'll catch your 22
Lost in this discussion is that Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Iran has. Further, Israel is not open to IAEA inspections, Iran is. A double standard by any measure.
Also unmentioned is that the US has transferred Trident submarine-launched ICBM's to Israel, who has fitted its submarines with the ability to launch these weapons. My only question is how many targeting lists by Israel include targets in the US? I'm sure the Zionists have considered the possibility of loss of support in the US, so inquiring minds want to know.
Israel has targeted all the western capitals with nukes. Why do you think they get away with murgder? Nuclear blackmail anyone??
Zionists like it both ways - threatening the Middle East with nuclear destruction while simultaneously pretending they don't have them.
Rulers of Iran don't want their cities devastated and they know that if Iran were to make a nuclear strike on Israel, it is absolutely certain that Israel would retaliate by making multiple nuclear strikes on Iran and raze many Iranian cities to the ground.
The United States would also be in there like a streak, lobbing its own H-bombs all over Iran. At the end, not even the insects would survive; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki would look like Beverly Hills compared to what would be left of Iran.