In addition to discussion of the role of the pro-Israel lobby, another major Israel-related taboo within the US mainstream media has to do with the topic of Israel’s nuclear weapons.
Thus, today, we have the amazing spectacle of Dennis Ross, the former longtime Arab-Israeli “peace process coordinator” for the Bush I and Clinton administrations, writing an oped in today’s WaPo about the Iranian nuclear issue without even mentioning the word “Israel” once…
Well, I imagine there are many contexts in which one could do that. But not in the context in which Dennis is writing his piece, since he is looking specifically at the Middle East regional implications of any move Iran might make toward developing nuclear weapons…
And in the course of doing that he comes up with zingers like this:
- If Iran succeeds, in all likelihood we will face a nuclear Middle East.
Hullo?? Earth to Dennis!! Um, Dennis, the Middle East already has nuclear weapons in it– thanks to Israel.
And then he goes on to examine likely responses from other Middle Eastern countries to any Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, arguing with a degree of dogmatic certainty that then Saudi Arabia “will seek” their own nuclear weapons capability, etc etc…
But still no word– anywhere in this whole piece about Middle East nuclear matters!– about Israel.
This, I note, just one day after the WaPo itself had published a very informative article by Avner Cohen and William Burr that described how US officials behaved back in the late 1960s as they became increasingly convinced that Israel had already developed its first nuclear weapons:
- Apparently prompted by those high-level concerns, Kissinger issued NSSM 40 [that’s short for National Security Study Memorandum, no. 40]– titled Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program — on April 11, 1969. In it he asked the national security bureaucracy for a review of policy options toward Israel’s nuclear program. In the weeks that followed, the issue was taken up by a senior review group (SRG), chaired by Kissinger, that included [CIA Director Richard] Helms, Undersecretary of State Elliot Richardson, Deputy Defense Secretary David Packard and Joint Chiefs Chairman Earle Wheeler.
The one available report of an SRG meeting on NSSM 40 suggests that the bureaucracy was interested in pressuring Israel to halt its nuclear program. How much pressure to exert remained open. Kissinger wanted to “avoid direct confrontation,” while Richardson was willing to apply pressure if an investigation to determine Israel’s intentions showed that some key assurances would not be forthcoming. In such circumstances, the United States could tell the Israelis that scheduled deliveries of F-4 Phantom jets to Israel would have to be reconsidered.
By mid-July 1969, Nixon had let it be known that he was leery of using the Phantoms as leverage, so when Richardson and Packard summoned Rabin on July 29 to discuss the nuclear issue, the idea of a probe that involved pressure had been torpedoed. Although Richardson and Packard emphasized the seriousness with which they viewed the nuclear problem, they had no threat to back up their rhetoric…
Cohen and Burr based much of their article on a collection of newly declassified US documents on the topic that is now available on the website of the DC-based “National Security Archive.”
That’s a valuable-looking collection of documents there. (Just scroll down on that page for the links to them.) There are still, though, many other relevant docs that have not yet been declassified.
The main outline of this story was already pretty well-known back when, for example, I wrote an article titled Israel’s Nuclear Game: The US Stake, and published it in the Summer 1988 edition of World Policy Journal. (Shortly after I published that, Helms, whom I had come to know a bit, wrote me telling me I had got the basic facts and the analysis there quite right.)
I guess I should work to get the text of that article– and the follow-on piece I published in Foreign Affairs in Summer 1989, along with former US arms-control czar Gerard C. Smith– up onto the internet. It shouldn’t be too hard…
But what I want to note here is the kind of amazing self-censorship at work over at the WaPo: that the editors could publish that entire piece by Dennis Ross today without insisting that he at least make some reference in it to the big elephant in the room in any discussion of Middle East nuclear issues– namely, Israel’s longtime possession of a significant nuclear arsenal.
That’s about equivalent to writing about terrorism in the world without writing about Al-Qaeda. (And of course, it makes Dennis’s entire analysis correspondingly nonsensical.)
My 2005-2006 issue of the IISS’s “Military Balance” describes Israel as possessing “up to 200” nuclear wraheads– the same number, I think, that it has attributed to Israel for a number of years now.
I imagine, though, that Israel’s nuclear arsenal has, if anything, grown over recent years, rather than shrunk or stayed the same size?
Certainly, Israel’s ability to deliver these warheads has grown significantly over the years. Even back in a 1993 essay, the Israeli strategic analyst Gerald Steinberg was writing that Israel’s Jericho-2 missile,
- is credited with a range of 2000 to 2800 kilometers, and, according to Fetter … “can probably deliver at least 2 tonnes on any Arab country”.
My 2005-2006 Mil Bal says Israel has “about 100” Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles.
But Dennis Ross– and his editors there at the WaPo– think that with a straight face they can publish an article about Middle East nuclear-weapons developments without even mentioning Israel?
Now that’s self-censorship.
No surprise! Ross is a big shot with a fancy title at the Jewish lobby AIPAC’s front organization Washington Institute For Near East Policy [WINEP]. WINEP ia a hoop-hoop-hurray cheer-leader for confiscating Palestiniqn lands and genociding Palestinian society – which is what keeps us Americans in deep trouble with the oil-producers of the Arab world, as well as taking off our shoes at the airport. I once heard Ross talk about what he self-servingly (at Israel’s service) calls “the Palestinian problem” – he spoke for over half an hour, didn’t use the word “occupation” once, and kept on referring to the West Bank as “Israel’s lands”. It’s people like him who Mearsheimer-Walt would identify as in the forefront of subordinating US interestsd to Israel’s illicit greed for somebody else’s land.
That’s about equivalent to writing about terrorism in the world without writing about Al-Qaeda
Israel’s bomb doesn’t exempt Iran from its commitments to NPT, so why is it relevant? Ross isn’t writing about nuclear weapons in a general sense, but options the international community holds with regard to Iran alone; not Pakistan or China or India which are as close to Iran as Israel and whose nuclear arms are more recent. Ross takes for granted that a nuclear-armed Iran is undesirable whether or not Israel has nukes; it’s not about “why” so much as “what now?” Israel hasn’t signed [or like Iran benefitted from] the NPT. The argument fails even as tu quoque.
Ross is a big shot with a fancy title at the Jewish lobby AIPAC’s front organization…what keeps us Americans in deep trouble with the oil-producers…(at Israel’s service)
M&W’s audience has spoken! Thanks Timothy. Helena, what do you think of Timothy’s remark?
In case you’re interested, heres a different piece by Dennis Ross that mentions Israel’s nuclear program (and the nefarious Jewish lobby)in an appropriate context (historical.)
http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.05.30/arts1a.html
Helena,
Please stop referring to these hard-line Zionists as the “Pro-Israel” lobby. There’s nothing at all wrong with being pro-Israel; but what these groups are supporting isn’t Israel but rather Israel’s criminal policies which are the direct cause of their self-inflicted security problems.
The truth is that Israel could have had peace decades ago, peace with the Palestinians and peace with most of the Arab states, but colonizing the occupied territories with Jews-only settlements and stealing wholesale the water in the West Bank was more important to them then peace. Without the pressure these anti-Israel Zionists exerted on the US government, Israel would have been forced to accept the Arab/Palestinian peace feelers in the 70’s. Israel would also not have to be dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah, and probably Islamic Jihad since these groups didn’t exist in the 70’s and would never have come into existence if Israel didn’t teach them that non-violence was a dead-end.
By calling these idealogues pro-Isreal, it only serves to confuse people who want to understand this conflict and reinforces the warped terms of debate.
I agree entirely with Vadim.
Helena – Any chance WaPo would publish your op-ed responding to Ross?
For anyone remotely confused by the difference between Israel or the US or Britain or France or India or China having the bomb and Iran having the bomb, read this article by Irshad Manji: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2159211,00.html
From the article: “OF ALL the threats that our messy world faces, nuclear weaponry ranks right up there. Put the Bomb together with anti-Semitism and you’ve got a combination that should make any reasonable person recoil.” In this, Ms. Manji has Iran in mind.
By contrast, Helena seems more interested in tu quoque, as Vadim correctly notes. Needless to say tu quoque is an invalid form of argument.
And joining into the tu quoque game, why so much concern about Israel compared, say, to Pakistan which is actually a neighbor to Iran and which has, unlike Israel, actually threatened to use nuclear weapons, in Pakistan’s case, against India. I would think that Pakistan is a loose cannon but, to read the article, such does not seem to concern are worthy host Helena.
Israel, by further contrast, has fought wars including the 1973 war but without using such weapons. And, if Helena’s article is correct, Israel likely had the weapons in 1967 and did not use the weapons. So, Israel possession of such weapons is no different from Britains.
So, why the fuss about Israel? It is, after all, Iran which threatens to wipe a member state of the UN off the map. And it is Iran which has a lunatic for a leader? So, again, why the fuss about Israel? I do not get it.
It sounds to me like the knee-jerk position of the Wahhabbi Lobby. I suspect, however, that in this case even the Wahhabbi Lobby knows the difference between a genuine threat, namely, Iran, and Israel.
North Korea has nukes for one reason and one reason only: to counter US aggresion. obviously if Iran were to get nukes it would be for this reason as well. Israel and the US talk freely about bombing Iran as if it were the slightly less preferable option. obviously the NPT means nothing if the US is making plans on invading your country.
As far as the whole middle east arms race thing this is another “clever” neo con line thats been making the rounds. as you pointed it is ridiculous as many of the countries there already have them. Why is Dennis Ross, someone who is obviously associated with Israel, writing this op ed? obviously he has a horse in the race.
Vadim: Israel’s bomb doesn’t exempt Iran from its commitments to NPT, so why is it relevant? If Israel threatens Iran, it does (eventually). As the main post points out, bringing up all these other states, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan (one imaginary hobgoblin isn’t enough? ) and not mentioning Israel is avoiding an elephant in the room.
The second Ross article is based on ancient myths – a taboo on arms sales supposedly broken by Kennedy. Of course Eisenhower offered jets and tanks to Israel – but Israel basically refused. Again contrary to Ross’s fictions, Israel had earlier been offered, but refused a mutual defense pact with the USA.
Sean, I basically agree, but Nixon and Kissinger were sort of independently stupid in entrenching bad policy, which was sustained and envigorated afterward by Israel lobby pressure. Of course Hamas and Hezbollah are creations of this Israeli-American policy. In line with your theme, Chomsky likes to call the lobby types “supporters of [the moral degeneration and ultimate destruction of] Israel”. What’s striking is the stupidity of it all – stealing land and water Israel has no need of.
“Laen”: Using Irshad Manji as an authority is a good one. I think it is a mite more worrisome when people like Reagan and Bush Jr. spout the same kind of (or worse) fundamentalist lunacy as Ahmadinejad.
Sure, worry about Pakistan, but isn’t the better comparison “Why pick on Iran, not Pakistan?” rather than “Why pick on Israel, not Pakistan?” Proliferation from Pakistan is more serious than Iran’s programs, but it somehow doesn’t bother the powers that be.
Israel, by further contrast, has fought wars including the 1973 war but without using such weapons. And, if Helena’s article is correct, Israel likely had the weapons in 1967 and did not use the weapons. So, Israel possession of such weapons is no different from Britains.
As Van Creveld comments in Defending Israel – “The more time passes and as more American documents are declassified, the clearer it becomes that the desire to do something about the emerging Israeli nuclear threat was one factor in the complex train of events that ended in the outbreak of the June 1967 war.”
Also, it is often said that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is aimed at the USA – not directly, of course, but for leverage, for doing things like the airlift in the 1973 war.
Next to the Cuban Missile Crisis, these wars were perhaps the nearest the world came to atomic warfare. So I don’t think it is picking on Israel to explore the implications of its nuclear arsenal. And have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, the reason why Helena writes more on the Middle East is the fact that she is a Middle East specialist (who has branched out) and many people, not all :-), have a weird preference for writing about things they know something about? BTW, posted links to these articles and documents a couple days ago in the dead Ne’eman thread, but no one saw them I guess.
“tu quoque”
It’s the new “ad hominem.”
You’re right “Laen,” we better nuke Iran before we have a nuclear Middle East.
But first, we better nuke Pakistan, because if we nuke Iran first, then the “Islamofascists” will surely take over Pakistan which already has nukes, and then they’ll nuke Israel.
In fact, come to think of it, we’d better nuke Egypt and Saudi Arabia too, because those countries are likely to become “unstable” after we’ve nuked Iran and Pakistan, and that could mean trouble for Israel.
Golly, once you start nukin’ it’s kinda hard to stop, ain’t it?
Sure, worry about Pakistan, but isn’t the better comparison “Why pick on Iran, not Pakistan?” rather than “Why pick on Israel, not Pakistan?”
This may be the best question asked thus far on this thread. I firmly believe that the most acute proliferation threat today is not the possession of WMDs by states, but the possibility that nuclear technology and know-how will be leaked or sold to non-state actors who are beyond the ordinary constraints on WMD use. The states where this sort of proliferation is most likely to occur are, IMO, Pakistan and Russia, which arguably makes them the most dangerous nuclear powers today.
Neither Israeli nor Iranian nukes keep me up at night. Pakistani and Russian nukes do.
Jonathan, what scares me is what could happen if a country with a huge stockpile of nukes should fall under the control of some half-wit religious fundamentalist – maybe a former drug addict with major family psychology issues – some guy with a chip on his shoulder and no practical experience of warfare or foreign cultures, who fancies himself the avenging sword of God and rejects all negotiation as weakness, who attacks without thinking and persists regardless of cost. That’s what keeps me up at night. Do you think it could really happen, or am I just paranoid?
Of course Eisenhower offered jets and tanks to Israel – but Israel basically refused. Again contrary to Ross’s fictions, Israel had earlier been offered, but refused a mutual defense pact with the USA.
John R,
Do you have any documentation on this? I think it would be very interesting to see that.
what scares me is what could happen if a country with a huge stockpile of nukes should fall under the control of some half-wit religious fundamentalist – maybe a former drug addict with major family psychology issues – some guy with a chip on his shoulder and no practical experience of warfare or foreign cultures, who fancies himself the avenging sword of God and rejects all negotiation as weakness, who attacks without thinking and persists regardless of cost.
Cute.
I wouldn’t worry though. It seems that, in the recent past, there have been cases where a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons wasn’t misused by a former pot-smoking (but not inhaling) guy with apparent sexual inadequacy problems who fancied himself the “swordsman” of God and had no practical experience of warfare. Also, I do remember a “half-wit religious fundamentalist” who liked to call himself a “nucular engineer”, but who had a lot of practical experience with moral equivalents to warfare having been in charge of a huge arsenal as well. In neither case did these guys use them, so I think we’re safe.
Next to the Cuban Missile Crisis, these wars were perhaps the nearest the world came to atomic warfare. So I don’t think it is picking on Israel to explore the implications of its nuclear arsenal.
Interesting. However, It wasn’t Israel’s posession of nuclear technology or weapons, but rather the introduction of Soviet weapons into the region in these cases that brought the world closer to atomic warfare.
It is convenient to forget this fact – that the USSR backed and supported their clients’ initiation of the 1973 war, and that they shipped nuclear arms to Egypt, not at the beginning of the war, but rather when the course of the war had changed with Israel on the west bank of the canal and two Egyptian armies surrounded in Sinai. This was hardly a “doomsday” situation where Israel was likely to use its bomb to prevent being overrun.
There is also a tendency to forget that, just prior to the 1967 war, Egypt had already used poison gas in Yemen and had a team of foreign scientists working on ballistic missiles.
I don’t think that, given the context, Israel just decided to go to the trouble and expense of developing nuclear technology for the hell of it, or simply to flex muscles.
As far as the whole middle east arms race thing this is another “clever” neo con line thats been making the rounds. as you pointed it is ridiculous as many of the countries there already have them. Why is Dennis Ross, someone who is obviously associated with Israel, writing this op ed? obviously he has a horse in the race.
Uh, Lester, I’m trying to understand something here. Are you saying that Dennis Ross is a “neocon”? If so, I’d really like to know how you come to this conclusion, because I’ve never seen him referred to as such.
As to why Dennis Ross is writing this op-ed, well the answer has to do with the fact that the “op” part of that term stands for “opinion”. Ross not only has first hand experience in the area in addition to an education in the field, but he also has an opinion to express, just as do, say Florscheimer und Walt. (And, in contrast to what Helena implies in the main post, I believe that in the case of opinion-editorial pieces that the editors need only verify accuracy and not approve of the content of the opinion itself.)
Ross postures as an intellectual – well, smart he may be, which all the more earns him disrepute for his deliberate distortions by omission. He uses his intelligence to weave deliberate and sophisticated propaganda favoring Israel’s genocidal behaviors. The 2003 essay cited by vadim confirms this – written 36 years after Israel (in 1967) deliberately (see GERSHOM GORENBERG in the New York Times “Israel’s Tragedy Foretold”, March 10, 2006) initiated a consciously criminal program to abuse its military occupation as the modus operendi to steal the West Bank and Gaza for civilian settlement as much in violation of international law and norms as anything Iran may be doing today – Ross once again never used the word “occupation”.
Ross is a study in form: the art of opinion propaganda. We must never forget that the weight of an opinion is directly proportionate to the degree it is based in facts. Ross’s opinions depends on omission and avoidance of material facts – such as omission of (1) the fact of military occupation, (2) the fact of Israel’s atomic bombs and warheads. It is meritless junk.
I agree with Sean that “Pro-Israel” is perverted by Ross-types as no more useful than “pro-NY Yankees” or any other sport rah-rah-rah. It’s mindless to the core, which is why it’s popular in Congress and popular with 80% of American Jews (as reported by Rosner’s blog in Ha’aretz yesterday). Almost every synagogue in the US has its Jewish-conquest cheering section, which is the basis of Ross’ frightening celebrity in the US media – kind of like Bin Laden’s frightening celebrity with his constituency in his part of the world. Ross and bin Laden are scary because the nub of their opinions translates into death and mayhem for ordinary people. Ross rocks on the same stage as one of his favorite Israelis, former Defense Secretary Mofaz, about whom a worthy Jewish-values commentator, Gideon Levy, had this to say in yesterday’s Ha’aretz:
“The rotten fruits of his security policies are the reasons he should remain outside. The bloodshed – of Israelis and Palestinians – for which Mofaz is responsible, is the real measure of his achievements as defense minister, and for this he cannot be forgiven. Many are guilty of the occupation’s brutality, but Mofaz is especially to blame.”
Levy speaks, of course, of the occupation which Ross treats as a fiction – as he does the threat of nuclear bombs and missiles under the control of a bright nut like Mofaz.
So, I congratulate Helena Cobban for her pointed de-bunking of Ross: one of the most notorious propagandists in America!
Interesting analyis by Edward Luttwak:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=12105023_1
2006-05-01 May Day trouble with the Times
JES- niether mersheimer or walt is either Iranian or israeli. If they were, I think we’d take that into consideration pretty heavily, enough to say maybe it’s more propaganda than op-ed, particularly if they were closely affiliated with either of those respective governments.
Yes, it would be bad if a terrorist got ahold of these weapons. But remember, Netanyahoo had control of hundreds of nukes as well and we lived through that. Besides, if a terrorist came to power in Iran, which would never happen, we could obliterate them in 5 seconds.
as far as ross being a “neo con” I have no idea what his affiliations are, but the argument itself is one I’ve heard from those circles.
“They celebrated it by publishing ravingly anti-Iranian and islamophobic rant by far-rightist Canadian author Irshad Manji. ”
Thanks for the link, Henry. I enjoyed the piece.
Great dance Lester!
I am aware that neither Mearsheimer or Walt is Iranian. But, then, Dennis Ross is not Israeli!
I don’t think that you were alluding to a terrorist in the post to which I was responding.
You seem, actually, to be very clear about your opinion as to Ross’s “affiliations”. Further, I’d be interested in hearing just what parts of the argument you’ve heard from “those circles”. (Ross seems to argue pretty much against attacking Iran. Luttwak, who I cited above, argues against an attack and for an eventual alliance with Iran, and you don’t get much more prima facie “necon” than Commentary!)
jes- I don’t think it’s unfair to associate ross with israel. He is very associated with them. I’m not saying he’s a raving settler, but he’s not Colin Powell. He’s a b level diplomat guy, not a thinker on the level of the authors of the israel lobby papers.
you do get more neo con than commentary: the weekly standard. who had “to bomb or not to bomb” on the cover of two weeks ago issue. with a horrible article by bill kristol, who is more of a threat ot humanity than AIDS and Bird Flu combined.
There was another one in the Boston Globe today. Iran = Hitler war monger nonsense. I’m not really interested in what any israeli or israeli- agenda people have to say about what america may or may not do with it’s military. It’s immaterial.
I’m not really interested in what any israeli or israeli- agenda people have to say about what america may or may not do with it’s military. It’s immaterial.
Just FYI, Edward Luttwak is not Israeli. (I’m not even sure if he is Jewish.) Further he is not a “B” player, but rather every bit as academically, and probably a lot more politically credentialed than “Florscheimer und Walt”. You may want to check out his bio on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_N._Luttwak
I am also relieved to find out that Commentary is not hardcore “neocon”. This comes as a surprise after being told for years by all variety of “neoisolationists” and “excons” that the magazine’s former editor (and current editor at large), Norman Podhoretz, was one of the key founders of the cabal.
Actually USA did not simply ALLOW Israel to have nukes, it GAVE Israel missiles with nuclear warheads, 74 of them to be precise. Here is key sentence from article by James Moore published by Independent on April 30, 2006:
Initially, Israel was expected to arm its submarine fleet with its own short-range Popeye missiles carrying conventional warheads. At least three mainstream publications in the US and Germany, however, have confirmed the vessels have been fitted with US-made Harpoon missiles with nuclear tips. Each Dolphin-class boat can carry 24 missiles.
The whole article bears a careful reading:
Why Shouldn’t Iran Have Nuclear Weapons? Israel Has American Warheads Ready to Fire
Iranians see only hypocrisy from the world’s nuclear powers
by James C. Moore
As international political powers seek Iran’s capitulation on nuclear weapons development, little notice is given to what the Americans and the British have done to create this crisis nor what steps the Israelis might eventually take to make it profoundly more complicated.
Iran’s antipathy toward the West did not spontaneously generate out of the crazed rhetoric of radical mullahs. It has been spurred by what Iranians see as hypocrisy on the part of members of the world’s nuclear community, and the bumbled meddling of the US and UK in Iranian affairs for more than a half century.
Iran is dangerous, but the British and the Americans have helped to make it that way. And the situation is even more precarious than it appears.
Shortly after the Gulf War in 1991, Germany gave Israel two of its diesel-powered Dolphin-class submarines. The Israelis agreed to purchase a third at a greatly reduced price. In November 2005, Germany announced that it was selling two more subs to Israel for $1.2bn (£660m).
Defense analysts have suggested the Dolphin-class boats are a means for Israel to have a second-strike capability from the sea if any of its land-based defence systems are hit by enemy nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is geopolitically afoot: Israel and the American president might not be willing to wait until after the first shot is fired.
Initially, Israel was expected to arm its submarine fleet with its own short-range Popeye missiles carrying conventional warheads. At least three mainstream publications in the US and Germany, however, have confirmed the vessels have been fitted with US-made Harpoon missiles with nuclear tips. Each Dolphin-class boat can carry 24 missiles.
Although Israel has not yet taken delivery of the two new submarines, the three presently in its fleet have the potential to launch 72 Harpoons. Stratfor, a Texas intelligence business, claims the Harpoons are designed to seek out ship-sized targets on the sea but could be retrofitted with a different guidance system.
According to independent military journalist Gordon Thomas, that has already happened. He has reported the Harpoons were equipped with “over the horizon” software from a US manufacturer to make them suitable for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Because the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf make the Israeli subs easily detectable, two of them are reported to be patrolling the deeper reaches of the Gulf of Oman, well within range of Iranian targets.
If Israel has US nuclear weaponry pointed at Iran, the position of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, becomes more politically supportable by his people. Despite the fact that Israel has been developing nuclear material since 1958, the country has never formally acknowledged it has a nuclear arsenal. Analysts have estimated, however, that Israel is the fifth-largest nuclear power on the planet with much of its delivery systems technology funded by US taxpayers. To complicate current diplomatic efforts, Israel, like Pakistan and India, has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even as it insists in the international discourse that Iran be stopped from acquiring what Israel already has.
Before Ariel Sharon’s health failed, Der Speigel reported that the then Israeli prime minister had ordered his country’s Mossad intelligence service to go into Iran and identify nuclear facilities to be destroyed. Journalist Seymour Hersh has also written that the US military already has teams inside Iran picking targets and working to facilitate political unrest. It is precisely this same type of tactic by the US and the UK, used more than a half century ago, which has led us to the contemporary nuclear precipice.
In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt led the CIA overthrow of Mohamed Mossadeq, Iran’s democratic- ally elected prime minister. Responding to a populace that had grown restive under imperialist British influence, Mossadeq had plans to nationalise the vast oil fields of his country.
At the prompting of British intelligence, the CIA executed strategic bombings and political harassments of religious leaders, which became the foundation of Mossadeq’s overthrow. Shah Reza Pahlevi, whose strings were pulled from Downing Street and Washington, became a brutal dictator who gave the multinational oil companies access to Iranian reserves. Over a quarter of a century later, the Iranian masses revolted, tossed out the Shah, and empowered the radical Ayatollah Khomeini.
Iran has the strength needed to create its current stalemate with the West. Including reserves, the Iranian army has 850,000 troops – enough to deal with strained American forces in Iraq, even if US reserves were to be deployed. The Iranians also have North Korean surface-to-air missiles with a 1,550-mile range and able to carry a nuclear warhead.
America cannot invade and occupy. Iran’s response would likely be an invasion of southern Iraq, populated, as is Iran, with Shias who could be enlisted to further destabilise Iraq. There are also reported to be thousands of underground nuclear facilities and uranium gas centrifuges in Iran, and it is impossible for all of them to be eliminated. But the Israelis might be willing to try. An Israeli attack on Iran would give Bush some political cover at home. The president could continue to argue that Israel has a right to protect itself.
But what if Israeli actions endanger America? Israel cannot attack without the US being complicit. Israeli jets would have to fly through Iraqi air space, which would require US permission. And America’s Harpoon missiles would be delivering the warheads. These would blow up Iranian nuclear facilities and also launch an army of Iranian terrorists into the Western world.
But George Bush is still without a respectable presidential legacy. He might be willing to risk everything to mark his place in history as the man who stopped Iran from getting nukes. The greater fear, though, is that he becomes the first person to pull the nuclear trigger since Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and then his place in the history books will be assured.
James Moore is the author of three books about the Bush administration. His latest, ‘The Architect’, will be published in September by Random House of New York.
er … mauisurfer, the nuclear tips don’t come with the missiles. The US has sold (unarmed) Harpoons to 25 other countries including Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and pakistan.
This is the real reason for Woodward, Bernstein, and Deepthroat.
It is the reason Nixon is seen as a “monster”.
Nixon was the last president without all his limbs directly controlled by the Dual-Citizens.
He’d dare ruminate that Israel’s interests weren’t America’s interests.
Dual-Citizens? Do you mean the Irish-Americans or the Italian-Americans?
general tso- his machevellian tendencies cleared the way for those folks IMO. ever read “nixon off the record” ? he had absolutely no principles.
He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.
— see preteen models biz on http://preteen-models.biz —