As a barrage of Israeli attacks hit Ehud Olmert over jeopardizing “Israel’s policy of ambiguity” on its nuclear weapons, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declares in Tehran that Israel will “soon be wiped out.”
Last week Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Meqren Abdul Aziz warned at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Regional Security Summit in Bahrain that "this will also force moderate countries in the region that adopt a WMD-free policy to establish clandestine or declared nuclear programs to defend their interests and create a military balance."
That is especially the case after the USA lost its power of deterrent by failing miserably in Iraq and due to a consensus that further military adventures in the region are impossible.
The Arabs had attempted time after time to get international backing that would force Israel to declare its nuclear weapons and sign on to relevant agreements, but the affairs of the spoiled child of the West including its weapons of mass destruction is a taboo that no nation can mess with.
Every year at the general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the Arabs make an attempt, and every year they fail. And every time an attempt at stopping the nuclear race fails, the prospect of “threatened nations” joining the race increases.
The only place were the Arabs are humored is the UN General Assembly that has passed many non-binding resolutions calling for a “nuclear-free Middle East.” But enjoying the support of the vast majority of the world is not enough. You need nuclear weapons to sit on the Security Council before you can be effective towards a nuclear-free region!
Olmert, who must not want to enter history as the Israeli premiere who brought about the demise of the “policy of ambiguity” rushed to rebuild ambiguity. Of course he said that the statement he made in Germany is not a declaration that Israel has nuclear weapons.
The statement was: "We have never threatened any nation with annihilation. Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?"
Because he is a realist who knows what is hilarious and what is just not funny, he made a declaration that creates an ambiguity that didn’t exist before: Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the region, he said.
Since Israel is a nuclear power, does that mean there are others who have the bomb, or is he just telling us that his state of never-ending aggression does not intend to be the first to use them?
Now this is ambiguity. If another state in the region had the bomb, why does it choose to be an underdog? If he is talking about intention to push the trigger first, did he just forgo Israel’s option of a pre-emptive strike; the reasoning behind having the bomb?
Meanwhile, whereas Israel’s nuclear danger is an imminent threat to Iran and others, Iran that had exhausted all diplomatic channels to try get the USA into a dialogue that would avert ongoing hostilities had failed because it doesn’t have the bomb. North Korea enjoys a dialogue with the USA because it does.
In the standoff between the USA and Iran, the whole Middle East has been turned into a ticking bomb. Today Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine are a playground for the grand face-off between the USA and Iran, if we exclude Afghanistan for the sake of keeping the issue in the region.
Iran which has not acquired the weapon yet, achieved a veto power in the three countries of interest to the United States and its Israel; a veto power Iran would like to eventually enjoy at the Security Council where it is best exercised. Meanwhile exercising anywhere against the USA is the only option.
Iraq is occupied by the USA, yet Iran enjoys such influence even over America’s allies in the country that it is much more effective and practical to make a decision in Tehran than Washington DC on the future of Iraq.
Lebanon is being run by US allies, but the country is on the verge of a civil war if Iran’s own allies are not granted a veto power over all important decisions of the government. Even without a civil war erupting, the ongoing mass demonstrations in Lebanon have brought the country to an unnatural freeze of life; veto power again.
By finally managing to adopt Hamas which resulted in a political deadlock on the Palestinian front, any future Palestinian action including civil war would require Iran’s prior blessings.
To show how rewarding an adoption is to the child, Iran just promised Hamas a further $100 million in addition to the $120 million it has already dispatched, and Hamas which had never enjoyed Iranian support in the past, decided to pick up its eggs from this and that basket and place them all in Tehran.
This is the fault of the US Administration in Washington DC that has always been too confident and arrogant to realize the dangers of its dim-witted foreign policy. Even after its grand project failed in Iraq, and against the advice of friends and foes, the George Bush administration has not yet budged towards dialogue.
If the USA and its allies think that economic sanctions against Iran is going to stop it from acquiring the bomb or keeping the region on fire, they are deluding themselves and taking the world into an even more explosive territory.
The USA must engage in a direct respectful and sincere dialogue aimed at normalizing relations with Iran immediately because for as long as Iran is dealt with as a rogue state, it will continue to defend its interests and ready itself for the future by acquiring whatever weapons it can get its hands on; including local players like Hamas who are happy to keep their country a playground for Iran and the USA to have their match.
