Secretary Gates did not realise that he was stepping into a minefield when he addressed a regional security conference there that included all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-member alliance and a key ally of the US.
By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf News
Poor Robert Gates, at one time the welcome replacement of the discredited US Defence Secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was a key player in the Iraq war misadventure. He was given a verbal drubbing in Manama, Bahrain, a few miles from Iran.
Secretary Gates did not realise that he was stepping into a minefield when he addressed a regional security conference there that included all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-member alliance and a key ally of the US.
Gates chose to stress the danger of Iran's nuclear programme and in the same breath appealed to his Arab audience to force Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment plans, which the Tehran government has repeatedly argued was a peaceful programme. His remarks came a few days after the release of a declassified consensus view of 16 US intelligence agencies that maintained Tehran had halted atomic weapons development in 2003 and had not resumed it since. This surprise revelation was seen as a slap in the face of President George W. Bush, who only recently was talking about a third world war should Iran proceed with its alleged secret plans. In fact, an earlier intelligence report had erroneously insisted that Iran had restarted its programme in 2005, a point still being made by Israeli intelligence.
Soon after Gates's speech, the defence secretary was challenged by Bahraini Minister of Labour Majid Al Alawi, who wanted to know whether Gates thought "the Zionist (Israeli) nuclear weapon is a threat to the region".
The defence secretary paused, and answered tersely: "No. I don't."
The statement was greeted by laughter from a room filled with senior Arab government officials.
Another Arab official, Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah, the secretary-general of the Council, responded: "Not considering Israel a threat to security in the region is considered a biased policy that is based on a double standard."
Also, Qatari Prime Minister Shaikh Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani took to task Gates's disparaging comparison of Iran and Israel. "We can't really compare Iran with Israel. Iran is our neighbour, and we shouldn't really look at it as an enemy," he said, continuing "I think Israel through 50 years has taken land, kicking out the Palestinians, and interferes under the excuse of security, blaming the other party".
Nuclear arsenal
It is generally accepted that Israel is the only country in the region which has a nuclear arsenal, but the Israeli government refuses to confirm or deny it. And the US has never pressed Israel to reveal its capabilities. A year ago, Gates had reportedly angered Israelis during testimony before the US Congress by including Israel in a list of nuclear-armed countries in the region around Iran to explain why Tehran might have sought the means to build an atomic bomb. The defence secretary has not publicly discussed the subject since, and when responding to the questions from the Bahrain audience, according to Reuters, he carefully referred to its "nuclear programme", thus allowing himself room to dismiss any suggestion that he implicitly confirmed the existence of nuclear weapons in Israel. A point that is rarely mentioned is that Israel has to date refused to adhere to the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty which is signed by all the major nuclear powers.
After the conference, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was with Gates in Bahrain, made an "unusual" 24-hour visit to Israel, which The New York Times described as "rare despite close defence ties between the United States and Israel..." The admiral received "a polite earful" from his Israeli hosts about Israel's "gloomy assessment" of Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Israeli intelligence believes, the Times reported, that Iran has resumed its nuclear weapons activities in 2005, "accelerating enrichment and ballistic missile development and constructing a 40-megawatt heavy water reactor in Arak that could produced plutonium".
The dressing down that Gates received in Bahrain did not make it in the leading US newspapers or television networks, denying American readers and viewers the chance to understand or appreciate Arab concerns about US policy towards Iran, which is in line with Israeli views and those of its neoconservative allies in the US, some of whom are still entrenched within the Bush administration.
Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has also fired another salvo this week when he pledged to undermine the new American intelligence finding on Iran and as well his government's plan to build over 300 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem, a step that could torpedo the just-concluded Annapolis agreement which is to launch Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.
It is time for the Bush administration to practice what it preaches. Just as it managed to bring nearly 50 nations to attend the recent Annapolis meeting it, too, should follow suit and start a dialogue with Iran.
A positive outcome of these talks could help pave the way for ending the bloody turmoil in Iraq and this oil-rich Gulf region. Likewise, hitting Israel on the knuckles will restore Arab confidence in American sponsorship of the scheduled peace talks.
George Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist.
