Would limiting Israel's nuclear arsenal help block Iran's atomic aims?
Israel has 60 to 200 nuclear weapons, some of which are positioned, recent report estimates.
By Amir Oren Tags: Israel news Iran nuclearIn the war on international jihad, both organized and individual, the American security establishment suffered three heavy blows in the course of a few weeks. Twelve soldiers were murdered at the Fort Hood base by Muslim psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, there was the attempted suicide bombing of Northwest-Delta Flight 253 to Detroit, and seven CIA operatives were killed by a double agent run by Jordanian intelligence. In each of the three incidents the attacks' planners penetrated an American target - military bases and an airline.
This series of failures showed on United States President Barack Obama's face midweek, as he tried to evince determination but revealed impotent frustration. Staff from the State Department's history unit were not among the many top-level administration people invited to the discussion at the White House. This is a pity, because they would have drawn the attention of Obama and his people to documents from the period of presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford that were published just last month after being declassified. These documents show the extent to which terror takes one shape and then another, becomes dormant - but doesn't sleep deeply - and then reawakens with redoubled fury.
In a Central Intelligence Agency document from 1976 examining the danger of terror organizations gaining control of nuclear weapons, the likelihood of this scenario was assessed as low. With one reservation: If anyone in the world of terror is capable of doing this, it would be Palestinian organizations from Black September or some other incarnation of Fatah to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Palestinian organizations had a dangerous combination of will, ability and connections with similar organizations in East Asia (such as the Japanese Red Army, which dispatched Kozo Okamoto to kill at Lod Airport) and especially in Europe. The CIA's working assumption was that terrorists would try to obtain nuclear weapons from one of the hundreds of storage sites in Europe or from a convoy moving between sites; they might succeed in gaining control of a bomb or warhead and threaten a nuclear explosion or initiate bargaining.
Nearly 35 years later the main players may be different - Al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas instead of the organizations headed by Yasser Arafat, Ali Hassan Salameh, George Habash and Ahmad Jibril - but the danger has only increased. Rogue states like Iran and North Korea have ascended the nuclear ladder, nuclear Pakistan could fall apart and Abdul Qadeer Khan's network has sold nuclear secrets to anyone who can pay.
It is no longer possible to dismiss as negligible the possibility that a fanatical organization will get nuclear arms, materials or know-how from one of its patrons, take advantage of a gap in security and carry out a mass suicide attack. This could happen on a plane, a ship anchored in an American port with a missile launched from the sea, or a truck racing in from Mexico to the American side of the border in California or Arizona. It could also happen if an American who has converted to Islam or is the son of immigrants (like Maj. Hasan) does what Timothy McVeigh did with different motives when he blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, but this with a nuclear weapon.
To deal with nuclear terror it will be necessary to deal with states that sponsor it. To do so, it will be necessary to update the proliferation regime worldwide. Israel will also have to be included in this. Though this is an apocalyptic vision, there is scope for immediate action.
In April Obama will host an international nuclear security summit. It is not clear who will represent Israel there. If the representative is at the very highest level, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also chairs the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and not the commission's director general, he will have to defend Israel's position and not merely recycle the demands concerning Iran.
In May, shortly after Obama's summit, a committee will meet - as it does every five years - to review the state of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime. Israel is not a signatory to this treaty and is therefore not subject to the regime, but there is significance for Israel in the conjunction of the nuclear meetings and what happens in advance of them.
Last month the report "Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers" was published by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. Heading the commission were former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans and former Japanese foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi. Also on the committee were 13 statesman and experts, among them former American defense secretary William Perry, retired German chief of staff General Klaus Naumann (a good friend of Israel who served as head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Military Committee) and Turki Al Faisal, who headed Saudi intelligence for a quarter of a century. This group of people is privy to many secrets and have access to all the latest information.
The launch of the commission's report was marked during a flight by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to Japan. About two weeks previously, Rudd, his deputy prime minister Julia Gillard and figures from the entire political spectrum met with a delegation of Knesset members, academics and journalists who visited Sidney and Melbourne as guests of the Australia-Israel Leadership Forum headed by Albert Dadon. The abundant friendship for Israel was true and profound, crossing parties and circles.
If in Israel it is often noted that in the 1948 war an entire percent of the population was lost - 6,000 out of 600,000 - in Australia the fatality rate during World War I was even higher: 55,000 soldiers out of a population of less than five million, and an army of about half a million who served the British Empire. There they also remember well World War II and the fear of defeat after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the British failure in Singapore and the Japanese stronghold in Indonesia.
From the conquest of Be'er Sheva under Gen. Edmund Allenby to commando operations in western Iraq, Australians have played a positive role in Israel's history. Terror is perceived as a common enemy, with no illusions that bringing succor to feelings of injustice and discrimination will save Australian tourists from an attack on a nightclub in Bali.
The measures taken against terrorism in Australia are more sober and less panicky than the measures taken against biological or agricultural pollution that might enter the country and contaminate flocks or grazing land. Alas for the traveler in whose pocket an inspector finds a snack or an apple. Every tourist is suspected of being a successor to Tiger Woods, lest he has in his possession golf shoes or clubs that have touched infected foreign lawns.
This background of uninhibited Australian affection, which has grown even stronger during outgoing Ambassador James Larsen's tour of duty in Tel Aviv, negates a priori any possibility of depicting the Evans-Kawaguchi report as hostile toward Israel. It is proportional, fair and does not attack Israel or aspire to the unattainable. It only proposes withdrawing the exemption extended in practice to Israel over the past four decades.
The report treats it as fact that Israel is a country in possession of nuclear weapons outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty with an estimated 60 to 200 weapons, some of which are positioned. It mentions a very common assumption that Israel has ceased to produce fissile material but will not explicitly relinquish this route before there is a significant improvement in its security environment. The report recommends applying pressure on Israel - as well as India and Pakistan - to do so.
Evans, Kawaguchi and their partners are aiming at a practical solution. They write: "Recognizing the reality that the three nuclear-armed states now outside the NPT - India, Pakistan and Israel - are not likely to become members any time soon, every effort should be made to achieve their participation in parallel instruments and arrangements which apply equivalent non-proliferation and disarmament obligations."
The most creative idea in the report is this establishment of a parallel structure, the meaning of which is recognition of the atom's settlement blocs - a next-generation NPT.
This is only the beginning. The acknowledged nuclear powers that are members of the NPT have committed to a gradual reduction of their weapons arsenal as a stimulus to all the rest not to nuclearize, and as a justification of the effort to block Iran and North Korea. A similar commitment would apply to Israel, India and Pakistan. The supreme aim is presented in two stages: minimizing the world stockpile by 2025 and bringing it down to zero some time thereafter.
The Evans-Kawaguchi report acknowledges the dangers facing Israel in the Middle East and proposes a reasonable formula for resolving the nuclear concerns, from Tehran to terror. Among its authors were an Indian and a Pakistani, though not an Israeli, and its formulators and patrons are friendly. It could be signed by Israelis who believe it is still too early to give up the nuclear insurance policy entirely. Others, who cling tightly to the existing arrangement, will be chilled by the report and its spirit, as well as Obama's. This is not a terrible problem. They should put on a sweater.
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Embargoes are great for limiting spending. When you make your own weapons, you pay what you want for them. When you buy your overpriced toys from America, then you pay more. If anyone wanted to destroy Iran, Iran would be gone. They, like Syria and so many others, live by the good graces of others. Iran could spend almost nothing on its military and would be just fine now that Saddam is gone from Iraq. Israel and to a lesser extent the Saudis are a different matter. Under a constant and existential threat, the day Israel lets down its guard, there will be rampaging Hordes, knives in hand, going for the throat. In a way the Saudis too face such a Horde, many of those who would slaughter every Israeli, would also take over Saudi Arabia if they could. The crown of that Empire is not in Jerusalem, it is in Mecca. America also lives by its arms, but in a different way. Not especially worried about enemies on borders, America is the world's crooked policeman, Many bribes there.
I agree to that under normal circumstances countries spend what they feel they need for personal defense. Iran though is a different story, this spending isn't about defense its about making a name for themselves. Iran wants the arabs and the west to see it as a major military power. Once you have got that status then future spending can be based on current needs only but if you want prestige and influence you need to invest heavily. If we are talking for its personal defensive need the US does not need the kind of firepower it has but it wants to be world policeman and the title of the worlds only superpower spending more than is needed for personal defense is needed if you want to demand respect & political influence. If Iran can be a local superpower and global power then they get that sort of prestige & influence.
pipedreams...no one is giving up their nukes..let's get serious. israel should LEAST of all nations give up their nukes, and they won't. if nothing else, israel should be speeding up their anti missile protection and increasing their ballistic missile capabilities, as well as designing new ground breaking nuclear miniaturization techniques for more precise ops which would cause less collateral damage..THAT would be responsible, but giving them up? not a chance.
"The battleship limitation treaties in the 1920s fathered the much more lethal carrier aviation." - Mark Klein The men responsible for the creation of the Dreadnought Battleship, Admiral's John Fisher, William Sims, Bradley Fisk, and Percy Scott had ALL changed their minds before the end of WW I and saw the future of naval warfare as being dominated by aviation and submarines. The first ever carrier air-strike was flown from HMS Furious, an aircraft carrier, i July against the Zeppine base at Tondern, Germany. The first US carrier, the Langley, (CV-1) predated the Washigton Naval Treaty. This was mere opportunism in both cases. The BB was abandoned by it's inventors well before the Washington Treaty. The argument that the Washington Treaty caused the rise of the carrier is a classic post hoc, ergo proptor hoc fallacy. The battleship had failed to be the decisive naval weapon during WW I. Carrier development was well underway before the treaty.
"Iran wants to be recocognized as the new regional superpower - they have more money to spend on weaponry than Israel," - Zionist Forever Let us test this hypothesis with some facts. Nations spend what they deem necessary on defense, and defense expenditures as a percent of GDP is a very useful indicator of a nations values and intentions. Defense budgets as % GDP Saudi - 10% Jordan - 8.,6% Israel - 7.3% Syria - 5.9% Qatar - 5.3% Turkey - 5.3% Bahrain - 4.5% Egypt 3.4% Lebanon - 3.1% UAE - 3.1% Iran - 2.6%
IAEA reports and a good deal of additional materials. My concern is that Iran is trying to build a 'break out' capability. I recently posted my concerns that an Iranian firm was trying to buy a great deal of extremely pure Mercury ad has just concluded arrangements with Bolivia to mine Lithium. This could mean that Iran is going to make lots of batteries. Or it could mean that Iran is moving to separate Lithium-6 using a Colex process. Greek to you? Not to me. And how is it I was aware of those moves? Because I know what to look for, and am always looking for it Peter. You believe based on passion Peter. I am concerned with actual knowledge and what may be known. This is why I watch for indications that Iran is seeking to pursue nuclear weapons instead of assuming that they are. Look up Column Exchange Separation (Colex) of Lithum and Lithium-6. See what is necessary and what the product is used for. . . My concerns are real, not hysterical.
"If Dimona is not producing fissile materials, why not join NPT as a declared weapons state, sign the Fissile Materials Treaty, and allow UN inspectors to confirm the claim, just as you are demanding of Iran." - Binyamin Once a nation has enough fissile material to make the number of weapons it considers necessary there is no need to make more. Moreover, advanced weapons designs often use Tritium, which requires Lithium and Neutrons to make. Those Neutrons are the same ones which would be needed to make Plutonium. Tritium has a short half-life (12 years), decaying into Helium 3, which is poison to the reactions for which you use Tritium. So the most natural thing is for a nation which has enough Plutonium to use the Neutrons to make Tritium which is VERY useful in advanced weapons such as enhanced radiation (neutron bombs), thermonuclear devices (H-Bombs), and small, light, but high yield fission weapons (A-bombs). There would be no advantage to Israel in joining the NPT.
dominate the world,Islamic Taqiyya. Israel is the one deterrent to Iran. Israel is not the problem the problem is Jihadists in the form of Iran, Saudi Wahabbi, muslim brotherhood wanting tthe world to become Islamic. Israel is not the cause but the solution. Someday when the world stops apologizing to jihadist killers and sympatheizers and starts promoting peaceful interpretations of Islam in which Mohammed recognizes all of Israel as belonging to the Jews, where truth is taught then peace will come. Israel must remain nuclear for Iran will build it anyway. They operate under deception!!!
"Israel is not a nuclear proliferator" - Cipora Not right now, but the level of nuclear weapons cooperation between the Apartheid government of South Africa and Israel was both high, and mutually beneficial. Israel also sells dual-use technology to India, which is not a violation of the NPT as neither signed it. The USA has been followed by Canada and Russia in blatant violation of the NPT in selling nuclear technology and materials to India. 'Proliferation' has become a mighty slippery word. Ah, for the old days when anyone could sell anyone anything, exchanging a wink and nod for hollow promises of uninspected intent.
"ISRAEL SHOULD INCREASE" - David Why? There are only so many targets worth a nuke David. Israel needs some strategic weapons, and some tactical ones, but there are simply not that many targets. Nukes are costly to deploy, maintain and secure. They are also useless except in extremis. Sane nations, not the US and USSR/Russia, have all taken a careful look at what their ACTUAL needs are and have kept their nuclear arsenals modest in size. There would be only harm to itself in Israel building more nukes at the expense of weapons and training which are useful. "But to compensate for this they had built plenty of them, enough we estimate to destroy the world three and a half times. Why they would have wanted to be able to do it more than once is a mystery to us." - Introduction to Dr. Strangelove Enough is enough to deter and if that fails to make certain you are not the only loser David. More is just waste and stupidity.
unless there is another country as threatened by Iran as Israel comes to the plate. No takers so far...
Its about Irans desire to be a global power & bully its naighbors. Iran wants to be recocognized as the new regional superpower - they have more money to spend on weaponry than Israel, they virtual unconditional support from China & Russia. they have oil to try and blackmail the west with. Nukes take them from status as local power surrounded by arab countries armed by the US to superpower. It also makes them a major military power globally as they are one of only a handful of countries with nukes. They are also developing missiles with increasing ranges that allows them to threaten countries beyond the ME & within the next 5 years they will probably have ICBMS which can hit mainland America to scare them. They also want the capability to bully its naighbors in the Gulf which it whats scaring the arabs. Iran knows Israel has never threatened them or anybody else with nukes so the only reason they would have be scared of Israel is a retaliation to an Iran nuclear strike.
M.L."IF and there is a great deal of evidence it does not, Iran has a nuclear weapons program, then what were it`s origins?" Well I'd be interested in that evidence Mark. I mean, I can understand when people say there is not enough evidence to say that Iran definitely HAS a nuke weapons program. But how do you find evidence that proves they don't have a nuke weapons program?
why read about Israel? And maybe it should. No one writes good about Israel anyway.
in the context of Goldstein - UN - US axis what this means is if Israel does not accept the igo of foreign troops ( because without nuclear deterrent Israel simply does not have enough people to defend the nation and thus may not be sustained for a day without foreign military presence ) she will be forced to do so, through apriory judgment of preemptively possessing weapons of mass destruction. Israel has a work to do. The whole hot air is meaningless for states with self - sufficient commerce. How to secure this venue, financially and logistically. How to ensure that vital interests of Israel are not trespassed upon... all those questions need to be answered simultaneously. Tzipi sitting on the fence and waiting for an opportunity to save own flat, let Israel burn... even if the orders from GosDep warn of death in the event of insubordination... I find an alternative of shipping her to England?s prison as a viable approach to save a few bucks for people who "work" for Israel.
Since both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, the daily artillery barrages have stopped. Some say Israel has nuclear weapons since the 60·s. Yet Israel has fought many wars, without resorting to said weapons. Today, Israel has a major enemy, that strives not only to build nuclear warheads, but has also threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Said country, Iran, could well launch hundreds of conventional warheads with HE on Israeli cities. Yet, they know, in the end, Israel will retaliate. Something is amiss in Washington. Something tells me that the gracious president who bowed and kissed the hand of the Saudi King, is coming of age. Something tells me, the Pentagon is about to review its impression of this willowy figure, the midterm elections will clear the minds of many. Good day from very snowy Swiss Alps.
No way. This self flagellating strategy never worked and never will. The longer it takes to stop our enemies, the messier it will be when the inevitable war, is finally unleashed.
How to prevent the Khan system selling nukes to Muslim terrorists? Reduce the Israeli ability to retalliate against such a possible attack!
it has been reported that there are strong disagreements between obama and the u.s. military regarding u.s. nuclea policy and posture. israel should not allow herself to be bullied by obama on this issue. israel should keep her own council, and should definitely wear very warm sweaters.
Israel is uniquely threatened. And it needs its own unique form of deterrence. Loss of it will only encourage its enemies, most especially in the nuclear realm.
any nuclear terror will come from the islamic world. the saudi wahabis should stop lecturing israel. they had created the current terror crisis. the world is once again trying to solve the problems it has created on israel's back.
To answer your question, re whether you have to post to list Israel's misdeeds, the answer is no. You need to engage in fictional writing, unless the first item in your list is that Israel has been to lax and too soft in exercising self defence.
how about if Israel gave up all of its nukes, even disarmed unilaterally? I'm sure the arabs would suddenly give up force and terror and sit down under the shade of a tree and discuss peace with the Jews...right? And this garbage keeps on getting recycled!
What is this prettifier's source for that claim? If Dimona is not producing fissile materials, why not join NPT as a declared weapons state, sign the Fissile Materials Treaty, and allow UN inspectors to confirm the claim, just as you are demanding of Iran. Israel took the fateful step of being the first nation to introduce nuclear weapons into the Mid East. As Torah says, "If yea reap the wind, so shall yea reap the whirlwind."
Iran will acquire nuclear weapons because it will raise Iran's status as a military power. Trying to limit nations that are part of the NPT will have no effect. The logic in this article and its opaquely referenced report is akin to suggesting that the disarmament of the police and the general population will result in the voluntary disarmament of criminal gangs. This is just silly.
Israels (not admitted) nuclear arsenal has very little to do with the current situation or the question of nuclear proliferation. Israel has had an (unadmitted except for the statements of the idiot Olmert) nuclear arsenal for some 40 years and it fully understands that such weapons only are useful to ensure that the possessing nation will not be the ONLY loser in a war. IF and there is a great deal of evidence it does not, Iran has a nuclear weapons program, then what were it's origins? Iran unquestionably had a VERY limited investigation of nuclear weapons during the late years of the Iran-Iraq war. It may have restarted for a brief period following threats by the Bush administration and Israel in the early 2000s. But there is little evidence of such a program now. Why? Iran has investigated nuclear weapons when it was threatened with imminent attack. Israel has been most careful to not rattle it's nuclear sword. And thus it has been easy for other regional powers to ignore.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.. What Evans-Yamagushi proposes is akin to desarming the Police to prevent crime...Good luck...
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.. What Evans-Yamagushi proposes is akin to desarming the Police to prevent crime...Good luck...
reduction is a fantasy, go ahead and hope for peace, but keep preparing for war, b/c that is what EVERYONE is going to do anyway
If Israel puts its nuclear weapons "on the table" and subject it to international pressure and eventual elimination, can the Superpowers guarantee us that Iran will halt its nuclear armament race, or even that Syria will? The tragic facts are, Israel is surrounded by deadly enemies, who will interpret any such Israeli move as a sign of weakness, encouraging them to step up their efforts to speed up the abolishment of the only Jewish state in the world. Who will we ask for help then? History shows us that, in times of trouble, we had only God to rely on. God says in His Holy Scriptures: "...and the Lord your God will bless you in all the deeds of your hands that *you* will do." Or, to put it in more modern words: "God helps those who helps themselves."
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Do I even need to post a list of Israel's misdeeds?
The other two were real incidents. A Nigerian setting fire to his crotch is not a 'heavy blow' to anyone except presumably the Nigerian.
Nuclear weapons are one of many developing 'technologies'. Focusing only on nuclear issues is like standing on a train track while looking out for airplanes or snipers. The trend is clear in every sense. Technology favors the terrorist and time is short.
Corection: Israel has over 1200 nukes, most thermo nuclear. Read Martin van Crefeldt's words on IL being the 2nd or third largest nuke power. I understand that IL media operates under IDF censorship but i assume that Talkbacks may be exempt. As for the cryptic "some of them are 'positioned' - well, many have already determined what 'positioning' means. If I were the US pres [or EU head]I would be trying to locate those. Still, a non-nuclear ME would be more likely w a non-nuke IL. Fat change, though, for the latter.
The writer assumes that Israel has nuclear weapons, almost as if it were common knowledge. The Israeli government does not confirm or deny such. Israel might go a long way towards being an honest broker for peace by either admitting it has such weapons or giving a denial which allows inspections to prove it. If Israel lies about this it will lie about anything.
What is the practicality of have three non-signers of the NPT, to sign a separate agreement which does the same of the NPT? Other than formaly establishing a double standard, I mean Why leave North Korea out? If Israel is formally allowed to posss nukes, it will create a clear incentive for others to rush to them, as they will argue on the need to restore the (formal) balance of power.
The battleship limitation treaties in the 1920s fathered the much more lethal carrier aviation.