The Most Dangerous Nuclear Facility in the Middle East

[subsuelo]

There is no good evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. It has offered to allow regular International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of the newly announced facility near Qom, which would effectively prevent it from being used for weapons production.

There is a secret nuclear facility in the Middle East, however, producing plutonium and not just enriched uranium, which has the capacity to make 10 nuclear warheads a year.

It is Israel's ongoing nuclear weapon production that drives the nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Saddam wanted a bomb because Israel had one. The Iranians were then worried both about an Iraqi and an Israeli bomb. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others are annoyed at their geostrategic helplessness in the face of Israeli nukes.

http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/most-dangerous-nuclear-facility-in.html">Juan Cole - more

[madrchsod]

1. no one wants to admit that Israel has nuclear weapons

[stray cat]

2. I don't think Israel will allow their nukes to blow themselves or us up

[shira]

3. LOL @ Juan Cole....at least he recently admitted Ahmadinejad's antisemitism...

...even though he insisted for the longest time his statements were "mistranslations".

Juan Cole and his Dis-informed comment.

:eyes:

Yep - Israel's a real threat to use their nukes on everyone in the mideast.

What a dipshit.

[Violet_Crumble]

4. Definately...

Israel's always refused to allow inspectors in, and iirc, sent some American inspectors packing years ago when they arrived to inspect the facility.....

[proteus_lives]

5. If there was ever a country that needed nuclear weapons.

It's Israel.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. No country needs nuclear weapons, and that includes Israel n/t

[proteus_lives]

7. Yes, they do.

They prevent Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iran, SA from attacking Israel en masse.

And in the general world-wide view, nukes have probably prevented WWIII, WWIV and WWV.

[Violet_Crumble]

8. No, they definately don't need nukes...

Apart from the fact that Jordan and Egypt have had peace treaties with Israel for a long time, Israel having nukes has nothing to do with other countries not wanting to do some mass invasion thing. The inclination not to do some mass invasion thing comes from a whole lot of other reasons....

I must have blinked and missed the moments when nukes prevented global war breaking out. Which were they?

[proteus_lives]

9. Yeah, because no has ever broken a peace treaty or betrayed the Jews before.

:eyes:

What other reasons are there?

"I must have blinked and missed the moments when nukes prevented global war breaking out. Which were they?"

I'm trusting that you're basically aware of the general history of the last fifty years. There have been dozens of events of war scares, low-level hostilities, saber-rattling that could have easily become general conflict if not for the threat of nuclear exchange. The Cold War wouldn't have stayed cold if NATO or the Warsaw Pact thought they stood a chance of real victory. And without nukes, there would have been another world war. Another 100 million dead while nations slugged it out.

[Violet_Crumble]

10. Well, Jordan and Egypt sure haven't and we're talking about Israel not the Jews...

Other reasons are there being no need to do any invasion, the very good chance that even if there was a reason for some invasion there'd be no chance that those countries mentioned would get on with each other long enough to work together, that Jordan and Egypt have peace treaties with Israel, and that most if not all Arab states have offered to normalise relations when Israel withdraws to the 67 borders and a Palestinian state is created...

No, I'm not talking about the Cold War days, because I'm very aware of the tightrope the world walked on back then. I'm talking about after that. And when it comes to the Cold War, that was a whole different situation than what Israel has now where it's the only state in the region that's a nuclear power? The reason the Cold War didn't ever erupt into nuclear armageddon was because the superpowers had a balance of power thing happening where they deterred each other with mutually assured destruction. A very uncomfortable way for the world to live, and there were times it came very close to the edge, and not any sort of situation I'd ever want the world to end up back in...

[Recursion]

11. I thought equating "Israel" with "Jews" was antisemitic?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. And what prevents Israel and the US attacking Iran?

I note that at present Iran is under threat of enemy invasion, while Israel has overwhelming conventional forces.

"We need nukes to make us safe from enemy attack, you don't" is not an argument that you can convincingly make to a country you are actively threatening to attack.

[oberliner]

13. Do you believe Iran has the right to pursue nuclear weapons?

And as a follow up, do you believe that they are actually doing so?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. I don't believe in alienable rights, and maybe, respectively.

:-Iran clearly does not have a legal right to pursue nuclear weapons; it's a signatory to the NPT.

:-I think every right has to have a source - there is no such thing as an inalienable right - but I think it is morally wrong of both Israel (certainly) and Iran (if they are doing it) to build nuclear weapons, although the former more than the latter, on the grounds that Iran has a legitimate need for them at present.

:-I do not know whether Iran is actually trying to build nuclear weapons; it seems fairly clear that it's trying to get into a situation where it could do so reasonably fast if it chose to.

:-Were I in Iran's place - i.e. repeatedly threatened with attack by a belligerent nuclear power with superior conventional forces and no respect for international law - I might well pursue nuclear weapons.

:-I would rather live in a world in which Iran did not have nuclear weapons.

:-The prospect of Iran launching nuclear weapons at other nations does not greatly worry me; it knows that the repurcussion would be catastrophic.

:-The prospect of Iran supplying nuclear weapons to third parties - e.g. Hamas or Hezbullah - and them using them *does* worry me; I don't think it's that likely, but I think it's more likely that any of the current nuclear powers allowing them to be used.

:-The prospect of Israel using nuclear weapons against another nation also worries me - unlike Iran, I think it not impossible that Israel might reason that it could use nukes and get away with it - they've gotten away with everything else. And I do not think the Israeli no-first-use pledge is worth the paper it is printed on. I suspect that the only reason Israel has never resorted to nuclear weapons is that it has never needed to; if its conventional superiority is ever challenged I will be surprised if it does not. But I don't see any chance of that conventional superiority ever being challenged.

[oberliner]

15. Thank you for your thoughtful response

It certainly seems that if Iran does indeed choose to develop nuclear weapons that the threat (or implementation) of sanctions isn't really going to stop that from happening.

(North Korea manages to thumb its nose at all the sanctions and condemnations and no one seems particularly interested in doing anything about it)

I think that Israel perceives the scenario that you describe (Iran supplying those weapons to a third party, such as Hamas) and a cataclysmic terrorist attack ensuing as an almost inevitable result of such a development.

I cannot see anything positive coming out of any of this for anyone.

I really wish that the Arab world could come to terms with the reality of Israel's existence, and I wish Israel would take some steps to facilitate that process instead of exacerbating the tensions.

It will truly take some bold and out-of-the box thinking from all parties concerned to move us beyond this seemingly intractable situation.