Poll_Blind
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Fri Dec-08-06 05:57 PM
Original message |
| Saudi intelligence chief: Israeli nuclear arsenal provoking arms race |
|
This doesn't have to do with I/P, so please refrain from making it an I/P thread with your comments. The questions posed by the posting of this article are whether or not Israel's possession of nuclear weapons initiated a defacto arms race in the Middle East and whether Israel can maintain an appropriately-strong defensive posture without nuclear arms given their size, geographical placement and the history of conflict in the region?
From today's Ha'aretz:
Israel's nuclear arsenal is the largest strategic threat to the Middle East and appears set to trigger a regional arms race, said Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Friday.
"The existing Israeli nuclear capability is the most dangerous strategic threat to Gulf security in the short and medium term," Prince Muqrin told the International Institute of Strategic Studies' conference.
Muqrin said the threat posed by the Israeli nuclear arsenal was driving "some countries in the region to join an arms race."
The arms race could push moderate Middle Eastern states to enter into alliances with existing nuclear powers or start "covert or overt" nuclear arms developments of their own, "aiming at creating a military balance in the region."
--snip--
Israel's possession of nuclear arms, while never publicly alluded to by Israel, is an open secret which has been known by the intelligence community since 1986-87 with the revelations of Israeli nuclear engineer Mordechai Vanunu and the "Vela Incident". Several books have been written about Israel's nuclear weapons program, including Seymour Hersh's The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy and more recently Michael Karpin's The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World.
PB
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread