Saudi intelligence chief says Israeli nuclear arsenal is provoking arms race

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/08/africa/ME_GEN_Bahrain_Saudi_Israel.php

MANAMA, Bahrain: 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, said here 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."

[lvx35]

1. Oh man, danger.

The logic of that is understanable though. Israel showed willingness in the Lebanon conflict to use higher technology and exxagerated responses in military conflict, and there is no reason to expect that this behaviour wouldn't continue into nuclear responses to smaller things as well. But what a DANGEROUS game has been started here!

[formercia]

2. WWI was started by the assassination

of some second-rate archduke that nobody liked. Imagine what detonating nukes would cause.Things would get out of control in no time.

But then, that's what Fearless Leader secretly hopes for, so he can have his rapture.

[leftofthedial]

3. Israel has shown virtually n restraint

in using military force to impose its political will.

If I were a neighbor of Israel, I wouldn't trust them any more than Poland or Czechoslovakia should have trusted Germany in the 30's.