James C Moore: Why shouldn't Iran have nuclear
weapons? Israel has American warheads ready to fire
This article linked from: antiwar.com
(as are many posts seen in this NG)
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article360993.ece
Iranians see only hypocrisy from the
world's nuclear powers 30 April 2006
As international political powers seek Iran's
capitulation on nuclear weapons development, little
notice is given to what the Americans and the
British have done to create this crisis nor what
steps the Israelis might eventually take to make it
profoundly more complicated.
Iran's antipathy toward the West did not spontaneously
generate out of the crazed rhetoric of radical
mullahs. It has been spurred by what Iranians see as
hypocrisy on the part of members of the world's
nuclear community, and the bumbled meddling of the
US and UK in Iranian affairs for more than a half
century.
Iran is dangerous, but the British and the Americans
have helped to make it that way. And the situation
is even more precarious than it appears.
Shortly after the Gulf War in 1991, Germany gave
Israel two of its diesel-powered Dolphin-class
submarines. The Israelis agreed to purchase a third
at a greatly reduced price. In November 2005,
Germany announced that it was selling two more subs
to Israel for $1.2bn (£660m).
Defence analysts have suggested the Dolphin-class
boats are a means for Israel to have a second-strike
capability from the sea if any of its land-based
defence systems are hit by enemy nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately, the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war
is geopolitically afoot: Israel and the American
president might not be willing to wait until after
the first shot is fired.
Initially, Israel was expected to arm its submarine
fleet with its own short-range Popeye missiles
carrying conventional warheads. At least three
mainstream publications in the US and Germany,
however, have confirmed the vessels have been fitted
with US-made Harpoon missiles with nuclear tips.
Each Dolphin-class boat can carry 24 missiles.
Although Israel has not yet taken delivery of the
two new submarines, the three presently in its fleet
have the potential to launch 72 Harpoons. Stratfor,
a Texas intelligence business, claims the Harpoons
are designed to seek out ship-sized targets on the
sea but could be retrofitted with a different
guidance system.
According to independent military journalist Gordon
Thomas, that has already happened. He has reported
the Harpoons were equipped with "over the horizon"
software from a US manufacturer to make them
suitable for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Because the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf make
the Israeli subs easily detectable, two of them are
reported to be patrolling the deeper reaches of the
Gulf of Oman, well within range of Iranian targets.
If Israel has US nuclear weaponry pointed at Iran,
the position of the country's supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, becomes more politically
supportable by his people. Despite the fact that
Israel has been developing nuclear material since
1958, the country has never formally acknowledged
it has a nuclear arsenal. Analysts have estimated,
however, that Israel is the fifth-largest nuclear
power on the planet with much of its delivery
systems technology funded by US taxpayers. To
complicate current diplomatic efforts, Israel, like
Pakistan and India, has refused to sign the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty even as it insists in the
international discourse that Iran be stopped from
acquiring what Israel already has.
Before Ariel Sharon's health failed, Der Speigel
reported that the then Israeli prime minister had
ordered his country's Mossad intelligence service
to go into Iran and identify nuclear facilities to
be destroyed. Journalist Seymour Hersh has also
written that the US military already has teams
inside Iran picking targets and working to
facilitate political unrest. It is precisely this
same type of tactic by the US and the UK, used more
than a half century ago, which has led us to the
contemporary nuclear precipice.
In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt led the CIA overthrow of
Mohamed Mossadeq, Iran's democratic- ally elected
prime minister. Responding to a populace that had
grown restive under imperialist British influence,
Mossadeq had plans to nationalise the vast oil
fields of his country.
At the prompting of British intelligence, the CIA
executed strategic bombings and political harassments
of religious leaders, which became the foundation of
Mossadeq's overthrow. Shah Reza Pahlevi, whose
strings were pulled from Downing Street and
Washington, became a brutal dictator who gave the
multinational oil companies access to Iranian
reserves. Over a quarter of a century later, the
Iranian masses revolted, tossed out the Shah, and
empowered the radical Ayatollah Khomeini.
Iran has the strength needed to create its current
stalemate with the West. Including reserves, the
Iranian army has 850,000 troops - enough to deal
with strained American forces in Iraq, even if US
reserves were to be deployed. The Iranians also
have North Korean surface-to-air missiles with a
1,550-mile range and able to carry a nuclear warhead.
America cannot invade and occupy. Iran's response
would likely be an invasion of southern Iraq,
populated, as is Iran, with Shias who could be
enlisted to further destabilise Iraq. There are also
reported to be thousands of underground nuclear
facilities and uranium gas centrifuges in Iran, and
it is impossible for all of them to be eliminated.
But the Israelis might be willing to try. An Israeli
attack on Iran would give Bush some political cover
at home. The president could continue to argue that
Israel has a right to protect itself.
But what if Israeli actions endanger America? Israel
cannot attack without the US being complicit. Israeli
jets would have to fly through Iraqi air space,
which would require US permission. And America's
Harpoon missiles would be delivering the warheads.
These would blow up Iranian nuclear facilities and
also launch an army of Iranian terrorists into the
Western world.
But George Bush is still without a respectable
presidential legacy. He might be willing to risk
everything to mark his place in history as the man
who stopped Iran from getting nukes. The greater
fear, though, is that he becomes the first person
to pull the nuclear trigger since Hiroshima and
Nagasaki - and then his place in the history books
will be assured.
This article linked from: antiwar.com
(as are many posts seen in this NG)
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article360993.ece
James C Moore is the author of three books about the
Bush administration. His latest, 'The Architect',
will be published in September by Random House of
New York
--
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
John J. Mearsheimer
University of Chicago - Department of Political Science
Stephen M. Walt
Harvard University - John F. Kennedy School of Government
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011
( has polemical response from Alan Dershowitz at site )
Edited non-PDF version :
http://www.lrb.co.uk./v28/n06/mear01_.html
.
|
