There’s a very disturbing story in the Washington Times that says that the Obama administration is going to try to pressure Israel into signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The problem with that is that signing the treaty would require Israel to give up her nukes—something that is absolutely not in the best interests of Israel. And signatories of the NPT are pursuing nuclear weapons—for example, Iran.
Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal.
“Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, … remains a fundamental objective of the United States,” Ms. Gottemoeller told the meeting, according to Reuters.
If this story is true—if Obama tells Bibi Netanyahu when they meet on May 18th that Israel must give up her nuclear weapons—then it will be the beginning of a whole new tack to the Israeli-American relationship, and it will not be a good one. The Times also profiles how America has protected Israel’s nuclear program for forty years, once it was revealed that Israel had the bomb. There is an apt quote by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert regarding Israel’s nukes.
“Israel is a democracy, Israel doesn’t threaten any country with anything, never did. The most that we tried to get for ourselves is to try to live without terror, but we never threaten another nation with annihilation. Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they [Iran] are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?”
And that’s the crux of the matter. Israel has no intention of using nuclear weapons to obliterate another country. Iran’s leaders constantly discuss how easily they could destroy Israel, how little time it would take, and how Israel can’t absorb the damage of a nuclear weapon, but Iran could.
America is currently terrified that the Taliban will get hold of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Pakistan and India nearly launched a nuclear war in 2002. Pakistan has given nuclear technology to Iran, Syria, Libya, and who knows how many other countries. North Korea almost managed to get a working nuclear reactor in Syria, but the IDF bombed it before it progressed too far. And yet, it is always Israel that comes to the fore in these discussions. Funny how that works.
President Obama has no compunctions about using Chicago-style pressure in every aspect of his administration. If he decides to use the same strong-arm tactics now, it will be devastating for Israel, but it will be equally as devastating for the rest of the world. Iran isn’t going to stop trying to get nukes. And making Israel get rid of the weapons that protect her from a nuclear-armed Iran isn’t going to stop Iran from continuing its race to development.
It’s possible that this is yet another balloon being floated and will come to nothing. But I’ve never trusted Obama on, well, anything, let alone his stance on Israel. I’m going to bide my time and wait to see what happens after he meets with Netanyahu in nine days.
“Progressives” often tend to think that moral qualities are properties of *objects* rather than of people. Thus, their focus on the nuclear weapon per se rather than on who owns and controls it. Similarly, their opposition to allowing airline pilots to carry guns for defense against terrorists.
This story, if true, is evidence of the stupidity and lack of understanding of the Administration. The NPT is dead. The practice of signatories going ahead to develop nukes, without suffering the consequences, killed it. Some other method must be found if nuke proliferation is to be limited. The Proliferation Security Initiative was supposed to do that, but will Obama pursue it rather than the useless NPT?
Ironically if Obama really wanted to limit proliferation, and even get rid of nukes (as he said he did) the way to go about it is through a global, layered anti-missile system. The promise that any missile launched by anyone would be shot down before impact, and so any nukes would not have effect, could result in countries deciding that nukes were no longer useful even as weapons of nuclear blackmail. But Obama, like all liberals, is dead set against defence against nuclear missile attack.