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Iran and Israel: Nuclear mirror
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By Ehsan Ahrari
Even
before George W Bush's axis of evil speech, Iran's
nuclear programs, though they are publicly described as
aimed at the peaceful use of nuclear energy, have been
the chief source of concern for the United States and
Israel.
By some strange coincidence, if
Washington were to slack off on the issue, Israel would
make sure that the span of America's inattention did not
last long. Israel, more than the United States,
understands the real intentions of Iran related to its
nuclear programs. Those are related to the regional
balance of power and to Iran's aspirations to dominate
not just the Persian Gulf area, but also the entire
Middle East. That is precisely what Israel does not want
to see.
American journalist Seymour Hersch's
book, The Samson Option (1991) - despite its
related criticisms - is an interesting study of the
Israeli resolve in the late 1950s and 1960s to acquire
nuclear weapons by hook or by crook. The United States
was very much against nuclear proliferation then, as it
is now. However, in those decades there were no
elaborate nuclear nonproliferation regimes. The Cold War
was the focus of global contest, and the
"evil-doer-in-chief" was the Soviet Union. The world was
divided into two camps - the co-called "free world",
though it included many US-supported tyrannies, and the
"imprisoned" communist countries of Eastern Europe,
China, North Korea, North Vietnam and Cuba. There were
no other pseudo pariahs a-la the so-called rogue states.
The chief supplier of nuclear knowledge to
Israel was France, whose own acquisition of nuclear
power is generally regarded as the outcome of President
Dwight Eisenhower's "heavy-handed" treatment of the
French (along with the UK and Israel) invasion of the
Suez canal in 1956, when Gamal Abdel Nasser flexed his
pan-Arab muscles and nationalized it. The imperial grand
designs of France and Great Britain had not become
things of the past by then. Of course, Israel was driven
by its own grand aspirations of teaching the neighboring
Arab leaders - the godfathers of pan-Arabism who were
running rampant in the entire Arab world, carrying out
their own "Arab cold war" with the pro-Western
monarchical regimes - a lesson in humility, and emerging
as a dominant actor in the process.
Pan-Arabist
leaders had to wait until the 1967 Arab-Israeli war
before learning a bitter lesson in humility, when the
armed forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan were badly
beaten by Israel. Consequently, the entire Sinai
Peninsula, the West Bank and the Golan Heights came
under Israeli occupation, and the Jewish state emerged
as a dominant regional power, a position that it
continues in today.
That intricate mega-conflict
aside, what emerged toward the end of the 1960s was a
nuclear Israel. According to the Federation of American
Scientists: "Although the United States government did
not encourage or approve of the Israeli nuclear program,
it also did nothing to stop it." The French notion of
grandeur that drove its foreign policy then - as it
drives its foreign policy in the post-September 11 era -
saw a strange similarity between Israeli nuclear
aspirations and that of its own.
However, the
similarity of the aspirations that drove France and
Israel toward nuclear cooperation is not underlying
current Russia-Iran nuclear cooperation. Russia
dismisses US charges that Iran's real motives are to
develop nuclear weapons. It is hard to believe that
Russia is being naive about what Iran really wants to
accomplish with its now-peaceful nuclear programs. It is
possible that Moscow would not mind one more nuclear
power in its immediate neighborhood in the coming years;
after all, China has been a nuclear power since 1964,
and India and Pakistan since 1998. It is likely that
Russia's sensibilities related to nuclear threats have
dulled since the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the
two communist nuclear neighbors went to the brink of
nuclear exchange stemming from a combination of
ideological and border disputes. It is also possible
that Russia envisions the emergence of a nuclear Iran as
a positive development, in view of its own preference
for the emergence of a multipolar global system, which
will bring an end to the current unipolar global order
characterized by the dominance of the United States.
But for the Israelis, there is an uncanny
similarity between their acquisition of nuclear weapons
capabilities and the path chosen by Iran to acquire
nuclear weapons. As a victim of Arab hostility since its
inception, Israel perceived the possession of nuclear
weapons as an ultimate guarantee for its survival. Once
it acquired it, mum was the word to describe that
capability. Consequently, as the sole undeclared nuclear
power, Israel continues to have its cake and eat it too.
As such, it will be treated as a non-nuclear state in
the highly biased vision of the US government.
Perhaps there is also a lesson for Iran here.
Iran was the victim of Iraqi aggression and chemical and
missile attacks in the 1980s, realities that played a
crucial role in its resolve to acquire chemical weapons
and at least middle-range ballistic missiles. In the
post-September 11 era, Iran also perceives the
acquisition of nuclear weapons as a guarantee that it
will not be treated by the lone superpower as Iraq is
currently being treated. Iranian rulers are fully
cognizant of the differences between Washington's
handling of Kim Jong-il and Saddam Hussein. They will
not be at all off the mark in concluding that the
presence of nuclear know-how (and a general perception
that North Korea possesses a few nuclear weapons) is the
reason for that difference. Mao Zedong of China and
Charles de Gaulle of France came to similar conclusions
about their respective countries in the context of
balance of power in earlier decades. As did David Ben
Gurion of Israel.
However, as long as the
international environment is not conducive for it to
develop nuclear weapons, Iran will continue to publicly
renounce that option. In the meantime, it must
concentrate on enhancing its indigenous nuclear
know-how. This is a rather strange way of emulating the
Israeli example of acquiring nuclear weapon
capabilities. But, in the calculation of the Iranian
leadership, that is their only viable option in a
hostile strategic regional environment stemming from the
heightened American militarism.
So Iran is
determined to continue its march on the road to nuclear
power. Toward the end of December 2002, it was disclosed
that two additional nuclear plants were being built in
Arak and Natanz in central Iran. But Iran also declared
its intentions of cooperating with the International
Atomic Energy Agency, by opening its nuclear facilities
for inspection. It also announced that it is shipping
spent fuel back to Russia in order to ensure those
concerned of its intentions of the peaceful use of
nuclear energy. However, the United States and Israel
continue to ask why Iran, with its estimated oil
reserves of at least 100 billion barrels of crude oil
and 29.2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, would
want to develop nuclear energy.
Israel is
convinced that it knows the answer. As, in their time,
Mao, de Gaulle and Ben Gurion were so convinced. As is,
now, President Mohammad Khatami of Iran.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria,
Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
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