Fantastic work Strong/Chos/Sinatra/Presley "How Israel Was Disarmed"
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How Israel Was Disarmed News analysis from the near-future. By BRET
STEPHENS
NEW YORK—When American diplomats sat down for the first in a series of
face-to-face talks with their Iranian counterparts last October in
Geneva, few would have predicted that what began as a negotiation over
Tehran's nuclear programs would wind up in a stunning demand by the
Security Council that Israel give up its atomic weapons.
Yet that's just what the U.N. body did this morning, in a resolution
that was as striking for the way member states voted as it was for its
substance. All 10 nonpermanent members voted for the resolution, along
with permanent members Russia, China and the United Kingdom. France
and the United States abstained. By U.N. rules, that means the
resolution passes.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.
.The U.S. abstention is sending shock waves through the international
community, which has long been accustomed to the U.S. acting as
Israel's de facto protector on the Council. It also appears to reverse
a decades-old understanding between Washington and Tel Aviv that the
U.S. would acquiesce in Israel's nuclear arsenal as long as that
arsenal remained undeclared. The Jewish state is believed to possess
as many as 200 weapons.
Tehran reacted positively to the U.S. abstention. "For a long time we
have said about Mr. Obama that we see change but no improvement," said
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. "Now we can say there has
been an improvement."
The resolution calls for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle
East. It also demands that Israel sign the 1970 Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty and submit its nuclear facilities to
international inspection. Two similar, albeit nonbinding, resolutions
were approved last September by the International Atomic Energy Agency
in Vienna.
At the time, the U.S. opposed a resolution focused on Israel but
abstained from a more general motion calling for regional disarmament.
"We are very pleased with the agreed approach reflected here today,"
said then-U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Glyn Davies.
Since then, however, relations between the Obama administration and
the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, never
warm to begin with, have cooled dramatically. The administration
accused Tel Aviv of using "disproportionate force" following a Nov. 13
Israeli aerial attack on an apparent munitions depot in Gaza City, in
which more than a dozen young children were killed.
Mr. Netanyahu also provoked the administration's ire after he was
inadvertently caught on an open microphone calling Mr. Obama "worse
than Chamberlain." The comment followed the president's historic Dec.
21 summit meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in
Geneva, the first time leaders of the two countries have met since the
Carter administration.
But the factors that chiefly seemed to drive the administration's
decision to abstain from this morning's vote were more strategic than
personal. Western negotiators have been pressing Iran to make good on
its previous agreement in principle to ship its nuclear fuel to third
countries so it could be rendered usable in Iran's civilian nuclear
facilities. The Iranians, in turn, have been adamant that they would
not do so unless progress were made on international disarmament.
"The Iranians have a point," said one senior administration official.
"The U.S. can't forever be the enforcer of a double standard where
Israel gets a nuclear free ride but Iran has to abide by every letter
in the NPT. President Obama has put the issue of nuclear disarmament
at the center of his foreign policy agenda. His credibility is at
stake and so is U.S. credibility in the Muslim world. How can we tell
Tehran that they're better off without nukes if we won't make the same
point to our Israeli friends?"
Also factoring into the administration's thinking are reports that the
Israelis are in the final stages of planning an attack on Iran's
nuclear installations. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who met with
his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Paris last week, has been
outspoken in his opposition to such a strike. The Jerusalem Post has
reported that Mr. Gates warned Mr. Barak that the U.S. would "actively
stand in the way" of any Israeli strike.
"The Israelis need to look at this U.N. vote as a shot across their
bow," said a senior Pentagon official. "If they want to start a
shooting war with Iran, we won't have their backs on the Security
Council."
An Israeli diplomat observed bitterly that Jan. 20 was the 68th
anniversary of the Wannsee conference, which historians believe is
where Nazi Germany planned the extermination of European Jewry. An
administration spokesman said the timing of the vote was "purely
coincidental."