Israel's Nukes the Common Concern For Iran, Arabs

By Cernig

I think we can safely say that neocon dreams of getting Arab states onboard for any attack on Iran's nuclear program or for a perpetual US presence in Iraq are dead in the water:

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit responded [to Bush's Knesset speech] Monday by saying U.S. support for Israel and its own actions in the Mideast helped fuel turmoil and a clash of civilizations between Muslims and the West.

"When we see ... an Israeli tank in an Arab city, a Palestinian city or an American tank in an Arab city firing arms, that makes people angry," said Aboul Gheit at a summit meeting linked to the economic forum being held in Sharm El-Sheik, a Red Sea resort town.

"The anger leads to lots of turmoil. Turmoil leads to instability," said Aboul-Gheit.

Bush lectured Arab nations Sunday on suppressing political opposition and religious freedom in the region. He also said Iran must not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon.

"Would you please tell me, did anyone raise the issue of the Israeli capability?" said Aboul Gheit on Monday to roaring applause. "Why are you hiding the Israeli nuclear capability?"

Israel's non-membership in the NPT, it's non-existant inspections regime and its non-hypothetical nuclear arsenal have long been a mark of Western hypocrisy. At the end of last year, Egypt and Syria combined to press for a resolution at the IAEA which would call for Israel to come clean - but the US and other Western nations vetoed the move. That and American adventurism in the region combine to give Iran and Arab nations a common security worry and thus a common cause in such matters.

America also backs Pakistan and India, which are likewise nuclear powers which have not signed the NPT and still built nukes in secret without the war hype being conducted over Iran's program - which by contrast has been found so far to be exclusively peaceful by IAEA inspectors. Both India and Pakistan have nuclear-capable missiles able to reach every Arab capital as well as tehran. The former has a history of Jindu anti-Muslim militancy and the latter is a Sunni state often at loggerheads with Shiite Iran. While seen as lesser threats than aggressive Israel's arsenal, they certainly play into Mid-East fears even if they often get ignored by Western analysts considering the region (apparently simply because they're on a different page in the atlas).

Which is why not putting a security guarantee for Iran on the table as a carrot to entice it's nuclear co-operation is so dumb. If such a guarantee were to be offered, it would also act to allay far wider regional fears of war. Several birds with one stone. As former Iranian nuclear negotiator Kaveh L. Afrasiabi writes in today's SFGate:

The White House's decision to rebuff Russia's suggestion to give Iran a firm security guarantee as part of a new incentive package to suspend nuclear activities is a bad one. The package, put forward by the U.N. Security Council's permanent members - Russia, China, the United States, Great Britain and France plus Germany - reportedly contains generous promises of trade, technology, and even peaceful nuclear cooperation. The United States also has opted not to send a delegate along with other delegates of the five nations to Tehran to hand deliver the package. These two decisions not only reduce the diplomatic package's chance of success, they also are a missed opportunity for the United States to engage in direct nuclear talks with Tehran officials, albeit as part of a multilateral initiative.

...Given the United States' insistence that Iran has illicit military intentions behind its drive to master the nuclear fuel cycle, there is no logic to the United States' unwillingness to ameliorate Iran's post-9/11 national security anxieties.

...there are signs of a new Iranian flexibility to entertain various options, such as Russia's offer of forming a consortium to produce nuclear fuel for Iran on its soil or, alternatively, on Iran's soil, where key aspects of centrifuge technology would be kept in black box.

Such options, when combined with an abstract recognition of Iran's inalienable nuclear rights enshrined in the nonproliferation treaty, together with firm security guarantees and the promise of a "more distinguished place in negotiations on the situation in the Middle East" for Iran, as called for by Russia, are worth pursuing.

Afrasiabi goes on to suggest that Russia and the EU might be preparing to unilaterally offer Iran that security guarantee, cutting the US out of negotiations. Given European nations' own national interests in preserving their energy independence from Russia, as well as a European assessment that neither Russia nor Europe would be targets for Iranian retaliation if the US attacks Iran unilaterally or in concert with Israel alone, that might not be too far-fetched an idea. Ironically, that would mean Bush administration tough talk and willingness to act unilaterally would have combined to cut the US out of a major foreign policy and diplomacy loop.