The bottom line of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency report on the Iranian nuclear programme,
published this week, is that Tehran can no longer be given the benefit
of the doubt. For the first time since the Iranian centrifuges went into
action, the IAEA seemed convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that
Iran does not seek nuclear energy for strictly peaceful purposes. They
want the bomb.
It was presumably the IAEA’s diplomatic caution that prevented it
from reaching this conclusion sooner. To everybody else, however, it
was as clear as day: why would one of OPEC’s largest oil producers seek
alternative energy sources? It probably wasn’t a green epiphany; a
regime famous for its disregard for democracy and human rights is
unlikely to champion equally altruistic causes like the future of the
planet.
Iran knows full well, and so do its rivals, that possessing a nuclear
arsenal would radically change the balance of power in the Middle East
or, more accurately, create one – literally - because currently the
scales are so tremendously tilted in Israel's favour, as the region’s
only nuclear superpower. This is the main reason for Israel’s incensed reaction to
the IAEA report: an Iranian bomb would indeed be a threat, but contrary
to what the Jewish state claims, it won’t be an existential threat. It
will simply be a threat to Israel's undisputable hegemony in the Middle
East, one that has for so long enabled it to callously impose its will
on its neighbours, great and small, and get away virtually unscathed.
Israel’s founders realised, from a very early stage, that nukes are
the name of the postwar game. Already in the early 1960s, with the
trusted help of France, its then closest ally, Israel invested a
surprisingly large proportion of its meagre GDP in developing a nuclear
capacity, despite having to deal with a towering external debt and the
numerous social problems it incurred as a society composed mainly of
newly-arrived immigrants. Cloaked in unfathomable secrecy, Israel’s
nuclear programme successfully eschewed international attention as well
as condemnation and, with America turning a blind eye, its nuclear
arsenal soon boasted several dozen warheads. A long-standing policy of
deliberate ambiguity, still in place, has served a dual purpose:
unconfirmed rumours of a mighty nuclear arsenal have been an effective
deterrent, while allowing Israel at the same time to escape
international scrutiny under the Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Treaty,
which it never signed.
The nuclear option is largely seen as Israel’s insurance policy
against annihilation. Thankfully it has never been put to the test,
although some would argue, with a good deal of justice, that a scenario
of such catastrophic scale existed only in the paranoid minds of
Israelis. But, as the cliché goes, even paranoids have enemies, and
those were either unable or reluctant – but most likely both - to
challenge Israel to opt for the doomsday option and let all hell break
loose.
Similarly, once Iran produces nuclear warheads – a stage that is not
imminent according to any estimation, including the damning IAEA report –
it doesn’t mean it will immediately use them. If Tehran has learnt
anything from the Israeli case – and the North Korean one, just as well –
is that refraining from fulfilling your nuclear potential often yields
better results than actually doing it. It's not a mushroom cloud that
would appear in the wake of the Iranian bomb, but a bipolar Middle East,
which would significantly limit Israel's hitherto unhindered room for
manoeuvre. But the biggest losers would be the Arab states, caught
between two warring powers that have traditionally shown little concern
for their interests and welfare.
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