How can a country, which according to endless foreign reports has kept
secret for years several atomic weapons, manage to rally the
international community in a struggle against a neighboring country
that insists on acquiring nuclear energy? What do Israeli politicians
answer to those asking why Iran should not be allowed to acquire the
same armaments that are already in the arsenals of neighboring
countries, like Pakistan and India? The common response is that "Iran
is the sole country whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declares
openly that he intends to destroy the state of Israel." This argument
is a double-edged sword, par excellence, used by a country that sports
a radiant nuclear glow (according to foreign press reports, of
course), and who has a senior minister, one assigned to dealing with
strategic threats, who has threatened to bomb the Aswan Dam. .......
Visitors who recently were in Tehran say that intellectuals, who did
not hide their displeasure with their president, have expressed full
support for his position on the nuclear question. They said that
relinquishing the nuclear program would be interpreted as an admission
that Iran belongs to the club of pariah nations and persisted in
asking, "Why should it be forbidden to Iran when it is permitted to
Pakistan and Israel?"
The struggle against the Iranian and Syrian nuclear programs, and in
the future perhaps the Egyptian and Jordanian programs, is meant to
divert attention from the real problem in the Middle East - the war
for hegemony over the region between the religious-extremist camp and
the moderate-pragmatic one. The Annapolis summit is an excellent
opportunity to update the formula for peace posed by the Arab League
and conclude that when the conflict is resolved, the Middle East will
be free of nuclear weapons. No exceptions!
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