POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Even if Iran were working towards a weapon - something that is not at all clear - why would that be so terrible?
Israel has had a nuclear weapons program since about the 1960s.
That program is totally illegal and has always been hidden. Only gradually, with bits and pieces of information, do we understand the Israeli program.
Israel has abused its nuclear weapons status in several ways over the years.
It has frequently threatened its neighbors, using its weapons to intimidate virtually the entire Middle East. For example it has fitted its small fleet of German Diesel-powered submarines with American Harpoon missiles adapted to carry a nuclear warhead.
Israel participated in proliferation, a case as bad as anything done by Pakistan’s renegade scientist, in its strategic agreements with former apartheid South Africa, which briefly became a nuclear power thanks to Israel.
Israel has used secrets around nuclear weapons, stolen by spies from the United States, to trade with places like the former Soviet Union. That’s why Jonathon Pollard likely will die in prison, the American intelligence and military establishment considering him the worst spy in American history.
Israel has initiated wars and conflicts with every neighbor that it has.
Iran’s entire modern history is peaceful. It was forced to fight a bloody war with Saddam Hussein who was helped by the United States – and possibly secretly Israel - in that terrible war.
Iran is surrounded by nuclear powers, including of course America’s occupation of Iraq after killing a million people there.
Europe grew for decades under MAD, and today represents a great and thriving set of societies.
A form of MAD in the Middle East would also help peace.
I see only two likely scenarios for Israel ever to agree to what the rest of the world calls peace, to stop attacking everyone, to cease its apartheid, and to treat its neighbors with respect.
One is for the United States to stop subsidizing Israel and make some demands. This is a virtually fantasy scenario. Israel’s carefully-groomed influence in Congress makes it impossible.
The other scenario is for Israel to have a competitor that reduces its ability to behave the high-handed bully that it now is. A large state like Iran having nuclear weapons could have just that effect. MAD in the Middle East would be beneficial, not harmful – at least from the viewpoint of anyone other than Israeli Imperialists and their supporters.
And with all the noisy propaganda we read and hear around Iran's extremists (this is actually if anything a very conservative government) everyone should remember that the only country ever to use nuclear weapons was the one represented by Obama, using them twice, both times on civilians.
