Why should we be surprised at “Iran’s broken nuclear promises” (Editorial, July 10). Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapon is simply the latest chapter in a deadly pattern set by the United States and Russia in the ’40s and by India and Pakistan in the ’90s. If a nuclear weapon is perceived as conveying power and status, national pride often demands one. But the last thing our planet needs now is a nuclear arms race in the volatile Middle East.
There are, however, signs of hope. With Iraq’s nuclear weapons gone, and Libya’s as well, the way is finally open to the long-sought goal of a nuclear-free Middle East. If Israel could be induced to acknowledge and relinquish its nuclear status, it would at once eliminate Iran’s claimed justification for acquiring its own bomb. And joint abnegation would remove the ever-present risks with nuclear weapons of accident, miscalculation or madness.
Israel’s strategic situation has changed radically since the dark days of the mid-’50s, when David Ben-Gurion felt the need of a nuclear deterrent to check Soviet designs in the region. Now, with the Soviet Union long gone and Israel’s nuclear weapons useless against the intifada and Al Qaeda, what purpose do they really serve?
What is more, the overwhelming conventional forces of the U.S. and Israel are sufficient to deal with any set of hostile nations in the area. Israel is no longer the weak and vulnerable state it was in Ben-Gurion’s time. It is in Israel’s long-term best interest to join with Iran in removing nuclear weapons from the entire Middle East. Now is the time.
