Mideast Needs A Nuclear-Free Zone

OBAMA, KERRY EXACTLY RIGHT IN PUSHING FOR AN ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN SETTLEMENT

Like many physicists, I’m concerned about nuclear weapons issues. It’s a tradition that began with the physicists who built the fi rst nuclear weapons.

My background for this includes a six-month sabbatical at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, co-editing and co-authoring “The Future of Land-Based Strategic Missiles” (American Institute of Physics, New York, 1989), 11 peer-reviewed scientifi c papers on nuclear weapons policy issues, and a fouryear term on the board of the Federation of American Scientists, an arms control organization. Several sections of my textbook “Physics: Concepts & Connections” (Pearson, San Francisco, 5th edition 2010) are devoted to nuclear weapons topics.

Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, writing in the Wall Street Journal, recently argued that the agreement with Iran would, by allowing uranium enrichment up to the 3.5 to 5 percent level needed for nuclear power fuel, recognize Iran as a “threshold nuclear power” that can achieve a military nuclear capability within months of choosing to do so. By not mentioning Israel, the authors tacitly support the status quo under which Israel is the Mideast’s only nuclear power.

Israel developed its 100 to 200 nuclear weapons during the 1960s, and today has a secure “triad” of delivery systems (land missiles, bombers, submarines).

Israel’s plutoniumproducing reactor at Dimona is similar to Iran’spartially built Arak reactor, except that Israel also has a reprocessing facility to convert plutonium to bomb-usable form. Israel hid this development from U.S. inspectors and, when it was fi nally discovered, claimed it was purely for peaceful purposes. Like Iran, Israel also has an uranium enrichment facility.

Although the U.S. was unhappy with Israel’s nuclear developments, President Richard Nixon and Kissinger decided in 1969 to accept Israel as the world’s sixth nuclear power, provided they didn’t openly test or brandish their weapons. This is the current policy.

Today’s Mideast is not the Mideast of 1970. If the status quo ever worked, it certainly isn’t working today. Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a nuclear weapons policy organization, reports “it is impossible to give a nuclear policy talk in the Middle East without having the questions focus almost entirely on Israel.” Israel’s neighbors will not accept Israel as the region’s only nuclear power, especially in view of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons is deplorable but not surprising in view of Israel’s arsenal.

The pleasant surpriseis Iran, under the threat of sanctions and war, has finally agreed to halt their weapons developments at least temporarily and, if all sides can maintain their rationality, even roll those developments backward. But Republican House leader Eric Cantor is working on a bill that would torpedo this agreement by following the Kissinger-Shultz suggestion to deny Iran the right to enrich any uranium at all. This could easily lead to Iranian rejection of the deal, “breakout” toward an Iranian weapons capability, war in the Mideast, and nuclear weapons proliferation to other Mideast nations. Israelcould be the biggest loser.

A Mideast nuclear-free zone, including Israel, is the sustainable way out of this situation. It can happen.

Dominant Mideast powers have frequently expressed interest. At an international conference of 120 nations in August, 2012, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei called for a Mideast nuclear-free zone. The United Nations Non-Proliferation Treaty’s 189 nations, including the U.S., voted unanimously in 2010 to convene a conference on establishing such a zone. Saudi Arabia has generally supported the idea. But Israel refuses to discuss disarmament, refuses U.N. inspections,and is one of only four nations remaining outside the nonproliferation treaty.

Nevertheless, 64 percent of Israelis favor a nuclear-free zone that would include Israel.

Although Kissinger and Shultz prefer continued Israeli nuclear dominance, this imbalance is increasingly likely to trigger a war that everybody, especially Israel, will regret.

The power politics of Kissinger and Shultz is not a sustainable solution. The solution is a disarmament agreement with Iran and discussion of a nuclear-free zone. But that discussion can’t begin until Israel feels more secure, andthat in turn can’t happen until there is a peaceful resolution between Israel and Palestine.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are exactly right in pushing both for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, and for the nuclear agreement with Iran. As Kissinger and Shultz point out, that deal will not entirely disarm Iran. That fact makes it urgent that the Israeli-Palestinian mess be settled as soon as possible, so that the region can proceed to a nuclearfree zone.

ART HOBSON IS A PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS.

Opinion, Pages 13 on 12/22/2013

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