Nuclear messages
The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) decision adopted this week to threaten the reference of the Iranian nuclear file to the UN Security Council should Iran fail to suspend uranium enrichment as requested by the US and the European Union is not just a message to Tehran. It is a message to all Middle Eastern countries. It says that the US and its key Western allies are unwilling to tolerate nuclear ambitions, peaceful or otherwise, from any country in the region except Israel.
The Israeli policy of nuclear ambiguity has long been tolerated -- and as we learn from the Western press, at times encouraged -- by the world sole superpower. This is an intolerable exercise of double standards that the US should be ashamed of, especially after it failed to provide any evidence of the alleged weapons of mass destruction that Washington pawned off to the world as justification of its illegal invasion of Iraq.
Middle Eastern countries, especially Arabs, should show more resolve in protesting against such outrageous nuclear discrimination. They should tell the US it has no right to attempt to punish Iran for acquiring nuclear technology just because it is afraid of the "bomb of the mullahs" when it knows that Israel -- occupier of Arab territories and assassin of innocent Palestinian children -- continues to amass nuclear weapons.
It was very unfortunate that the two Arab countries on the board of governors of the IAEA abstained from voting on the resolution threatening Iran. They should have voted against it: not because it is in the interest of Arab countries to facilitate Iran's possession of nuclear technology but because it is certainly not in the interest of Arab countries to allow Israel to be the sole nuclear power in the region.
This week's initiative by some Arab countries to get the IAEA to force Israel to open up its nuclear facilities for international inspection is a positive move. Obviously, the inexplicable economic and diplomatic warmth that some Arab capitals chose to demonstrate towards Israel during the past couple of weeks, under the pretext of encouraging the Israeli government to opt for peace, dilutes this message. Nonetheless, though it may lead nowhere, it sends a message of rejection to regional nuclear double standards.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/762/ed.htm