November 27, 2008
US to pressure Israel on the peace and nuclear arms.
By Ted Belman
Prior to Obama’s election, I warned that his administration would force Israel to capitulate and that it would attempt to get Israel to get rid of its nuclear weapons.
It didn’t take long for the voices advocating same reached a cacaphony.
Aaron David Miller writing in International Herald Tribune
- Still, on settlement activity, bypass roads or land confiscation, we’ve given the Israelis a pass now for at least 16 years, imposed no accountability or transparency on policies that have nothing to do with Israeli security needs.
That we don’t want to sanction the Israelis is understandable; they’re a close ally. But we should make it unmistakably clear that we won’t lend our authority or auspices to any peacemaking process in which Israeli or Palestinian behavior undermines it and destroys American credibility at the same time.
If Obama wants to have any chance of succeeding in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, he needs to get right with Israel. He needs to reassure Israel, a small country living in a dangerous neighborhood. But he also needs to be tough and tenacious in guarding America’s role as an independent and fair mediator.
And this he calls, Getting Right With Israel.
I expect a plethora of articles mining the same ground.
David Albright and Andrea Scheel issued a report
Unprecedented Projected Nuclear Growth in the Middle East:1
Now Is the Time to Create Effective Barriers to Proliferation
- To reduce the risk of proliferation in the Middle East and help lay the basis for a regionwide
nuclear weapon free zone (NWFZ), the United States must ensure that plutonium is not
separated from irradiated reactor fuel, insist on adequate international inspections of these
countries, including the adoption of the Additional Protocol, and develop mechanisms to remove
spent fuel from the region.2 Absent such conditions, the incoming administration should
discourage the development of nuclear power.
These goals are consistent with the recommendations of the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Commission chaired by Hans Blix. This commission called on all states in the Middle East to
commit themselves for a prolonged period of time to a verified arrangement not to have any
enrichment, reprocessing or other sensitive fuel-cycle activities on their territories.3
And that includes Israel. In fact it is explicit,
- As an interim step, the United States should press Israel to suspend any production of
fissile material for nuclear weapons.
It has been the policy of both Israel and the US to not talk about Israel’s nuclear arsenal. But that is beginning to change. So worried is Olmert about it, that he requested Bush to advise Obama not to change it. (See Aluf Benn)
The more articles you read on both these issues in the coming weeks the more you will accept that the ground is being prepared for Obama’s “change”.
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