Obama Knows: Spark
for Nuclear Arms Race isn't Iran, but Israel
"Unless the Jewish state renounces and dismantles its weapons program, there will be an impulse for a host of Arab states to branch out into weapons programs. That is - unless wayward nuclear Israeli is removed from the arena. But in an election year, it would be suicidal for Obama to say anything along these lines. Which is why the immediate future is worrisome for the region and beyond. Unquestionably."
President Barack Obama says
he is not bluffing on Iran. And surely he would not be. No American president
is ever found bluffing when it comes to a nation cast unilaterally by
Washington as the enemy, or which its blue-eyed boy Israel declares its foe.
The Americans despise it; Israelis loath it. And if Obama is dithering, it isn't
because he is bluffing, but because he fears that an attack on Iranian nuclear
installations would leave fallout that could prove quite costly to his
reelection bid in November.
And his calculations may not
be wide of the mark. Iran is certainly no match for the formidable military
prowess of the United States. But desperate Iranian retaliatory action may be
more than an irritant. With fairly advanced missile technology, Iran could hurt
American strategic interests in the region with telling impact. And by mining
and blockading the Strait of Hormuz, it could disrupt one-fifth of world's oil
supplies, potentially leading to a global energy crisis. Furthermore, an attack
on predominantly Shiite Iran could trigger rabidly hostile sectarian sentiments
from the Shiite fraternity across the region, culminating in unpredictable
consequences for Arab monarchies sitting firmly in the American tent and equally
sharing its antipathy against the Islamic Republic.
The fallout will without
doubt be huge and multifaceted, and difficult to contain or subdue. This is too
much of a risk when it is such a wide open whether an attack on Iran's nuclear
installations will be effective. They are not only widely dispersed, but some
are dug deep into mountain rock. Obama is clearly hesitant to take the risk and
is banking that the bit of sanctions will bring the Iranian people to force
their government and powerful clerics to bow, if they don’t force a popular
revolt and regime-change. But his hope is fraught with doubt, since Iran’s
nuclear pursuit commands widespread support across its political spectrum. In
all likelihood, an attack on Iran would more effectively unite its polity and result
in boiling public hostility toward America.
Yet with the hawks itching to
go in for this mad adventurism, if Iranian installations are attacked by
Israel, Obama may find himself in a spot. Although the Obama Administration is
counseling restraint as are saner elements in the Jewish state, the war cries
are gathering momentum and are becoming louder by the day. If such foolish
adventurism does come about, a wider conflagration will certainly break out, and
in the U.S. election year, Obama will find it hard to stand aside. As much too politically
and financially appease powerful domestic Jewish lobbies and their strong
Christian evangelical cohorts, in order to neutralize his Republican opponents,
he will have to get involved. Then, far from bluffing, he will be participating
in a war with unforeseen but certainly disastrous consequences.
Obama may have been able to
save himself this likely outcome if he had stood his ground and maintained the
harder line he held after assuming office. Unlike his predecessors, he began
with a discourse about better Western relations with the Muslim fraternity. He
spoke an idiom that exposed the Jewish state, not as a paragon of virtue and
piety, but as an aggressive and expansionist state. But then his political
compulsions crowded in, turning him into a loyal supporter of the Jewish state
and backer of its policies in the region.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
So it comes as no surprise that
Obama also seems to regard Iran as a potential catalyst for nuclear proliferation. Obama says that for a number of nations, an Iranian bomb would only
be intolerable by acquiring one for themselves. This is an atrocious fallacy for
Obama to indulge in. Any objective observer need take only a moment to see that
it is Israel’s nuclear program that is the atomic red rag for the region. Not
only does the Jewish state have a long-running nuclear weapons program, but
experts say it already possesses over 100 bombs. And apart from its aggressive
policies, it still occupies huge swaths of Arab territory, and in defiance of
dozens of U.N. resolutions to vacate them.
Unless the Jewish state
renounces and dismantles its weapons program and vacates occupied Arab lands,
there will be an impulse for nuclear pursuits. And it isn't Saddam’s Iraq or
Bashar al-Assad’s Syria which has attempted nuclear acquisition. There are a
host of Arab states working on nuclear programs of sorts, although for now - only
for peaceful purposes. One can't say when or if one or a few of these
states will branch out. That is - unless wayward nuclear
Israeli is removed from the arena. But in an election year, it would be
suicidal for Obama to say anything along these lines. Which is why the
immediate future is worrisome for the region and beyond. Unquestionably.
