The United States seems to devote less energy to developing a constructive solution to what’s been called the Iran nuclear standoff than it does to convincing Israel it will attack Iran if push (however imagined) comes to shove. At the New York Times, David Sanger and Eric Schmitt wrote on Monday (Sept. 3):
“One other proposal circulating in Washington, advocated by some former senior national security officials, is a ‘clandestine’ military strike, akin to the one Israel launched against Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007. It took weeks for it to become clear that site had been hit by Israeli jets, and perhaps because the strike was never officially acknowledged by Israel, and because its success was so embarrassing to Syria, there was no retaliation.”
Yeah, as if Iran, unlike Syria, won’t officially acknowledge an attack by Israel and be too embarrassed to retaliate. That’s wishful thinking a la the Neocon mind. More important, it’s sad day when a major power such as the United States is reduced to appeasing — yes, appeasing — a smaller state such as Israel. Especially when Israel is not only dependent on it for defense aid, but for assistance in the event it attacks Iran. Of course, Israeli supporters’ disproportionate influence on American elected officials precludes the United States informing Israel it will be left to hang out and dry if it attacks Iran. Or, in a sane world, should that come to pass, that the United States will sharply reduce its defense aid to Israel.
The United States though continues to overlook the sophistry of not only Israel’s, but its own policy, toward Iran. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors are present in Iran every day of the years and sometimes show up for inspections with only two-hours notice. Israel, on the other hand, has never publicly acknowledged its nuclear-weapons program. In other words, it never signed the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, as Iran did, and thus isn’t subject to inspections.
The unstated assumption on the West’s part is that Israel doesn’t pose a nuclear threat because it’s “rational.” But what demonstrates irrationality more than threatening to attack Iran, a state with an accredited nuclear-energy program replete with invasive inspections?
I’m usually loath to praise the Washington Post, which has drifted rightward since the Woodward and Bernstein years when conservatives famously called it “Pravda on the Potomac.” But on August 31, its ombudsman, Patrick Pexton, actually dared to invoke the specter of Israel’s nuclear-weapons program in a piece titled What about Israel’s nuclear weapons?
Readers periodically ask me some variation on this question: “Why does the press follow every jot and tittle of Iran’s nuclear program, but we never see any stories about Israel’s nuclear weapons capability?”
It’s a fair question. Going back 10 years into Post archives, I could not find any in-depth reporting on Israeli nuclear capabilities, although national security writer Walter Pincus has touched on it many times in his articles and columns.
He reminds us of Israel’s preposterous
… official position, as reiterated by Aaron Sagui, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy here, is that “Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Israel supports a Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction following the attainment of peace.”
After reviewing reasons why Israel’s nuclear-weapons program isn’t reported, Pexton writes (emphasis added):
I don’t think many people fault Israel for having nuclear weapons. If I were a child of the Holocaust, I, too, would want such a deterrent to annihilation. But that doesn’t mean the media shouldn’t write about how Israel’s doomsday weapons affect the Middle East equation. Just because a story is hard to do doesn’t mean The Post, and the U.S. press more generally, shouldn’t do it.
Despite the presumptuousness of what’s italicized, Pexton acquitted himself admirably. The second time in a week, in fact, on the subject of Iran and Israel that the Washington Post did so. Nuclear activist Alice Slater wrote about the 2012 session of The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is now under the chairmanship of Iran.
Significantly, an Associated Press story in the Washington Post headlined, “Iran opens nonaligned summit with calls for nuclear arms ban”, reported that “Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi opened the gathering by noting commitment to a previous goal from the nonaligned group. … ‘We believe that the timetable for ultimate removal of nuclear weapons by 2025, which was proposed by NAM, will only be realized if we follow it up decisively,’ he told delegates.”
By contrast (emphasis added)
… the New York Times, which has been beating the drums for war with Iran, just as it played a disgraceful role in the deceptive reporting during the lead-up to the Iraq War, never mentioned Iran’s proposal for nuclear abolition. The Times carried the bland headline on its front page, “At Summit Meeting, Iran Has a Message for the World”, and then went on to state, “the message is clear. As Iran plays host to the biggest international conference …it wants to tell its side of the long standoff with the Western powers which are increasingly convinced that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons”, without ever reporting Iran’s offer to support the NAM proposal for the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2025.
Note the condescending tone of what’s italicized. This is consistent with Times reporting on Iran’s nuclear-energy program in general — as if anybody with any sense knows that Iran seeks to develop nuclear weapons, that Israel’s desire to attack Iran is justified if a little overzealous, and that, again, Israel, unlike Iran, is too rational to ever use its nuclear weapons for anything more than deterrence. (Though, of course, in February, New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane wrote about a Times article that stated: “the IAEA moved much closer with this report toward stating absolutely that Iran is pursuing a nuclear bomb. Yet the fact that the agency has stopped short of such a finding remains significant. Readers complaining about the Jan. 5 article believe The Times should avoid closing the gap with a shorthand phrase that says the IAEA thinks Iran’s program ‘has a military objective.’ I think the readers are correct on this.” Pexton, too, expressed similar sentiments in the Washington Post in December of 2011.)
Maybe — facetiousness alert! — the United States should call Israel’s bluff: we’ll bomb Iran for you if you make your nuclear-weapons program public, sign the NPT, and open your program to IAEA inspections.