Israel is jumping up and down about Iran getting any nuclear capacity. Not on! say the Israelis. There is even talk in the air of the Israelis attacking Iran in order to stop Iran "going" nuclear.
But wait a minute? Hasn't Israel gone a nuclear arsenal? Not officially! It's been a game of ducks and drakes for years about Israel even acknowledging any sort of nuclear facility let alone having nuclear armaments.
The issue is raised by Stephen Walt, professor of International Relations at Harvard, in his latest posting "Israel's arsenal" on his blog:
"Andrew Sullivan wonders “why can’t Israel just declare that it’s a nuclear power?" Good question. I’ve never had much problem with Israel having a nuclear arsenal myself -- if I were Israeli, I’d want one too. Nor am I surprised that they don’t want their neighbors to follow suit, because that’s basically been our position too. The United States would clearly prefer to be the only country with nuclear weapons; the problem is that it’s difficult-to-impossible to maintain a nuclear monopoly in perpetuity without fighting a lot of preventive wars. And the same goes for Israel too.
As for Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity -- “we will not be first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, but we will not be second” -- it was probably an effective ploy for awhile. It was easier for some Arab governments to live with the asymmetry if Israel wasn’t bragging about it, and it allowed the U.S. and the Europeans to turn a blind eye to the problem in various non-proliferation forums. See Sullivan's follow up here. But this polite fiction lost its hexing power some time ago, and now it just looks disingenuous. More importantly, refusing to come clean isn’t affecting anyone’s calculations today, and certainly not in the places that matter most (like Tehran)."
But wait a minute? Hasn't Israel gone a nuclear arsenal? Not officially! It's been a game of ducks and drakes for years about Israel even acknowledging any sort of nuclear facility let alone having nuclear armaments.
The issue is raised by Stephen Walt, professor of International Relations at Harvard, in his latest posting "Israel's arsenal" on his blog:
"Andrew Sullivan wonders “why can’t Israel just declare that it’s a nuclear power?" Good question. I’ve never had much problem with Israel having a nuclear arsenal myself -- if I were Israeli, I’d want one too. Nor am I surprised that they don’t want their neighbors to follow suit, because that’s basically been our position too. The United States would clearly prefer to be the only country with nuclear weapons; the problem is that it’s difficult-to-impossible to maintain a nuclear monopoly in perpetuity without fighting a lot of preventive wars. And the same goes for Israel too.
As for Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity -- “we will not be first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, but we will not be second” -- it was probably an effective ploy for awhile. It was easier for some Arab governments to live with the asymmetry if Israel wasn’t bragging about it, and it allowed the U.S. and the Europeans to turn a blind eye to the problem in various non-proliferation forums. See Sullivan's follow up here. But this polite fiction lost its hexing power some time ago, and now it just looks disingenuous. More importantly, refusing to come clean isn’t affecting anyone’s calculations today, and certainly not in the places that matter most (like Tehran)."
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