You Did The Right Thing, Israel!

The lengthy drivel filled UN conference regarding updating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has labored and brought forth not a mouse but the fecal product of a mouse. At its conclusion the conference delivered the demand for a conflab intended to bring about a nuclear weapons free zone in the Mideast. The conclave is to occur two years hence.

Israel, the only current and presumptive holder of a nuclear arsenal immediately and flatly declared that it would be a major non-participant in the festivities. In explanation of its move, the government of Israel (GOI) pointed to the biased and prejudicial nature of the UN declaration.

The characterization given by the GOI is dead on. Israel and Israel alone is named in the document. The naming of Israel was, as no doubt intended, pejorative and defamatory. Neither India nor Pakistan, both of which are in possession of nuclear weapons and non-members of the NPT, were named, even though Pakistan can be seen as an honorary member of the Mideast Club.

Nor is any mention made of the non-compliant Iranian elephant in the room. Indeed, it is the status of Iran as a signer of the NPT which has brought it into its current semi-pariah status.

The failure of the conferees to make a definite reference to Iran is particularly reprehensible and underscores the accuracy of GOI's description and the correctness of its decision regarding the demanded conference. The glaring omission of Iran is the basis for the remarkably strong defense of Israel's position offered by National Security Advisor James Jones. Jones is quoted as saying the US "deplores" the wording of the UN document.

Israel's overall position on the question of a nuclear free Middle East has been long established and is well known--even by the Arab and Muslim states which required both the conference and the naming of names, or, at least, one name. GOI is of the view that any agreement to remove nuclear weapons from the region (which implies Israel signing the NPT) must come after two other agreements.

One of the necessary precursor undertakings would eliminate all categories of weapons of mass destruction from the region. The other, the vastly more important and infinitely harder to achieve agreement, would be one which establishes a verifiable and enforceable comprehensive Mideast peace.

Given the ongoing superiority in manpower and potential conventional armed force in the possession of the several Arab "frontline" states and the even greater reserves within other Arab and Muslim countries, Israel must retain its nuclear option. It is the great equalizer as well as the best peacekeeper in the area. By rejecting membership in the NPT and adopting the policy of nuclear ambiguity GOI has kept the region free of conventional, high intensity war since the ending of the Yom Kippur War thirty-seven years ago.

True, this has not meant peace broke out or that hostilities have been absent, but it has meant that the severity and duration of war has been constrained significantly. For this, the Arab states should be as happy as the Israelis. Except for the poorly planned and worse executed adventure into Lebanon a few years back, the killing has been on the retail level rather than the wholesale bloodletting which would have occurred had Israel not possessed its ambiguous deterrent.

The problem, the ultimate challenge to a comprehensive peace treaty which,in the estimate not only of GOI but any objective observer, must precede any agreement to denuclearize the Mideast is the matter of how a comprehensive peace treaty would be both verified and enforced. If the years 1933-1945 taught Jews anything, it is simply this: When push comes to shove there is no one we can count on for our defense other than ourselves.

This reality, a reality which cannot be erased by the reassurances of an American president or his minions, governs all Israeli calculations as it must. Can any sane, prudent Israeli trust some other country, some international institution, when the existence of the Jewish state is threatened?

Considering the historical record right on down to the present day, the answer is both blunt and obvious: No. A hundred times, a thousand times, no!

The Jews of Germany and German dominated Europe were left out in the international cold in the years prior to the outbreak of war. To put it simply, no country--including the US--wanted to take in the threatened Jews. Not even the children.

In more recent times, the UN has been singularly insensitive to the unique position of Israel as a country threatened repeatedly with both attack and potential oblivion. The Arab states, with the cooperation of some Great Powers, have repeatedly hijacked the UN to serve their purposes and place Israel under one disadvantage after another.

Even though no country has been a more consistent supporter of Israel than the US following the Eisenhower administration, all US policy is subject to the winds of political change. The change in the direction and force of the political winds in the US has been made quite apparent to GOI in the past year and a half. So there is no good basis for a realistic belief within Israel that come what may Uncle Sam is there to help and protect.

The long and the short of reality is there is no mechanism for enforcing a comprehensive Mideast peace treaty, and, without such a credible mechanism, any hypothetical treaty is just so much ink on paper bound between fancy covers. Without the accomplishment of both comprehensive treaty and credible enforcement guarantees, there is no reason to think any GOI would be so eager for risk, so willing to embrace potential national suicide as to either join the NPT or abandon its nuclear arsenal.

(One caveat: It would be possible in principle but unlikely in practice given the current state of global political play for Israel to sign the NPT under terms and conditions identical to those agreed to by the original declared nuclear powers: the US, the USSR, the UK, Britain, France, and China. This would leave Israel with its bombs and bomb fabricating capability but commit it to the eventual removal of these.)

Israel may need to join the NPT so that it can acquire electrical power producing nuclear reactors, perhaps in conjunction with Jordan or Egypt. The need for more electricity without using more expensive fossil fuels may provide an impetus to accede to the treaty but only under terms such as those extended to the initial Big Six.

As a result, the only conclusion which can be offered regarding this latest UN exercise in the appealingly absurd call for a Make-the-Mideast-Nukeless in 2012 is that it is a call for way too much, way too soon. The Arab countries showing their usual maladroit practice of diplomacy made the decision to make propaganda hay while laying salt in the fields of true progress toward a desirable goal.

Mr Netanyahu, you are doing OK this time around. Even better, it looks as if for once President Obama is as well.

Diplomats Are The Weakness Of Diplomacy

There is a very major, even a fatal, disease which afflicts diplomats--particularly those who represent liberal democracies such as those of Western Europe and the US. The disease is just this, the diplomats are so prone to the seductive nature of the process that they forget (if they ever really knew) that the purpose of diplomacy is to accomplish definite goals in the international political arena.

Diplomats so love the processes of diplomacy--the meetings, the exchanging of notes, demarches, memos, the conferences, the whispered discussions on the sidelines of conferences, the carefully phrased, often anonymous, statements and leaks to the media, the photo-ops, the self-congratulatory celebrations of success of process--that they ignore the goal. The focus is so process oriented that the nature of the goal--as well as its achievement--fades away on some distant, hazy horizon.

In a slight variation on this theme, the diplomats, having accomplished something, overlook such matters as verifying that the goal has actually been achieved, monitoring on-going compliance with an agreement as the months and years roll by, or even whether or not the accomplished task has genuinely advanced or defended a true national or strategic interest. This means that once the final paper has been signed, the last press statement given, the ultimate photograph of some smiling "statesman" taken, the diplomats move on blindly to the next exercise in "process."

History, diplomatic history, is rife with examples of "process" running amok so as to obscure completely the failed nature of the product. This has been equally true when the "process" results in a declaratory product--the Monroe Doctrine, the Open Door, "Peace Without Victors"--or a contractual agreement such as the Versailles Peace Treaty, the UN Convention on Human Rights, the Paris Peace Accords, the Oslo Accords.

Today the astigmatic focus on "process" above all realpolitik concerns exists all around us. High profile examples of the diplomatic fatal affection with "process" include the Mideast Peace Process and the Iranian Nuclear Question. In both of these the hypnotic fascination of "process" has served to render any meaningful goal less and less likely. Further, the constant emphasis on "process" has warped beyond all recognition just what American national or strategic interests are in play in either the Arab-Israeli conflicts or the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons.

The recent hyperbola emanating from the Oval and its environs concerning the presumed linkage between Mideast peace, solving the Iranian question, and Israel's having not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty shows the disastrous triumph of diplomatic "process" over the substance of national interest and security. In the pursuit of "process" the Nice Young Man From Chicago has been willing, even eager, to conflate illegitimately the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons with the Israeli expansion of "settlements" in East Jerusalem thus shoving the substance of national interest ever deeper in the background.

The Obama administration has connected the ongoing "failure" of the "peace process" in the Mideast with enhanced risks to US military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan in a manner so bogus as to excite pity. Now, Team Obama has surpassed even this exercise in bloviation unrelated with any real world basis.

The US has backed Egypt's play in seeking to pressure Israel into signing the NPT which would require the Jewish state to abandon its presumed nuclear arsenal. The justification for this travesty is to be found in the requirements of "process." Specifically the Obama administration pretends to believe that by forcing Israel into the NPT it would be possible finally to achieve a global consensus on the next round of sanctions directed at Iran.

Two impediments presented by the real world of real people pursuing real national interests are simply ignored by the Obama people in their fixation on the "process" of bringing Iran to the bargaining table where the mullahs will enter into a good faith agreement to abandon any warlike ambitions in their nuclear program. You want to know what these real world impediments are?

Glad you asked, bucko. The first is simply that the Iranians have made it clear they will not give up enrichment (or anything else meaningful) even if they agree to the proposed exchange of low enrichment uranium for higher purity uranium useful in their aging reactor. The second comes from the fact that no responsible Israeli government would abandon their prime deterrent.

In its latest process-driven pressure campaign the Obama administration has managed to do something so profoundly silly that even the Nobel Prize happy Jimmy Carter or Bill (I-Must-Have-A-Success-Any-Success) Clinton didn't go so many bridges too far. The Obama people have carved out a stance which must now serve as the Palestinian Authority's minimum acceptable terms for agreement. In effect the Obama White House is now the de facto bargaining agent for the PA.

To reach this point the members of Team Obama had to so narrow their focus to one of "process" that they imitated Oedipus, blinding themselves to such unpleasant historical facts as the number of times Palestinian leaders have rejected or not taken official notice of even more generous offers by the Israeli government. It is apparently unacceptable to Team Obama that the principals, the Israelis and the Palestinians, might achieve substantial agreement by a means other than the US approved "process."

Nor has the American emphasis on "process" enjoyed substantial results with the Iranian Question. The ever shifting deadlines, the always flexible schedules for compliance, the ever recurring need for more conversations with more countries for more consensus have benefited no one's national interest--unless one happens to have a high office in Tehran. In recent days the search for "process" has reduced American diplomats to claiming success when a more or less senior US diplomat has dinner with the Iranian ForMin and representatives of the other fourteen governments currently serving on the Security Council.

Consider for a moment the (remote) possibility that Iran does finally agree to the proposed transfer of three percent for twenty percent enriched uranium on conditions acceptable to the US and its Western partners. Then what? There is no reason to conclude the Iranians will abandon the quest for nuclear breakout capacity.

A useful analogy would be the outcome of the legendary Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty of seventy-five years ago and the somewhat later bilateral agreement between Imperial Japan and the US not to fortify their Pacific Ocean possessions. The first treaty failed to limit either aircraft carriers or submarines--the two decisive systems of WW II in the Pacific. The second had no substantial verification and enforcement mechanism with the result that while we neglected the Philippines and other islands, the Japanese made their new acquisitions--gained courtesy of the Versailles Peace Treaty--a no-go zone and fortified them to the max.

There is crucial substance in play with both the Israeli-Arab peace and the Iranian nuclear question. Key American national and strategic interests are involved with both. It is tragic for the US--and the world generally--that these clear, very specific interests have been veiled behind a scrim of diplomatic "process."

The tragedy is unnecessary. It is an artifact created by the coupling of diplomatic blinders and President Obama's personal True Beliefs and a style of international relations informed by cultural relativism and the organizing ideas of Saul Alinsky.

There is irony as well as tragedy resident in the current self-made, self-imposed policy debacle. Mr Obama is searching for a way out which does not involve war. In his search the consequent focus on "process" makes war more likely.

Not less.

The Israeli Bomb--And Iran's

Of late the Obama administration has started putting pressure on Israel to come clean on its nuclear arsenal, sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and, implicitly at least, follow the lead of South Africa and abandon its nuclear capacity. There has been more than a little bloviation about a link between the Israeli bomb and the inability of the US and its partners to convince the mullahs of Tehran to give up their quest for a "Mahdi Bomb."

There has even been some degree of quacking over the High Minded concept of a regional pact making the Mideast an area free of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. This notion, which is much more a product of Fantasyland than an emigrant from the shores of Utopia, is of a piece with the Obama vision of a world without any nuclear weapons anywhere.

There is not much to say in favor of nuclear weapons. Except one small, but very relevant fact. They, and the much maligned doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction, have made the world safe for war.

That's right. The shadow of the mushroom cloud hovering over the chancelries of the globe have made the place safe for the waging of controlled, more or less purposeful war.

One can never say that the Big Bomb has kept the peace per se, not in the face of the historical record covering the past sixty-four years. But, the wars have not involved widespread, high intensity operations of the massively destructive scale of, say, the two World Wars. And, that is no small accomplishment given the international dynamics of the period.

Without the Israeli nuclear capacity the wars of the Mideast, including that of 1967, would have been far greater, far more bloody and not necessarily any more decisive in outcome than the low scale conflict which has occurred during this period of "Nuclear Ambiguity." The unchallenged possession of the "Samson Option" by Israel, not the diplomatic support of the US nor the nanny like nattering of the UN has limited and prevented regional hectatombs from happening.

The documentary hints which have leaked out around the Great Wall of Secrecy make it clear that the US government has been fully aware not only of Israel's ultimately successful efforts to develop and refine its nuclear weapons capabilities but the existence and size of the resultant stockpile. There is also no doubt of our complicity in maintaining the thin and porous scrim of secrecy behind which lurk the missiles and bombs of Israel.

The policy of nuclear ambiguity was dictated to Israel by the forces of reality.

The first was particularly important early in the Israeli development and procurement effort: The ambiguous threat is always perceived as being larger than any reality would dictate. Ambiguity encourages the enemy to contemplate the worst conceivable case, not the worst realistic one.

The second justification--no, requirement--for the ambiguity policy is the US Congress. In one of its fits of High Mindedness, Congress legislated that no country which possesses either nuclear weapons or an active research and development program in that area can receive US military assistance including monetary aid. Israel may no longer be dependent upon US money for its defense needs, but what rational government is going to chuck gigabucks without a very, very good reason?

Even the achievement of that long sought, but always elusive Holy Grail of a comprehensive Mideast peace agreement in no way nullifies the cruciality of Israel's nuclear deterrent. The German diplomatic maestro, Bismarck was reputed to have said regarding treaties--they are "mere scraps of paper." So also might any emergent Mideast leader.

Given the record of diplomatic agreement longevity in the Mideast, any dropping of defenses and deterrents in the warm glow of the post-signing celebrations would be the height of folly. It would be folly as well for Israel to rely upon some external protecting power rather than itself when faced by an existential threat.

Offers to extend the American nuclear umbrella over Israel are well-intentioned, but ultimately meaningless gestures. Forty-five years ago the abrasive but quite insightful French president, Charles de Gaulle, made that point in a characteristically blunt fashion when he questioned the willingness of the US to expose New York to the possibility of nuclear obliteration in order to protect Paris.

His point was very well taken. Other European leaders whispered what De Gaulle shouted. It was only the presence of American troops in the potential killing fields of Europe which gave any credibility to the nuclear umbrella concept. Except for the anglophobic French president, most Europeans were willing to concede that the US would go nuclear if and when their troops were on the receiving end of a Soviet strike.

Even the political power of AIPAC and other components of the Israel Lobby lacks the potency necessary to turn any American nuclear pledge from the dross of rhetoric to the gold of action in a time of dire need. Would We the People really, truly, undoubtedly continence the placing of New York or any other city at risk in order to protect Tel Aviv?

The second guess doesn't count.

Absent the Israeli nuclear deterrent, even though the shield of ambiguity has been holed, most notably by Robert Gates during his confirmation hearings as Secretary of Defense, there is no means of inhibiting a Mideast leader, Islamist most likely, from abandoning any then extant treaty or agreement to mount total jihad against the "Zionist Entity." There would be nothing to inhibit the manufacture and use of chemical, biological or radiological munitions against Israel with results which would lethal on a grand scale.

Nuclear weapons may be icky-poo in the extreme. Their use may be revolting to civilized sensitivities. They do have one redeeming factor in comparison to their equally nasty relatives in the clan of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Compared to chemical, biological and radiological munitions, nuclear weapons are both expensive and difficult to produce and stockpile. Chemical munitions can be manufactured quickly, easily and cheaply from widely available industrial precursors. Biological threats can be conjured up in a modestly equipped laboratory from progenitors which are available globally. Radiological weapons require nothing more than access to high level radwaste, a little bit of explosives and operators who are willing to die.

None of the "Smaller Three" demand major investment in infrastructure facilities which are as visible as they are expensive. None require highly trained and skilled technicians in brigade lots. None require equipment which is readily identifiable as to purpose and thus easily interdicted before or during shipment.

While the "Small Three" of the WMD clan lack the diplomatic prestige of the nuclear option, they make up for this deficiency by their ease and invisibility of manufacture. They are also more suited to ambiguous signature operations, which is an advantage if the author has reason to apprehend a military response to an attack.

And, as the recent "swine flu" imbroglio amply demonstrated, biological munitions have a potential for terror effects far outweighing any actual damage inflicted. Fear without any concurrent high body count is the terrorist's ideal. It represents maximum damage with both limited investment and very low potential of a military response by the victim country(ies.)

Without its nuclear deterrent Israel would be wide open to chemical, biological or radiological attack. Only the deterrent and uncertainty as to the threshold level which would trigger an Israeli atomic reaction has any genuine likelihood of keeping the "Small Three" threat remote in probability.

The government of Israel has taken a dim view of the NPT's inherent efficacy. While Brazil and South Africa abandoned their pursuit of a nuclear capacity it is doubtful that the NPT had any role in the decision. Brazil, by its own admission, had no reason to acquire the bomb. It had nothing to gain and much to lose by going ahead with its program. South Africa made its move as part of the groundswell of internal governmental change. Again, any linkage with the NPT owes more to High Minded wishful thinking than political reality.

Adherence to the NPT did not inhibit North Korea. The NPT is, after all, another of those "mere scraps of paper" to be abandoned when reasons of state demand. The Hermit Kingdom of the North ditched the NPT officially three years before its first test.

Not too much should be made of Japan or South Korea not pursuing a nuclear procurement effort. Each has the base for very rapid breakout. It would take either country only months, not years, to put a deliverable weapon on the shelves. Each could (and would) resign from the NPT if it saw more to gain by the action than would hypothetically be lost.

Like all treaties the NPT is no stronger, no more effective than the political will and self-perceived, subjectively defined national interests of the states which are signatory to it. The Great Menace of that chimera, global public opinion, in a manner akin to the sanctions of the UN Security Council, are toothless in comparison with a reason of existential nature compelling abandonment of the NPT.

Even when no official abandonment of the NPT has happened, as in the case of Iran, reasons of state will both allow and compel the "illegal" pursuit of nuclear weapons. As the Iranians have shown to date, the risks of doing so are acceptably slight. The differences between the Permanent Members of the Security Council as well as the needs of important constituencies within industrialised countries assure that economic and diplomatic sanctions are less effective than would be a black powder muzzle loader on a modern battlefield.

The Australians estimated in a recent White Paper that as many as twenty countries will have joined the Nuclear Club within the next decade or two. This conclusion does not seem to be unwarrantably pessimistic. Nuclear technology is ever more broadly disseminated around the world as is the supporting hardware. The proliferation of "civilian" reactors both research and power producing will drag the potential of increased distribution of nuclear weapons in its wake. There is no way around that reality. Knowledge plus hardware plus fissile material equals a bomb--actual or potential.

The lesson is simple. And, to many, unpleasant. The NPT is a thin, greasy, slippery rope on which to take a grip. It is more delusion than reality. It will let us down, hard, unless we put it in the same category as the halcyon hallucination of a "nuclear free world."

Getting a grip on the alternative of a world in which more countries have nuclear weapons or the rapid capacity to acquire these weapons is hard. Not impossible. Only hard. Deterrence, particularly that which resides in the hands of a responsible country such as the US (or, history shows, Israel) has protected us from worst case wars for over a half century. There is no reason to anticipate any change in the future.

A world without nuclear weapons is pleasant to contemplate. A continuation, even an expansion of mutually assured destruction is not.

Now ask yourself, would a world without nuclear deterrence in which the threat of the "Small Three" reigned supreme, its use not susceptible to effective retaliation be any better? Perhaps, it would be even worse?