Matthew Yglesias (June 12, 2007)

Yeah. Too bad it'll never happen. No democratic politician will ever be willing to expose himself to the short-term costs.

Posted by JP | June 12, 2007 6:32 PM

Israel has a big, big head start, and has sufficient technology to create costs for countries outside the Middle East. And it has a really small population, which I believe means that conventional war is a pretty serious pain in the ass for them. Why would anyone give away the trump card that is a nuclear arsenal?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 12, 2007 6:34 PM

The point is that Israel would be better off with a nuclear free Middle East than with a Middle East featuring many nuclear powers and that the odds of maintaining Israel's sole possession of a nuclear arsenal are poor over the long run.

This requires that the disarmament gambit acutally prevent other states from developing nuclear weapons. Is there any reason to think this would happen?

Posted by blah | June 12, 2007 6:35 PM

But Israeli policy is not likely to accept this view of 'serving its own interests', since the idea of mutual restraint by regional agreement is likely to involve some quid-pro-quo in terms of not colonising and ethnically cleansing Palestinians, etc.

Put another way, militarism has been the central policy of the Israelis towards the Arabs, and the fact that it is not likely to serve Israel's interests in the long run does not make that policy any more likely to change than the fact that militarism pre-1914 did not serve Germany (or the Kaiser's) interests in the long run. Militarism is what German civil society demanded, and what Israeli civil society now demands. There's no social basis for an alternative policy.

Posted by otto | June 12, 2007 6:37 PM

Wait, how does this get verified again? Are we sure Iran would actually agree, given that the stated purpose of their nuclear deterrent is to wipe Israel off the map?
And regardless of the possible positive benefits of such an agreement, how is the US supposed to get Israel to give up its nuclear deterrent?

Posted by jamie | June 12, 2007 7:16 PM

Re otto

Well, at least Mr. otto is comparing Israel with 1914 Germany, not 1939 Germany. Of course, the charge that Israel is militaristic, although true, is quite understandable. When you live in a tough neighborhood, you have to be a tough guy and Israel lives in a tough neighborhood. Israelis have presented a militaristic attitude toward its Arab neighbors because these neighbors have spent 58 years vowing to put them out of business.

R. Yglesias

It's amazing how Mr. Yglesias can know what is best for Israel from the safety of Washington, D.C. By the way, since Mr. Yglesias wishes to own a firearm, it appears that he too lives in a tough neighborhood.

Posted by SLC | June 12, 2007 7:39 PM

SLC,

It's amazing that Mr. Yglesias has to pay U.S.-earned tax dollars to Israel.

Now STFU.

Posted by A Guy from Jersey | June 12, 2007 8:02 PM

so, what was up with all the laroucheys at the conference today? three different nutjobs from his magazine, eir, asked questions. (including the one who denied climate change and wanted to bomb the sun.) wtf?

Posted by ladouche | June 12, 2007 8:09 PM

Re A Guy from Jersey

Joisey, where's that?

Posted by SLC | June 12, 2007 8:22 PM

Israel has a big, big head start, and has sufficient technology to create costs for countries outside the Middle East. And it has a really small population, which I believe means that conventional war is a pretty serious pain in the ass for them. Why would anyone give away the trump card that is a nuclear arsenal?

Yeah, that.

Israel's population is less than 7 million.

A population preoccupied with Holocaust memories & centuries of abuse, surrounded by nations that really do want to annihilate Israel.

On the other hand, active antagonism only breeds more of the same. $4 billion in US aid and political support renders "the only democracy in the Middle East" rhetoric completely adimensional.

Posted by Monty | June 12, 2007 8:33 PM

"What I believe Brzezinski was saying is that Israel would serve its own interests well by being open to the establishment of a region-wide nuclear free zone, were such a zone to be implemented in a verifiable way."

I'll ask it this way:

Imagine yourself surrounded by hostile people with knives. You have a gun. Someone calls you on your cell phone and says (from a distance) that "really, you'll be safer if we implement a gun ban in that area".

That's what you're saying Matt - and I seriously doubt that you would agree to drop the gun given those circumstances.

Posted by James Robertson | June 12, 2007 8:53 PM

Well, it all depends if you think the others will not eventually get guns themselves. It's the dynamic not the static position that poses Israel's problem.

Posted by otto | June 12, 2007 9:08 PM

1) Israel does have a strategic problem with nuclear proliferation -- in that Israel's small size means that it would be possible to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons whereas larger countries could survive.

2) Radiological weapons using casings with long half lives and biological uptake (cesium, strontium ) could render much of Israel uninhabitable for decades. Similarly, Israel's water supplies/aquifers are vulnerable to radiological poisoning.

3) Currently wind is 6 knots SSE at Tel Aviv but it is calm around Jerusalem. But given the wind flow from land to sea in the daytime, I think there would be times when a nudet on the West Bank could deposit intense fallout from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.

4) Retaliation as a strategy doesn't work when you don't know who to attack.

5) So ,yes, it would be in Israel's interest to support a nuclear free zone -- provided it had strong assurance that potential enemies could not cheat. I'm not sure such assurance is feasible.

Posted by Don Williams | June 12, 2007 9:27 PM

Somecall, No offense, but are you actually claiming that Israel has a moral right to use nuclear weapons because a conventional war is too risky for them? You wouldn't want to live in the world the day after Israel chose to use nuclear weapons. The instability that would cause in the middle east would force every nation on the planet to turn their back on Israel. Given the spectacle of $7.00 per gallon gas prices, even the U.S. will have to bow to public opinion and abandon it's ally. I doubt the world could ignore it either, nobody can risk the use of nuclear weapons becomming common place, and every nation in the middle east would band together for protection and nuclear technology would be their largest investment. Right now the Israeli issue doesn't really affect them, make them afraid and they will get serious about their rhetoric.

Let me break it down to you like this: Israel can't stop the development of nuclear weapons in other nations. Having a whole country means you can hide facilities anywhere you want. Israel might set a nation back, but they can not do so indefinitely. Given the tiny population and geographic size, they shouldn't even risk it because any conflict with any other nuclear power would leave them far worse off than their enemy. Even primitive nuclear devices could devastate Israel's ability to function, much less protect itself. Israel has a weapon to use as a doomsday device, and that's their only real tactical option for it.

Posted by soullite | June 12, 2007 9:53 PM

Israel is not a true Democracy. It is a religious state that does not guarantee a equal protection under the law. It is not a democracy in the modern, conventional sense of the word. If we use the much more archaic and broader term that would be required to call Israel a Democracy, you would have to include both Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories as Democracies, as both are administered by governments determined by elections.

Posted by Soullite | June 12, 2007 9:59 PM

Well, it all depends if you think the others will not eventually get guns themselves.

Right, if you add the expectation that the others are going to get their own guns, and if you have a bunch of knives yourself, and if you've won pretty much every knife fight you've ever been in in your life, we'd have an awesome analogy!

Posted by Steve | June 12, 2007 10:03 PM

Re: Are we sure Iran would actually agree, given that the stated purpose of their nuclear deterrent is to wipe Israel off the map?

Iran does not have a nuclear deterent, and may or may not be trying to develop one. If they are, the most likely purpose for it is as a "Don't tread me" weapon, which is all nukes are really good for, a threat to keep the US, or anyone else, fgrom attempoting regieme change by force of arms (and perhaps also to keep other nations from objecting too strenuously when the Iranians meddle in their neighbors' affairs).

Posted by JonF | June 12, 2007 10:14 PM

we'd have an awesome analogy!

We still need a hooker with a heart of gold.

Nukes are defensive weapons for both Israel and Iran. Given our relationship to Israel and Iran's proximity to China, Russia, and Pakistan, that's particularly true for Iran.

Israel isn't worried about Iran nuking and destroying the country; I cannot believe that the Israelis are that stupid. Israel's worried that Iran will dick around more through terrorism because it will have neutralized, to a large extent, the threat of Israel's arsenal. Israel, I suspect, wants to be a normal country now; maybe it even needs to be a normal country now. But increased pressure from Iran and associated Arab states and peoples will make that harder to achieve.

Which means that if Iran ends up going nuclear, it sucks for them. For us, maybe a little, but not so much.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 12, 2007 10:30 PM

Some, you have to bow to reality. Regardless of Israel's fears, there's nothing they can realistically do about it. Israel was never going to be able to maintain it's dominance forever. The nation can't even sustain itself without infusions of foreign aid. Pretending that this isn't the case is a recipe for it's own demise. Politically, I don't care. Strategically, we're better off without them. As a human being, however, that's 7 million people. Most of them innocent, oblivious morons who haven't done anything to hurt anyone. I'd rather not see what's going to eventually happen if they don't find a way to make peace with their neighbors.

Posted by soullite | June 12, 2007 10:41 PM

There isn't shit that's going to happen to the 7 million. I seem to recall Jackie Shire putting the number of Israeli nukes somewhere between 150-200. That's got to be good for in the neighborhood of 50 mil. Arab lives, if push comes to shove. Which is why it won't. If Israel dies, it'll be because of emigration.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 12, 2007 10:47 PM

And that threat of emigration is why Israel is afraid of Iranian nukes, but rather the fact that Iranian nukes will cause a panic and mass emigration from Israel.

Posted by SS | June 12, 2007 10:51 PM

It would be difficult for us to push the Israelis to give up their nuclear arms given that we haven't the slightest intention of doing the same, even though we face no existential threats and they do.

Posted by rilkefan | June 12, 2007 11:17 PM

You all miss the point of the analogy. Israel has far, far fewer soldiers, and can't afford to lose many - the nuclear deterrent is a way of massively upping the risk being undertaken in a full scale war.

Say you make a nuclear free zone in the middle east - congratulations, you've just made war more likely, as the surrounding hostile states now have far less at risk - at worst they'll lose a lot of soldiers (and they truly don't care about that).

In my analogy, once you give up your gun, what's to stop the guys with knives from rushing you? Nothing at all. Which is why Israel needs those nukes.

Posted by James Robertson | June 12, 2007 11:24 PM

It would be difficult for us to push the Israelis to give up their nuclear arms given that we haven't the slightest intention of doing the same, even though we face no existential threats and they do.

It would be difficult because they don't want to do it and we don't want them to badly enough to force the issue; the logic of their circumstances has nothing to do with it. After all, Iran is surrounded by nuclear powers and has just seen its neighbor get preemptively invaded by a country that considers it an evil and wants a regime change. As needs for defensive nukes go, Iran's got a pretty solid case. We're still able to find the wherewithal to insist that they not get a nuke. And I'm fine with that.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 12, 2007 11:36 PM

"the logic of their circumstances has nothing to do with it"

I don't get this. Our antiproliferation stance is generally thought to be hindered by our refusal to phase out our nuclear weapons, isn't it?

Also, I think Iran should understand the Iraq data as making them safer from attack from sane countries than v.v. I certainly expect the U.S. policy to become much saner as of 2009 and continue so through 2025 or later based in large part on that data.

Posted by rilkefan | June 12, 2007 11:56 PM

Our antiproliferation stance is generally thought to be hindered by our refusal to phase out our nuclear weapons, isn't it?

Is that clear, though? There are, what, nine nuclear states at the moment? We've anti-proliferated pretty good, it seems. I'm not sure we depended on equity arguments along the way.

I think Iran should understand the Iraq data as making them safer from attack from sane countries than v.v.

I think it's easier to make a case that there is no chance Iran guarantees its own annihilation by throwing a nuke at Israel (or anyone else), yet you hear that fear bruited even in this country all of the time. It's hard to see that the latter is a reasonable worry and the former farcical.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 13, 2007 12:16 AM

Say you make a nuclear free zone in the middle east - congratulations, you've just made war more likely, as the surrounding hostile states now have far less at risk - at worst they'll lose a lot of soldiers (and they truly don't care about that).

All the nukes were there for the '73 war. It didn't prevent anything.

Ariel Sharon once said "The Arabs* control the oil, but we have the matches". A future where that isn't true doesn't seem to me to make peace less likely but way more likely, the shape would just look radically different from what is envisioned today. It would make all the right people incredibly unhappy, and that's a good thing.

* I know Iran isn't Arab.

Posted by Ed Marshall | June 13, 2007 12:29 AM

I seem to recall the Indians and Pakistanis and North Koreans pointing to our stockpiles; I would guess the Iranians might as well. We probably don't care much about Japan and Brazil, but the next set of proliferating countries will probably be scarier. In any case, isn't it unofficially official U.S. policy that Israel having the bomb is a good thing?

The (very low) likelihood of Iran using nuclear arms isn't relevant to this argument afaict.

Posted by rilkefan | June 13, 2007 12:37 AM

I think the first thing is for Israel to change, to change its ideology, to find a more modern, more humanistic raison d'etre for the project. Then nuclear disarmament is possible, just like it happen in South Africa.

Without it - nothing is possible. There will be animosity, hatred, arms race, terrorism, bloodshed, and eventually a painful collapse, one way or another.

See what Avraham Burg, who was Knesset's speaker only 5 years ago, has to say.

Posted by abb1 | June 13, 2007 4:07 AM

jamie:

Are we sure Iran would actually agree . . .

Of course not. I'm just not sure they wouldn't.

. . . given that the stated purpose of their nuclear deterrent is to wipe Israel off the map?

I don't think you know what 'deterrent' means. If an arsenal is created for the purpose of initiating hostilities, it makes no sense to call it a 'deterrent'.

With that out of the way, the claim itself is a Big Lie. The Iranians have repeatedly denied that want nuclear weapons, and have explicitly called for Palestine to be re-unified peacefully. They have never threatened to take unilateral military action against Israel. Ahmadinejad has explicitly said the Iranians do not want war in Palestine.

I'll post some links in separate comments.

Posted by David Tomlin | June 13, 2007 5:25 AM

It is a religious state

No more than Britain or Spain.

Posted by David | June 13, 2007 5:26 AM

What is this stuff about "an existential threat" anyway? I've lived under an existential threat every day of my life - Soviet or Russian IRBMs. And for some reason, I have no desire to occupy the Cherbourg peninsula and mistreat its residents as a way of dealing with this.

Posted by Alex | June 13, 2007 5:52 AM

News Conference with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, September 21, 2006.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092100829.html

'Throughout our history, our country has not taken away the rights of any other country, has not initiated war against any other country, has not been an aggressor, has had no territorial claims over other countries. . . . And so when we speak of Palestine, it's because we don't want to see war there.'

'So our proposals on Palestine are quite clear. We have proposed a referendum. We've had enough of an experience, over 60 years, all failed, tens and tens of solutions, simply because they did not give justice to all sides.'

'Justice means allowing, as well, the Palestinian people to decide over its own fate.'

'No, I'm not anti-Jew. Jews are respected by everyone like all human beings. And I respect them very much.'

'Let us remember that in Palestine there are Muslims, Christians and Jews who live together. We speak of the Palestinian nation, of a people all in all embracing everyone. I never have said the Muslims in Palestine alone should decide about their fate.'

'The bottom line is, we do not need a bomb, unlike what others think.'

'Regretfully, some believe that the nuclear bomb can be effective in international relations. They're wrong, because the time for nuclear bombs has ended. We know that. These nuclear arsenals will not benefit anyone.'

'And let me say that at the same time, we are Muslims. And based on a decree given by the leader of the Islamic republic, moving toward having a nuclear bomb is banned and forbidden. Therefore, no one has the right to move in this direction. In our country, it is not permissible.'

Posted by David Tomlin | June 13, 2007 6:03 AM

Open letter to "the American People", from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, November 29, 2006.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/29/ahmadinejad.letter/

'I recommend that in a demonstration of respect for the American people and for humanity, the right of Palestinians to live in their own homeland should be recognized so that millions of Palestinian refugees can return to their homes and the future of all of Palestine and its form of government be determined in a referendum.'

Posted by David Tomlin | June 13, 2007 6:13 AM

Re Ed Marshall

"All the nukes were there for the '73 war. It didn't prevent anything."

Mr. Marshall has joined the 100% wrong club with this statement. In 1973, the Israeli nuclear arsenal consisted of less then a dozen devices. Today it numbers somewhere between 200 and 600, including possibly thermonuclear devices (i.e. H bombs).

As a matter of fact, an incident which occurred during the 1973 war may have been indirectly responsible for Sadats' decision to seek a peaceful settlement. In the first week of the war, when things were not going well for the IDF, the then chief of staff, one David Eliezer, decided on his own hook that the war was lost and ordered, without approval from PM Golda Meir, that 6 F4 Phantom jets be loaded with 6 nuclear bombs and that they be sent to destroy the Aswan Dam. PM Meir found out about it while the planes were getting ready to take off and countermanded the order, subsequently relieving Eliezer of his command. Sadat found about the incident and realized how close he had come to disaster. This apparently played into his decision to seek to avoid another such incident. This incident was reported in Time magazine at the time.

Re David Tomlin

Mr. Amadinejad has made it quite clear on numerous occasions that the presence of the State of Israel in Palestine is totally unacceptable. What these speeches and interviews by Mr. Amadinejad amount to is that it would be perfectly acceptable to him if the Government of Israel agreed to go out of business peacefully. Since that government has no intention of going out of business, that leaves him with only the option of force to effect that outcome, and he has made it perfectly clear that he is prepared to use force. In fact, by arming Hizbollah in Lebanon and supporting Hamas in the Gaza strip, he is using force right now. He is currently goading dictator Assad of Syria into initiating a war with Israel this summer to retake the Golan Heights.

Posted by SLC | June 13, 2007 7:34 AM

Smoking

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