Iran's acknowledged nuclear fuel plant, Israel's secret nuclear weapons plant

By Stephen Gowans
September 28, 2009 - gowans.wordpress.com

Western press accounts of the existence of an unfinished Iranian nuclear fuel plant near Qum have subtly changed, drawing closer to a view more compatible with Washington's aim of marshalling support for stepped up sanctions against Iran.

While early press reports acknowledged that Iran had on Monday, September 22 notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of the plant's existence [1] (that is, days before the Obama administration drew attention to it) stories in major dailies now omit any mention of the Iranian notification. Instead, the reporting on the issue now creates the impression that the existence of the facility was unknown outside of Iran until US officials revealed it on Friday, September 26. For example, New York Times reporters David E. Sanger and William J. Broad write of "the revelation Friday of the secret facility at a military base near the holy city of Qum." [2] The facility could hardly be secret, since it existence had been revealed by Iran itself five days earlier.

U.S. media have also omitted any mention of a secret nuclear weapons plant in another West Asian country, Israel.

Israel's secret nuclear weapons plant, long in existence, is located in the Negev desert near Dimona. [3] I.A.E.A inspectors have never visited it and never will unless Israel becomes a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a treaty Iran has voluntarily submitted to. (While the United States is a nominal signatory, it acts as if it's not bound by the treaty's provisions, and therefore is effectively no more a member than Israel is.)

Neither are Israel and the United States members of the International Criminal Court (sharing non-membership with Russia and China.) I.C.C. non-membership, however, doesn't mean the court can't pursue prosecutions in connection with non-member states. It can, if ordered to by the U.N. Security Council (i.e., by the United States, Russia and China, the same countries that won't join the court themselves.) The Security Council ordered the I.C.C. to investigate crimes committed in connection with fighting in Darfur. That's why the president of Sudan is wanted by the I.C.C., even though Sudan isn't a member of the court. Washington's de jure and de facto power to veto the Security Council (the overwhelming strength of the U.S. military pretty much allows the United States to operate by its own rules) are ultimately the reasons why the former president of the United States, George W. Bush, isn't wanted by the court and not because Bush is free of the taint of massive war crimes. It only matters that you commit crimes if you aren't the United States or don't have its backing. And even then not having Washington's backing is frequently all that matters. After all, Iraq was attacked, invaded, and occupied even though it wasn't concealing the banned weapons Washington said it was failing to come clean on.

When the U.N. Human Rights Commission's fact-finding mission on war crimes committed in Gaza from December 2008 to January 2009 said Israel should carry out serious, independent investigations, and if it didn't, the Security Council should refer the matter to the I.C.C., [4] Israel immediately rejected the demand. Not widely reported was that the United States said there was no chance it would allow the Security Council to refer the matter to the I.C.C., arguing the U.N. report was "unbalanced." U.S. officials noted that 85 percent of the commission's report detailed Israeli war crimes, and only 15 percent those committed by Hamas. [5] But the "imbalance" reflected the imbalance in the struggle, with Israel using its formidable war machine to cause considerable civilian death, injury and destruction, while Hamas fired crude, home-made rockets whose effect was hardly registered. If the report was mostly about Israeli war crimes, it was because Israel committed most the war crimes.

Owing to the protection it receives from Washington, Israel won't be answering to the I.C.C., and nor will it be sanctioned for failing to sign up to the non-proliferation treaty or for having a secret nuclear weapons program. These penalties are solely reserved for countries that are resisting U.S. domination, not facilitating its extension, the role Israel plays as U.S. attack dog in West Asia and northern Africa.

Israel already has an attack on another country's nuclear facilities under its belt (the 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor.) Over the last year it has issued a series of military threats against Iran's civilian nuclear facilities. That is, a nuclear weapons state has repeatedly threatened a non-nuclear weapons state. And yet Iran not Israel is presented in the Western media as dangerous and aggressive.

Israel has always relied on the deception that it is under existential threat to justify its numerous aggressions, when always it has had at its command military force in excess of that its opponents can marshal. This is true even going back to its founding in 1948, when it faced off against ragtag Arab volunteers, and then a disorganized agglomeration of Arab armies, while claiming it was defending itself against a second holocaust.

While it's true that the government of Iran is hostile to the Zionist occupation of Palestine, Iran poses no serious military threat to Israel, and wouldn't, even if it were capable of quickly producing nuclear weapons. The best it could do is present a threat of self-defense. It would take years for Iran to match Israel's current nuclear arsenal, and in the intervening period, Israel could vastly expand its own. Plus, Israel, already possessing a formidable military – it receives $3 billion in U.S. military aid every year — is backed by history's most formidable military power, the United States. Iran, even with the rudimentary arsenal of nuclear weapons it may have the capability (though perhaps never the intention) of producing at some point, is no match for Israel – and this its leaders know well. The country, remarked Uzi Rubin, a private defense consultant who ran Israel's missile shield program in the 1990s, "is radical, but radical does not mean irrational. They want to change the world, not commit suicide." [6]

NOTES:

1. David E. Sanger, "U.S. to accuse Iran of having secret nuclear fuel facility," The New York Times, September 26, 2009.

2. See for example David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, "U.S. to demand inspection of new Iran plan ‘within weeks'", The New York Times, September 27, 2009.

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev_Nuclear_Research_Center

4. Neil MacFarquhar, "Inquiry finds Gaza war crimes from both sides," The New York Times, September 16, 2009.

5. Colum Lynch, "U.S. faces doubts about leadership on human rights," The Washington Post, September 22, 2009.

6. Howard Schneider, "Israel finds strength in its missile defenses," The Washington Post, September 19, 2009.

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