Latter Day Armageddon
George B. Reed Jr. | Posted Yesterday
There is a generally–accepted fact that many of us avoid acknowledging. Although not an officially–recognized nuclear power, for over 40 years now it has been an open secret that Israel possesses 80–100 nuclear warheads and the military wherewithal to deliver them. Israel has also taken delivery (1000–2008) on five German–made submarines capable of launching nuclear–tipped cruise missiles.
During our lengthy nuclear treaty negotiations with Iran this fact was never brought up. But Iran is fully aware that even a hint of offensive nuclear development on its part could result in an immediate and devastating attack by Israel. Israel didn’t hesitate to bomb nuclear installations in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 that it considered security threats. Surrounded by hostile Muslim states, Israel’s unofficial nuclear arsenal is a guarantor against sneak attacks by potentially belligerent neighbors.
The Israelis have cloaked their nuclear secrets in a subterfuge known as “amimut,” meaning “opacity” or “ambiguity” in Hebrew. By this stratagem they hope to discourage their enemies from attacking them, but without giving them a legitimate excuse to develop their own nuclear capabilities. Israel is also rumored to have obtained bomb–grade uranium from the U. S. by theft, an act never officially confirmed or denied.
Some observers do not believe Iran was motivated to develop nuclear weapons from fear of Israel, but of Iraq. Saddam Hussein inflicted almost 200,000 Iranian casualties during his 1980s attacks, many by chemical weapons. Experts also believe the fact of Israel’s nuclear capability could dissuade Iran from developing nuclear capability in violation of its agreement with the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany.
Here is what concerns me about the possibility that Middle Eastern Muslim states might obtain nuclear weapons. We in the west generally agree that MAD (mutually assured destruction) averted nuclear war between the United States and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War period. And most westerners share similar concepts concerning the finality of death. And they don’t believe in post–mortem rewards such as an idyllic repose with forty virgins (or is it sixty?). But some Middle Eastern Muslims actually believe this stuff. Jihadist fanatics wouldn’t hesitate to deliver a nuclear device against a major western population center for the glory of Allah, even though they might know this would result in their own death and a retaliatory attack on their own country of incredible magnitude. Mutually assured destruction is not the deterrent to those people that it is to the western mind. Some Islamic crazies would even welcome a martyr’s death in defense of Islam.
We seem to be inextricably involved with the Middle Eastern Muslim world with little inclination to disengage. Although God promised He wouldn’t destroy the world by flood again, He didn’t say anything about not allowing us to destroy it by our own fratricidal devices.
George B. Reed Jr., who lives in Rossville, can be reached by email at reed1600@bellsouth.net.
