EARTH: TWO VERY BAD OPTIONS

Is this why we are not doing anything about Syria and or Iran?!?

Our World: The second-worst option

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an international security Web site run by Ray Robinson published a translation of a story that ran on the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Seyassah's Web site on September 25. Citing European intelligence sources, the Al-Seyyassah report claims that in late 2004 Syria began developing a nuclear program near its border with Turkey. According to the report, Syria's program, which is being run by President Bashar Assad's brother Maher and defended by a Revolutionary Guards brigade, "has reached the stage of medium activity."

The Kuwaiti report maintains that the Syrian nuclear program relies "on equipment and materials that the sons of the deposed Iraqi leader, Uday and Qusai… transfer[red] to Syria by using dozens of civilian trucks and trains, before and after the US-British invasion in March 2003." The report also asserts that the Syrian nuclear program is supported by the Iranians who are running the program, together with Iraqi nuclear scientists and Muslim nuclear specialists from Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.

The program "was originally built on the remains of the Iraqi program after it was wholly transferred to Syria."

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The Senate report concluded that Saddam was told by his own weapons specialists that Iraq would achieve nuclear weapons capabilities "within 18-24 months of acquiring fissile material."

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The ascent of the most dangerous regimes in the world to the status of nuclear powers reached a new climax last month. First was North Korea's nuclear bomb test on Columbus Day. Two weeks later Iran announced it was doubling its uranium enrichment by utilizing a second network of centrifuges.

For their part, most of the nations of the world have looked on with indifference to these developments. South Korean Foreign Minister and incoming UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appears far more concerned with the Japanese debate over whether North Korea's nuclear test should or should not cause Japan to develop its own nuclear arsenal than with the fact that Pyongyang now has nuclear bombs.

Ban's apparent moral and strategic dementia is of a piece with the international community's apathy. Europe has responded to Iran's sprint toward nuclear arms by offering its usual mix of toothless sanctions, emotional appeals and diplomatic pageantry, all aimed at marking time until Iran announces its entr e into the nuclear club.

Russia and China have responded to both Pyongyang and Teheran's nuclear machinations by increasing their collaboration with both regimes.

AS FOR the US, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida have all been quick to interpret the Democratic victory in last Tuesday's Congressional elections as a sign that the US has chosen to turn its back on the threat they pose to America. By firing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and replacing him with Robert Gates, who supports appeasing the mullahs in Teheran and finding a fig-leaf excuse to vacate Iraq, Bush has done everything to prove America's enemies right. Moreover, Bush administration officials' statements ahead of the president's trip to Asia this week indicate that Bush will seek to contend with North Korea by ratcheting up US engagement with Pyongyang in the six-party talks.

Reasonably, the world is now assessing the US through the prism of its non-action against Iran and North Korea rather than through the prism of Iraq. And the consequence of the view that Iraq was a deviation from a norm of US passivity is nothing less than the complete breakdown of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.

Last week the Sunday New York Times reported that Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE have all announced their intention to build civilian nuclear reactors. Last Tuesday, in an official visit to China, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reportedly signed an agreement with Chinese leader Hu Jintao for China to build nuclear reactors in Egypt.

It is not hard to see the lesson of these developments. As the Iraq campaign shows clearly, while the price of taking action to prevent rogue regimes from acquiring nuclear weapons is high, the price of not acting is far higher.

Relating this wisdom to Iran earlier this year, Senator John McCain said, "There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option [to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons], and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."

The US and its allies are paying a high price for having successfully prevented Saddam from getting nuclear bombs. The price that Israel or the US, or both, will pay to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear bombs is liable to be even higher. Yet the alternative to paying that price will be suffering, destruction and death on an unimaginable scale.


Pertinent Links:

1) Our World: The second-worst option