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COMMENTARY
September 25, 2004
Some bad news
Who will be the first to perish in a "nuclear sea of fire"? Will it be Israel? Hassan Rohani the public face of Iran's nuclear programme has recently boasted of producing uranium hexafluoride gas out of yellowcake in Isfahan of reaching the last stage of uranium enrichment at a site in Natanz and of either producing or being able to produce heavy water in Arak. While the regime maintains the diplomatic pretence of seeking only to generate electricity (as North Korea did till the eve of its sudden public declaration that it had nuclear arms) there have been innumerable bloodthirsty cries by regime officials from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei down including a series of verbal fantasies about irradiating Israel by his generals. In the recent words of Rahim Safavi commander of the Revolutionary Guards: "The time has come to wipe Israel off the map of the world." Or will it be Japan? For as both North Korea's official daily Rodong Sinmun and its official Korean Central News Agency declared this week: "Japanese military co-operation with the United States will serve as a detonating fuse to turn Japan into a nuclear sea of fire." Neither Israel nor Japan is taking this as a joke. Israel has just bought a slew of "bunker busters" from the U.S. (some 4 500 of them in various weights and configurations) that would prove useful should she decide to end the Iranian nuclear programme in some much larger version of the raid the IAF made on Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor in 1981. Japan has sent a surveillance plane and destroyers with Aegis missile trackers into the Sea of Japan -- the body of water that separates it from North Korea by a few hundred miles. And since 1998 when the North Koreans shot a missile right over Honshu Japan has been an enthusiastic partner in the American anti-missile programme (described by critics dishonestly as "weapons in space" when it is designed as a defence against them). The Japanese correctly guess there are circumstances in which this anti-missile system could prevent 40 million casualties in Tokyo and Osaka. For some days according to fairly public information U.S. satellite photographs have been showing large and unusual troop and vehicle movements around pads designed to launch Nodong and Taipodong missiles. In the Pyongyang Declaration of 2002 North Korea agreed not to test these missiles in return for massive Japanese aid. But as the U.S. discovered from President Clinton's essay in aid-for-promises in 1994 North Korea's word is worthless. The consensus of media observers and the intelligence establishment from which they often take their hints is that the present wave of North Korean threats and military exercises are a charade designed perhaps to influence the U.S. election. Kim Jong Il the lunatic frontman of the Pyongyang politburo is on record endorsing John Kerry. He is also formally boycotting the six-nation talks over his nuclear ambitions until the U.S. election is over. Similar motives have been attributed to the ayatollahs in Iran who fear George W. Bush almost as much as they fear their own people and would feel more at ease with a weak and vacillating U.S. President. My own suspicion is that they are racing the clock and just might announce a nuclear fait accompli before the U.S. election is over while Mr. Bush has his hands tied getting re-elected. The United Nations' IAEA and their chief European trading partners have given the Tehran regime until the middle of November to make good on previous promises to stop the yellowcake and other production that is obviously intended for nuclear weapons. But there is no credible threat behind that; at worst the ayatollahs would be dragged before the Security Council's perpetual coffee clatch to discuss trade sanctions that only the U.S. would have the guts to apply. In the final encounter between loaded and cocked nuclear missiles and empty talk I should expect the nukes to prevail. And Iran would not have to use them only to demonstrate they were ready and able to change the entire geopolitical situation across the Middle East. Which is why my attention turns to Israel. I wonder whether the bunker-buster purchase announced this week might actually be the public acknowledgement of something already partly delivered. Since Iran has the Shihab-3 missiles to drop nuclear weapons on Tel Aviv once they have the bombs and the Israelis have never been casual about existential threats I wouldn't be surprised to see something happen. And it might have to happen before the U.S. election spreading political fallout everywhere. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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