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(回答先: 一度たりともイスラエルの核査察をしようとしなかったＩＡＥＡ。あの国の核は「世界平和」の役に立つらしい。（本文なし） 投稿者 バルセロナより愛を込めて 日時 2005 年 12 月 11 日 10:10:20)
Should Israel give up its nukes?
By George Bisharat
IN A SUDDEN ATTACK of common sense, a Pentagon-commissioned study released
in mid-November suggests an approach to nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East
that might actually be accepted by the people of the region. What is this
breakthrough idea? That U.S. policies begin not with a country that currently
lacks nuclear weapons — Iran — but rather with the one that by virtually
all accounts already has them — Israel.
To avert Iran's apparent drive for nuclear weapons, concludes Henry Sokolski,
a co-editor of "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," Israel should freeze
and begin to dismantle its nuclear capability.
This and other recommendations emerged from two years of deliberations by
experts on the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation.
Limiting the spread of nuclear weapons is a pivotal U.S. foreign policy
objective. As the sole nation ever to have employed them, we bear a special
responsibility to prevent their use in the future. With regard to the Middle East,
we rightly worry not only about the potential use of the weapons themselves but
about the political leverage bestowed on those who would possess them.
However, there is an Achilles heel in our nonproliferation policy: the double
standard that U.S. administrations since the 1960s have applied with respect
to Israel's weapons of mass destruction. Israel's suspected arsenal includes
chemical, biological and about 100 to 200 nuclear warheads, and the capacity
to deliver them.
Initially, the United States opposed Israel's nuclear weapons program.
President Kennedy dispatched inspectors to the Dimona generating plant in
Israel's south, and he cautioned Israel against developing atomic weapons.
Anticipating the 1962 visit of American inspectors, Israel reportedly
constructed a fake wall at Dimona to conceal its weapons production.
Since then, no U.S. administration has effectively pressured Israel to
either halt its program or to submit to inspections under the International
Atomic Energy Agency. Nor has Israel been required to sign the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty. The apparent rationale: Weapons of mass destruction
in the hands of an ally are simply not an urgent concern.
Yet this rationale neglects a fundamental law of arms proliferation. Nations
seek WMD when their rivals already possess them. Israel's nuclear capability
has clearly fueled WMD ambitions within the Middle East. Saddam Hussein,
for example, in an April 1990 speech to his military, threatened to retaliate
against any Israeli nuclear attack with chemical weapons — the "poor man's
atomic bomb."
WASHINGTON'S inconsistency on the nuclear issue in the Middle East has been
terribly corrosive of American legitimacy throughout the world, and a reversal
of our policy would be widely noted regionally.
Nor is our international legitimacy all that is at stake. During the 1973
Arab-Israeli war, a panicky Israel, facing early battlefield losses, threatened
a nuclear strike. This evoked a massive arms shipment from the United States,
eventually permitting Israel to turn the tide of the war — demonstrating the
kinds of pressures that nuclear powers can apply, even on allies. Although many
view Israel's victory with favor, it surely enabled subsequent decades of
Israeli intransigence over the fate of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and has
contributed to the impasse afflicting the region.
The study's authors include retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom and Patrick
Clawson, deputy director of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East
Policy — in short, no enemies of Israel. Their suggestion is comparatively
mild: Israel should take small, reversible steps toward nuclear disarmament
to encourage Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Nonetheless, Israeli
leaders reportedly have already demurred.
One can anticipate the bipartisan stampede of U.S. lawmakers to denounce the
recommendation should it win official U.S. backing. That would be a shame.
Sooner or later, common sense must prevail in our Middle East policy. Otherwise,
we will continue to run our global stature into the ground.
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GEORGE BISHARAT is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.
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