Double standards in nuclear policy on Iran and Israel

Israel and Iran simply highlight the hypocrisy of a larger nuclear policy that endorses a double standard.

The Nuclear Double Standard, Antiwar.com, by Charles V. Peña, March 12, Earlier this week, Israel announced its intention to pursue nuclear power to generate electricity. According to Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau, Israel wants to achieve energy independence from coal, which it has to import in significant quantities:…..(Israel, however, practices a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying whether it has nuclear weapons – yet it is generally accepted that Israel has such weapons)..

. if a premise of the NPT is that the world would be a better place with fewer, not more, nuclear weapon states, why is it OK for a country like Israel to essentially flaunt the NPT and become a nuclear weapon state?

More to the point, why does the United States not hold Israel to the same nuclear standard as it holds, for example, Iran? Iran claims to be pursuing a nuclear energy program – much the same as Israel says it is doing.

Yet the Obama administration is considering even more sanctions against Iran because of concerns that Iran’s nuclear program might be for more than just energy (and in all likelihood is). This is not to say that the prospect of Iran becoming a nuclear weapon state is a good thing.

But it’s hard to hold the high moral ground and claim Iran can’t develop a nuclear energy program (which it has every right to do, including uranium enrichment, as a signatory to the NPT) because we’re worried they might also be trying to build a nuclear weapon (a good bet), while at the same time allowing a country like Israel to develop nuclear weapons and engage in a nuclear power program.

Israel and Iran simply highlight the hypocrisy of a larger nuclear policy that endorses a double standard. The United States, along with the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom) are all nuclear powers. Yet they want what amounts to the rest of the world, i.e., the other 184 signatories to the NPT, to not become nuclear powers – ostensibly because doing so would be dangerous and unsafe.

But why is it not dangerous and unsafe for the five permanent members to remain nuclear powers? And as long as they are nuclear powers, doesn’t that create some incentives for other countries to become nuclear powers (if for nothing else, prestige and perhaps a desire to hold a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council)? Moreover, how can we realistically expect the rest of the world to believe what amounts to the false promise of the NPT – that the existing nuclear powers will give up their weapons (so far, beyond rhetoric there is no real evidence that this is the case) in exchange for non-nuclear powers never developing nuclear weapons?

The Nuclear Double Standard by Charles V. Peña — Antiwar.com