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Australia should speak up about the nuclear Middle East

What might a more independent Australia do to promote a Middle ……East WMD-free Zone? Four modest but important initiatives suggest themselves. The first would be a prime ministerial statement strongly supporting the establishment of such a zone and explaining how this objective is in line with Australia’s security and economic interests…….

Image source ; July 7, 2010  US allies join nuclear power quest

11 April 2013

Joseph Camilleri and NAJ Taylor

Despite Australia’s obvious national interests in the Middle East, our leaders have been strangely silent about the alarming security threats in that region, write Joseph A Camilleri and NAJ Taylor.

Weapons of mass destruction – biological, chemical and nuclear – are once again buzz words in the international corridors of power. In Australia, North Korea has attracted media headlines, but the more disturbing and far less predictable situation unfolding in the Middle East has yet to receive the attention it deserves.

The unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iran nuclear dispute, Western-led interventions, popular uprisings, conflict in Syria, and actual and potential regime changes have combined to create a highly volatile and dangerous security environment in that region.

In 2011 there were serious concerns that Libya’s chemical weapons stockpiles, though scheduled for destruction under international supervision, might nevertheless make their way to local non-state armed groups or to neighbouring states. The United States has at different times pointed to the risk of cross-border proliferation of both chemical and biological weapons from Syria, as well as possible deployment of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in the current conflict that has devastated the country.

Tensions have also arisen in relation to Iran’s atomic energy program, with the United States and the European Union accusing Iran of surreptitiously pursuing an active nuclear weapons capability. Tough economic sanctions have been imposed as a way of forcing Iran to abandon its current uranium enrichment program. In both Israel and the United States, influential voices have called for pre-emptive and preventative military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

And in the meantime, Israel persists with its policy of neither confirming nor denying the existence of its nuclear arsenal, widely thought to comprise between 75 and 200 nuclear weapons. Declassified documents are reported to show that in the 1970s Israel was actively engaged in negotiations for the sale of nuclear-equipped Jericho missiles to the Apartheid regime in South Africa. In June last year, Spiegel reported that Israel was equipping German-built submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

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April 11, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Air Quality Warning for NE Europe – Contamination from Sellafield Nuclear site 11 April 2013

April 11, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 5 Comments