Nearly all the frightening forecasts of what life would be like with a nuclear Iran strike me as being hollow. I’m not worried about Iran nuking Israel – because the Iranians don’t want to commit suicide. I’m not worried about Iran giving nukes to terror organizations that would nuke Israel – because Israel’s second-strike capacity, with its estimated 200 nuclear bombs, would devastate the Islamic world and the Islamic world knows it. I’m not worried that Iran’s “proxies,” such as Hezbollah and Hamas, would feel free under an Iranian “nuclear umbrella” to attack  Israel at will – because, again, the Iranians don’t want to commit suicide. And I’m not worried that terrified Israelis or the money of terrified foreign investors would leave the country en masse – because this never happened in any of the many, many other countries of the world that have nuclear-armed enemies.

But I said “nearly” all the forecasts are hollow; one strikes me as being very realistic: that a nuclear Iran would set off a Middle East nuclear arms race, which would be highly destabilizing, escalate tensions and create the possibility that somebody would start a nuclear war simply out of fear of being attacked first.

If Iran gets nuclear weapons, it makes perfect sense to me that Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and other countries around here would want to follow suit ASAP. In fact, even if Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons, I see no reason why other ambitious countries, in the Middle East and elsewhere, wouldn’t want to build or otherwise acquire their own. All the best countries have them, don’t they? (Except Germany and Japan, but that could change one day.)

This is not good; nuclear proliferation is very dangerous, especially in a place like the Middle East, and it should be prevented if possible. So Israel and the U.S. do have one solid argument for why Iran must be prevented from going nuclear at all costs.

The problem is – who the hell is Israel or the U.S. to tell anyone not to go nuclear? Who is Israel or the U.S. to start a war with Iran for the sake of enforcing nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East?

The nuclear arms race in the Middle East was started by Israel over 40 years ago. If Israel and the U.S. want to stop it, let Israel give up its nukes and sign a non-proliferation agreement with Iran, Egypt and the rest of the region.

I can understand, though, why Israel, even with the best of intentions,  would not want to do that – for fear that an enemy country would cheat, build the bomb and have Israel at its mercy.

Fine. If Israel wants to keep its nukes, it is well within its rights to do so, in my opinion. But it is not within its rights to bomb other countries or kill their scientists because they want to build nukes, too – even if those other countries’ leaders publicly wish Israel to disappear and deny the Holocaust, or give arms to Hamas and Hezbollah. If every country that gave arms to another country’s enemies became a legitimate target for attack, there would be no peace anywhere, anytime, certainly not in Israel or the U.S.

Israel and America may think they have the right to bomb Iran because, after all, they’re good and Iran is bad, Iran wants to kill and enslave people while Israel and the U.S. only want people to be free and happy. But this is a tough sell when they’re the ones threatening to start the war, not Iran. And even if we set the whole issue of Iran aside, there are a lot of people in the world who can make a strong case against Israel’s and America’s claims to be forces for only goodness, peace and freedom.

The chance of Israel attacking Iran before the November 6 U.S. election now is nil,but the chance of America doing it it with or without Israel’s help not too long after the election is considerable. In Iran, the centrifuges are still spinning, as Bibi likes to say, and Western powers aren’t going to just sit back and take it like wimps – they’rekicking the Iranians out, they’re cranking up the sanctions. 

We are still on track for a U.S./Israeli strike on Iran, which, aside from being a war of aggression with unimaginable consequences, is no way to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The 57 Muslim nations will not accept that the region’s one Jewish country can hold the exclusive franchise on nukes and bomb any country that “violates” it, and with the backing of the world’s first and greatest nuclear power – the only country that ever dropped the bomb, and on two cities, yet.

If Israel and America want to prevent a Middle East nuclear arms race, let Israel give up its nukes first. And if Israel is unwilling to do that, let Israel and America stop complaining about Iran – or anyone else.

Iran nuking Israel – because the Iranians don’t want to commit suicide. I’m not worried about Iran giving nukes to terror organizations that would nuke Israel – because Israel’s second-strike capacity, with its estimated 200 nuclear bombs, would devastate the Islamic world and the Islamic world knows it. I’m not worried that Iran’s “proxies,” such as Hezbollah and Hamas, would feel free under an Iranian “nuclear umbrella” to attack Israel at will – because, again, the Iranians don’t want to commit suicide. And I’m not worried that terrified Israelis or the money of terrified foreign investors would leave the country en masse – because this never happened in any of the many, many other countries of the world that have nuclear-armed enemies.

But I said “nearly” all the forecasts are hollow; one strikes me as being very realistic: that a nuclear Iran would set off a Middle East nuclear arms race, which would be highly destabilizing, escalate tensions and create the possibility that somebody would start a nuclear war simply out of fear of being attacked first.

If Iran gets nuclear weapons, it makes perfect sense to me that Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and other countries around here would want to follow suit ASAP. In fact, even if Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons, I see no reason why other ambitious countries, in the Middle East and elsewhere, wouldn’t want to build or otherwise acquire their own. All the best countries have them, don’t they? (Except Germany and Japan, but that could change one day.)

This is not good; nuclear proliferation is very dangerous, especially in a place like the Middle East, and it should be prevented if possible. So Israel and the U.S. do have one solid argument for why Iran must be prevented from going nuclear at all costs.

The problem is – who the hell is Israel or the U.S. to tell anyone not to go nuclear? Who is Israel or the U.S. to start a war with Iran for the sake of enforcing nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East?

The nuclear arms race in the Middle East was started by Israel over 40 years ago. If Israel and the U.S. want to stop it, let Israel give up its nukes and sign a non-proliferation agreement with Iran, Egypt and the rest of the region.

I can understand, though, why Israel, even with the best of intentions, would not want to do that – for fear that an enemy country would cheat, build the bomb and have Israel at its mercy.

Fine. If Israel wants to keep its nukes, it is well within its rights to do so, in my opinion. But it is not within its rights to bomb other countries or kill their scientists because they want to build nukes, too – even if those other countries’ leaders publicly wish Israel to disappear and deny the Holocaust, or give arms to Hamas and Hezbollah. If every country that gave arms to another country’s enemies became a legitimate target for attack, there would be no peace anywhere, anytime, certainly not in Israel or the U.S.

Israel and America may think they have the right to bomb Iran because, after all, they’re good and Iran is bad, Iran wants to kill and enslave people while Israel and the U.S. only want people to be free and happy. But this is a tough sell when they’re the ones threatening to start the war, not Iran. And even if we set the whole issue of Iran aside, there are a lot of people in the world who can make a strong case against Israel’s and America’s claims to be forces for only goodness, peace and freedom.

The chance of Israel attacking Iran before the November 6 U.S. election now is nil, but the chance of America doing it it with or without Israel’s help not too long after the election is considerable. In Iran, the centrifuges are still spinning, as Bibi likes to say, and Western powers aren’t going to just sit back and take it like wimps – they’re kicking the Iranians out, they’re cranking up the sanctions.

We are still on track for a U.S./Israeli strike on Iran, which, aside from being a war of aggression with unimaginable consequences, is no way to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The 57 Muslim nations will not accept that the region’s one Jewish country can hold the exclusive franchise on nukes and bomb any country that “violates” it, and with the backing of the world’s first and greatest nuclear power – the only country that ever dropped the bomb, and on two cities, yet.

If Israel and America want to prevent a Middle East nuclear arms race, let Israel give up its nukes first. And if Israel is unwilling to do that, let Israel and America stop complaining about Iran – or anyone else.

Muslim nations and Israel are heading for a confrontation at a 154-nation nuclear meeting next month over an Arab initiative to criticise Israel’s secretive atomic programme.

Documents submitted for that gathering show that Arab nations are seeking Israel’s censure, a move it says is a sideshow that deflects attention from the real danger to Mideast peace – Iran.

In asking September’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting to reprimand Israel, Jordan says Israel is guilty of thwarting “all initiatives to free the region of the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction, and in particular of nuclear weapons”.

Israel, in turn, warns that the Arab initiative is “serving Iran’s attempt to divert the attention of the international community … [from] its quest for nuclear weapons”.

Israel is assumed to be the only Middle East country with such arms.

But it refuses to either confirm or deny its status. Israel’s Arab neighbours have demanded it open its nuclear activities to full inspection by the IAEA – a condition Israel says it can consider only after peace rules in the Middle East.

But Arab nations insists peace can come only if Israel takes the steps it demands.

Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful means but refuses to cooperate with an IAEA probe of its alleged secret work on nuclear weapons. The Islamic republic also continues to enrich uranium, which Iran’s IAEA envoy, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, says his country will not suspend “even for a second”.

The initiative to censure Israel at the IAEA meeting comes from the 17 Arab members of the nuclear agency. But it is expected to be supported by Iran as well as most if not all the other Muslim countries meaning it has a good chance of passing.

Ehud Azoulay, Israel’s chief IAEA delegate, questioned whether Arab nations have the moral right to point fingers.

He says some have “a long, unflattering history of violating international obligations and other norms of the international community” – an apparent poke at Syria, itself suspected of hiding a nuclear programme and the target of condemnation for atrocities attributed to regime troops fighting insurgents.

The Hiroshima tragedy was a catastrophe which brought to the world the birth of atomic weapons. This nuclear test on human beings and a city of civilians did not teach the world to stop all the nuclear production. Rather the opposite: the super powers and other small states like Israel moved to produce and engaged in NWs production, proliferation.

At the same time, this Hiroshima catastrophe was a big obstacle to any use of any atomic bombs, during all the cold war. Hiroshima photos of all the victims were in the mind and that kept all the world wild awake during all the cold war, to prevent any use of nuclear weapons again. And it has never been used again.
The end of the cold war sent all the world free from the fear of nuclear war. But the world is still in danger of some small states, like here in the Middle East who can use the Bombs. Also, the world has still many nuclear bombs, and we want all the world free from any nuclear bombs.

States like Japan, Germany, Canada, France and others did not realized the danger of nuclear actives, and moved in full speed to build many nuclear reactors for energy. The Chernobyl accident was not enough to wake up all the world to end nuclear energy.
So the world needed a new catastrophe in Japan to wake up all the Japanese people and the rest of the world, from that dangers of nuclear accident and the danger of all the materials that had been produced from the use of nuclear energy. The catastrophe of Fukushima send the world to demand freedom also from any use of nuclear energy.

So my 2012 Hiroshima, Fukushima Message is: End all nuclear weapons in the world including the Middle East, also in Israel. What Israel wants for itself all the M E. want. End Nuclear weapons everywhere including in Israel. Dimona or all the M E.will have Nuclear weapons exactly like in Dimona.
The second message of Fukushima from Japan is that a very Industrial state like Japan can work and produce without any Nuclear Energy.
All the world can be free from Nuclear weapons, and also from Nuclear Energy. 100 years ago the world was hungry for new Energy, and was running very fast to adopt all kind of nuclear energy. Now after 100 years the world has had enough from nuclear energy, and the world learn to work and survive without any use of nuclear energy.

So 2012 from Japan to all the world End Nuclear Energy, and all the Atomic Bombs .Freedom to every one freedom Now,!!!!!!.

Mordechai Vanunu

Don’t get left behind and sign! http://www.change.org/petitions/united-nations-security-council-stop-israel-s-nuclear-arsenal-the-real-threat-to-world-peace

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Since the UN Resolution 3263 (XXIX) was adopted in 1974, urging the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction, there were numerous occasions when the United Nations and other international organizations reiterated the same call… and many others that failed in their purpose. The last one, the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) urged to convene a Conference in 2012 in order to start the process, but once again, this initiative was boycotted by Israel and the USA.

The declaration of the Middle East as a nuclear-weapon-free-zone would introduce Israel’s accession to the NPT under the nuclear-weapon-free status and the placement of all its nuclear facilities under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards (IAEA), as the other states in the region have already done.

If Israel accepted IAEA inspections of all its nuclear facilities, the United Nations Security Council would know the real magnitude of danger that these supposedly secret stockpiles represent and would be compelled to take measures to remove this threat looming over the fragile peace in the area.

However, nothing is as it should be. With its senseless and selfish irresponsibility, the United Nations Security Council gives a green light to Israel to increase its nuclear power uncontrolled, refrains from enforcing its own resolutions and indicates an inability to avoid a catastrophe of easily foreseeable consequences.

But this irresponsible passivity and its murky interests are not going to hinder citizens everywhere to embrace the safeguard of peace and demand unanimously that the United Nations Security Council take the necessary measures to compel Israel to accept IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities.

To see the text to be dispatched to the UN, click here.

Posted in Sabbah Report

Recently, President Obama imposed new sanctions on Iran which according to reports have been very effective, causing a sudden major devaluation of Iran‘s currency. The Iranians correctly understand that they are under attack, and have threatened to respond by closing the strait of Hormuz, through which a large percentage of oil from the Mideast flows to the global economy.

If the crisis deepens and Iran makes good on its threat to close Hormuz, there is little doubt that the US will intervene to reopen the strait. This will lead to a shooting war for which Iran will be blamed, even though the recent US sanctions were tantamount to overt aggression.

I believe the US will exploit the situation to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. But, even more importantly, the US will target Iran’s conventionalmissiles. Indeed, I believe this is the real reason for US sanctions in the first place, and for the buildup of tensions in recent days. Despite public perceptions, and all the rhetoric about nukes, the present crisis has nothing to do with Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. In my opinion, that is just a cover story.

The real issue is the fact that Iran has upgraded its medium range conventionally-armed missiles with GPS technology, making its missiles much more accurate. This means Iran can now target Israel‘s own nuclear, bio and chemical weapons stockpiles, located inside Israel, as well as the Dimona nuclear reactor.

In short, Iran has achieved a conventional deterrent to Israel. Therefor, statements by Iranian officials that Iran has no nuclear weapons program are in my view probably correct. Presently, Iran does not need nukes to deter Israel. It can do so with its GPS-guided medium range missiles. The Israelis are no doubt gnashing their teeth over this, because they now find themselves threatened by their own WMD stockpiles, and by their own nuclear reactors, especially Dimona, all of which have become targets.

A few direct hits by Iran could cause a toxic plume, killing thousands of Israelis. A worst case might signal the end of the Jewish state.

It is important to realize that Iran would never launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel because the Iranians know that the US/Israeli response would be devastating. However, if Iran comes under attack first, all bets are off. Iran will defend itself. A counter attack on Israel cannot be ruled out because Iranian leaders understand clearly (even if the American people do not) that the crisis has been manufactured, on Israel’s behalf.

From the Israeli standpoint, the present Iranian deterrent (though conventional) is simply unacceptable. Israel’s military strategists have always insisted on total freedom of movement. This is why Israel refused a US offer many years ago to sign a defense pact with the US. Such a treaty would have limited Israel’s freedom of movement, and this was unacceptable. Israel’s leaders preferred to remain independent. Israel has always insisted on the “freedom” to intimidate its neighbors, whenever and howsoever it chooses. Iran’s conventional missiles now curtail that “freedom.” Israeli officials probably worry, for example, that Iran’s conventional missiles would limit its freedom to attackHezbollah in Lebanon, in a future conflict. Hezbollah is closely allied with Tehran.

I believe the present crisis has been manufactured to create the pretext for a US air campaign to take out Iran’s conventional missile sites. The US will also target Iran’s nuclear facilities, but the primary target will be Iran’s conventional missiles. The US will be doing Israel’s bidding. The Zionist tail will be wagging the servile US dog.

Obviously, you can’t generate public support for such a bombing campaign, on Israel’s behalf. Hence the cover story about nukes and the alleged Iranian threat to wipe Israel off the map, all of which is untrue but very effective propaganda nonetheless.

The problem for the US is that depriving Iran of its conventional deterrent will not be easy to accomplish. Indeed, it will be even more difficult than taking out all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran’s conventionalmissiles are probably dispersed widely. If they come under attack, the purpose of the air campaign will be transparently obvious to the Iranian leadership. Faced with the prospect of losing their deterrent, the Mullahs may well decide to fire their conventional missiles. If they do and manage some direct hits on Israel’s nuclear-bio-and chemical weapons stockpiles, the ensuing disaster will prompt an Israeli response. Israel may even resort to the Samson Option, and attack Iran with nukes. Words cannot describe the horrific scale of such an outcome. Unfortunately, it is all too possible.

Early in the war, US naval  forces in the Gulf will also come under attack. No mistake, Iran has enough anti-ship cruise missiles to pose a grave threat to the US naval presence in the Gulf. Thousands of US sailors are now in harm’s way, and at risk.

We must rally to prevent such a war. Peace activists must now marshal every asset for peace that we possess. The American people need to know the truth. This is a phony crisis. Yet the danger is very real. Now is the time to speak out with all of our strength. Tomorrow could come too late.

Mark H Gaffney’s forthcoming book, Black 9/11, will be released soon by Trineday Press. It can be ordered at www.trineday.com