- There's a logic to these things. Muammar Gadafy, growing
older, and his isolated Libya, growing poorer, were getting nothing worthwhile
from the atomic bomb they hadn't built yet or chemicals they had scant
residual use for. Logic - and common sense - meant changing tack. Good
for logic. But logic doesn't stop there.
-
- What next? If weapons of mass destruction are a menace
in unstable regions such as the Middle East, if their availability must
be reduced, then logic begins to move us closer to the confrontation we
never seek with the nuclear power we - let alone Messrs Bush and Blair
- seldom mention: Israel.
-
- Nobody, including the Knesset, quite knows what happens
inside the Dimona complex, but if you put together a compote of usually
reliable sources (the Federation of American Scientists, Jane's Intelligence
Review, the Stockholm Institute), a tolerably clear picture emerges. Ariel
Sharon probably has more than 200 nuclear warheads this morning - more
if the 17 years since Mordechai Vanunu's kidnapping have been devoted to
building stockpiles.
-
- That makes Israel the world's fifth largest nuclear power,
boasting more bangs from Washington's bucks than Blair's Britain. And over
in the other WMD basket, nobody much dissents when a report by the office
of technology assessment for the US Congress concludes that Israel has
"undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities" and is "generally
reported as having an undeclared offensive biological warfare programme".
Bombs, missiles, delivery systems, gases, germs? Tel Aviv has the lot.
We only forget to remember because it's not a suitable subject for polite
diplomatic conversation.
-
- Logic, in the old days, didn't trouble too much about
that. It saw a state of Israel surrounded by many potential foes who denied
its right to exist. It saw such enemies initiate research of their own.
It saw too many wars, bitterly fought. It watched the Soviet Union, with
warheads to spare, cruising continually in these troubled waters. It was
prepared to turn a blind eye and to button its lip.
-
- Come back today for a reality check, though. Saddam's
Iraq is a wrecked rat trap. The weapons of mass destruction Gadafy sought
are no more, no threat. Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt? Nothing to
say, nothing to show. You can, if you wish, be concerned about Syria's
chemical weapons facilities - and you can reasonably worry about a nuclear
Iran, even though Tehran took a decisive step back towards international
acceptability last week. But Moscow is out of the action, and the whole
dynamic of Middle East danger has changed. Logic comes knocking at Sharon's
door.
-
- He faces problems, of course: problems of intractable
politics and Palestinian suicide bombers. But he can't nuke Gaza or gas
Bethlehem. His WMD are useless in any battle for hearts and minds - as
practically useless as Gadafy has just deemed them to be. So why keep Dimona
and the biological research centre at Nes Ziona out of any equation? Why
pretend that they don't exist?
-
- The formal logic of defence is threat, counter-threat.
Sit in Tehran and look east - at China, India and Pakistan, with their
bombs; look west, and there sits Israel. It is natural, in logic, that
Iran consider its own deterrent. It will require a deal of understanding
engagement - and guarantees - to close off that path. But such guarantees
are possible in the age of the world's only superpower. There is every
reason to talk frankly about Israel's bomb, just as the Syrians could be
closely involved in dismantling chemical stockpiles if only we could find
the right language to start.
-
- What, after all, is the current western fear? Of terrorism,
rogue states, of more 9/11s. That's why Geoff Hoon's latest defence review
moves out of heavy tanks and battleships. It adjusts to what it calls the
new realities of flexibility and intelligence. Even Gadafy seems to have
noticed. Why not mention them to Sharon?
-
- An Israel bristling with nuclear hardware it cannot talk
about and chemical horrors it could negotiate away does not make itself,
or the world, any safer. On the contrary, it makes a hypocritical farce
of too much Washington bargaining, buries too many initiatives deep down
Hypocrisy Gulch and gives rogue groupings in ex-rogue states every reason
to carry on developing, stealing or buying the devices that keep Mr Blair
awake at night.
-
- Does Tel Aviv see that connection? Does it want to bring
a whole region in from the cold? Such things are becoming possible. But
first we need the honesty to follow where logic leads; and begin to talk
about them.
-
- <mailto:"p.preston@guardian.co.uk">p.preston@guardian.co.uk
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2003
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