ON Friday at the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, the West threw away a real opportunity to inject fairness and balance into the issue of nuclear weapons. It passed up this golden chance when it stymied an Arab initiative to have Israel’s atomic arsenal taken into consideration, while Washington blusters and saber-rattles in an attempt to have the UN punish Iran over its alleged weapons program. The motion by Arab delegations was blocked by a Canadian counterproposal that no action should be taken against Israel. This deplorable abrogation of the IAEA’s responsibilities was carried by 45 votes to 29. The Canadians were clearly acting at the prompting of the Americans and the decision by the Ottawa government demonstrates how far Canada has now moved from its longtime international role as a fair-minded peace broker and mediator.

There seemed little understanding of just how angry the Arab world still is over the parlous failure of the Security Council to censure immediately the invasion of a sovereign state, the airborne slaughter and maiming of thousands of its citizens and the detailed and catastrophic destruction of its infrastructure. As Syria’s IAEA delegate Ibrahim Othma commented so eloquently: “The Western blocking maneuver is astonishing when innocent blood has not yet dried in Lebanon”.

To have voted to include Israel’s nuclear weaponry, estimated at up to 200 warheads, within the IAEA’s focus on the Middle East would have gone some way toward redressing the gross imbalance in the Western approach between Israel and the rest of the region. It would have been a clear signal that the highly partial and blinkered policies of the US did not entirely hold sway in this most important of international organizations and its key agencies.

It would also have faced the truth. The nuclear threat from Israel is all too real. The threat from Iran is still at the most an intention and may not even be that. However if Iran is actually intent on acquiring its own arsenal, it is in large measure because the West has allowed Israel to amass such a destructive nuclear stockpile as to pose a regional threat to its non-aligned neighbors. Unlike Iran, Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaties and could continue to ignore world opinion. But had the IAEA backed the Arab motion, the main effect would have been to add Israel’s nuclear weapons to all the other issues that must be settled before the region can look to a lasting peace.

Putting Israel onto the IAEA’s agenda could have transformed the whole question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But once again prompted by the ignorant and bigoted Bush White House, the opportunity for constructive rather than destructive action has been squandered. Those who voted the Washington line may have committed a tragic error. Hardly less blameworthy are those countries, including delegates from Russia and India, both major nuclear power players with nuclear weapons meant to serve as deterrents, who decided to abstain. There were 19 of them. Had they backed the Arab initiative, it would have been carried.