AMMAN, 9 October 2003 — A highly distinguished and carefully selected team of American scientists has just concluded an important mission in Iraq. The declared objective was to find Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But hidden within such a declaration was the hope of unearthing a pretext for a calamitous war on Iraq that has cost billions of dollars and the lives of thousands.
Shortly after David Kay, who headed the scientific mission to Baghdad, briefed the US Senate and House of Representatives of his findings — or lack of — a declassified version of his report was released. Not only were no weapons found in Iraq, but the former Iraqi government, according to Kay, had no capacity to produce chemical warfare agents before the war. So much for the British government’s scare campaign alleging Iraq’s readiness to launch an attack within 45 minutes of receiving the order.
But as if the war party’s lack of sense was not enough, the response to Kay’s report has displayed an even greater lack of shame.
US President George Bush continued to defy common sense. “This administration will deal with gathering dangers where we find them.” Although the ambiguity, albeit arrogance of Bush’s words warrants no comment, they certainly raise an important subject. If what genuinely concerns Bush is “gathering dangers,” then why not go after the big guns who, in fact, do possess such weapons — for example, Israel. Of course, most readers, whether opponents or proponents of US foreign policy understand the irony, needless to say, and the impossibility of such a step. And that is because deep within, most of us are convinced that US foreign policy doesn’t follow a moral code, rather an immoral, imperial and self-sustaining ideology aimed only at rewarding its followers and crudely punishing its opponents.
Those who fall into the latter group understand well. One is Nelson Mandela. In an interview with Newsweek in September, Mandela raised a seemingly simple concern. He introduced that concern by stating that Bush’s objectives behind the war were motivated by the president’s desire to “please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America.” Then, he added, “But what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody mentions that.” At the time of Mandela’s statement, some people still believed that Iraq also possessed such weapons. Kay has just told us in his report that no weapons have been found. But Kay’s report, or any other for that matter, leaves intact the solid and palpable fact that Israel does indeed possess weapons of mass destruction.
Israel’s possession of such weapons is so well known a fact that it has been dubbed “the world’s most well-known secret.” In a BBC report, aired first in March and then in June 2003, the host begins by asking, “Which country in the Middle East has undeclared nuclear weapons? Which country in the Middle East has no outside inspections? Which country jailed its nuclear whistleblower for 18 years?” This dramatic introduction was followed by an enlarged title page: “ISRAEL’S SECRET WEAPON.”
Israel’s refusal to approve the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in addition to strong evidence that the Jewish state possesses up to 300 nuclear warheads and the Arab League’s most recent assertion to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Israel now has the capability to produce a hydrogen bomb, are still not enough to convince the United States and its war “coalition” that Iran and Iraq aren’t the real “imminent” danger. Those presently in power in the West seem little concerned with logic and rationale when one of its members is the wrongdoer. Aside from that, it makes perfect sense for Bush, Blair and Howard to chase after the phantoms of Iraq’s alleged weapons, leaving no stone near Baghdad unturned while Israel, unreprimanded and assisted, amasses and stores an abundance of banned weapons. While the rational response to Israel is a demand to allow unhindered access to weapons inspectors and unconditional signing of the NPT, the exact opposite is taking place. The IAEA is ambushing Iran, which is a potential war target for the US, demanding “full disclosure” of Iran’s nuclear program. The agency has set Oct. 31 as a “decisive” and “non-negotiable” deadline.
In the United States, in a mid-September press conference, White House spokesman Scott McClellan beat the drums of war once more when he threatened to hold Syria “accountable” if it doesn’t cease harboring terrorists (or simply giving a safe haven to anti-Israeli Palestinian factions which merely operate politically in Damascus). McClellan’s threat “coincided” with a more blatant threat by John Bolton, the US undersecretary of state for arms and control and international security, when he briefed a Congressional Committee regarding Syria, saying, “In short, if the language of persuasion fails, these states (starting with Syria) must see and feel the logic of adverse consequences.” Of course, Israel is not one of “these states.”
Israel of course has its own, time-honored method of responding to nit-picking media reports, like that of the BBC. Israel officially declared a boycott of the company. The production or use of weapons of mass destruction should be vehemently rejected, regardless of any rationalization. When a nuclear bomb is dropped or when nerve gas is used, neither the identity of the attacker nor the victim should be of any consequence. Equally, we should give no sympathy to whether the pilot dropping the bomb is a citizen of a democratically elected government or carrying out the orders of a religious scholar. No one should be allowed to produce or hold these agents of death — not Iran, not India and certainly not Israel.
One can make the case that if one or more Middle Eastern countries are indeed pondering obtaining weapons of mass destruction, it is in part, because of the fear that its lack of the same might place it on the list of most vulnerable countries.
It is not easy to scold or mistreat a government with a functioning nuclear weapons system. The Pakistani response to India’s weaponry and the North Korean admission of possessing such weapons are all cases in point.
By granting Israel the right to produce weapons that can be used for one purpose only — mass murder — and then demanding Iran to eliminate even the desire to produce them is the ultimate hypocrisy. In the past, many of Israel’s actions were justified on the basis of the racist premise of Israel’s progressiveness and the alleged Arab backwardness. The right to commit mass murder should not be justified by a similar premise, not by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how racist such an imagination may be.
— Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian-American journalist and editor in chief of The Palestine Chronicle online newspaper.
