As Iran races to acquire nuclear weapons, Team Obama has latched onto a — shall we say? — interesting response: nudging Israel, America’s most reliable Middle East ally, to give up its nukes.
Interesting — and extremely dangerous.
Speaking at a UN meeting Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller called on the Jewish state, among other countries, to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. She said this was “a fundamental objective of the United States.”
Now, the NPT limits possession of nuclear weapons to the US, Russia, Britain, France and China. So pressing Israel to sign on is, in effect, pushing it to give up its nukes.
Which would be a big mistake — for Israel, America and, indeed, much of the West. So big, in fact, that it’s hard to imagine Jerusalem would ever agree to it — though calling attention to Israel’s nukes could well stir fresh anti-Israel animosity and, perhaps, even violence.
Israel, to be sure, has never officially acknowledged that it possesses nuclear arms. But it’s an open secret that it maintains up to 200 nukes — which it uses to deter large-scale attacks from its many lethal enemies in the region.
No US president, Republican or Democrat, has ever seriously pushed the Jewish state to give them up.
Again, forcing Israel to sign the NPT would require it not just to acknowledge its arsenal, but to scrap it — even as Iran continues to move forward with its nuclear-weapons program.
Tehran has long complained of a US “double standard” when it comes to WMDs in the Middle East. Now, with Obama looking to engage Iran, Washington may be willing to push for a regional tradeoff: no weapons for either nation.
But here’s the difference: Israel can be relied on never to use its arsenal for anything but deterrence or self-defense. But without nukes, Israel — and the West — will lose a key strategic deterrent.
Iran, by contrast, openly threatens Israel with destruction and sponsors global terror, including against US troops in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Iran is already an NPT signatory, not that it matters.
‘Obama & Co. may be desperate for new diplomatic tools in the Middle East.
But pushing to strip Israel of its nuclear deterrent shouldn’t be one of them.