Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Say It Ain't So

This demonstrates an incredibly bad sense of timing:

Israel is looking to a U.S.-India nuclear deal to expand its own ties to suppliers, quietly lobbying for an exemption to non-proliferation rules so it can legally import atomic material, according to documents made available Tuesday to The Associated Press.

And this might go down as the understatement of the year: 

But Daryl Kimball, an analyst and executive director of the Arms Control Association, said that - even if unsuccessful - any attempt by Israel to move closer to nations exporting sensitive nuclear technology and material that could potentially be turned into fissile material for warheads would alarm many in the Middle East.

"There is a great deal of tensions between non-nuclear (Arab) weapons states and Israel, and the mere existence of this proposal would exacerbate ... the Middle East situation," he said from Washington.

A lot of people pointed to the US-India deal as a blow against the non-proliferation regime. But I think they were primarily worried about how rogue states might try to exploit the inconsistencies (read: hypocrisy) involved. Now with the ink hardly dry on the as yet unratified deal, Israel is willing to dramatically reduce the level of "ambiguity" in its nuclear status to jump on board the gravy train.

To paraphrase the old Chris Rock routine, I ain't sayin' Ahmadinejad should get nuclear weapons... But I unner-stan'. 

Posted by Judah in:  The Middle East   

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