Herbert Zweibon

As Iran's possession of nuclear weapons looms ever closer, the threat these weapons pose to Israel has received much attention. Those who attended AFSI's national conference on December 5 heard Professor Louis Rene Beres describe the Daniel Project, a group of privately funded experts who concluded that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a "rational" enemy (not an irrational nonstate enemy) were the single most urgent threat to Israel's survival. Iran clearly fits that bill.

But the threat is not limited to Israel. In November 1990 I wrote an editorial in Outpost entitled "What's Really at Stake in Iraq." At that time the first President Bush was declaring Saddam Hussein's seizure of Kuwait would not stand, but it was still not clear if appeasement or war would follow. I pointed out that the critical issue was whether the West could accept Iraqi hegemony over the Gulf and surrounding countries.

At that time the threat was of military action combined with political intimidation. If Saddam was able to maintain his grip over Kuwait and then, at his leisure, take the oil fields of northeastern Saudi Arabia, his power over the rest of the Gulf would be assured -- whether or not he actually seized more territory. The rest of the Saudi kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar would not dare to challenge Saddam's will. Jordan and Syria would have had little choice but to acknowledge the leadership of the new self-styled Arab Saladin. Saddam Hussein would have thus controlled much of the world's oil supply, most of the land mass of the Arabian peninsula and a huge military, measured in both men and materiel. In short order -- when he invaded Kuwait, Saddam was close to achieving his nuclear dreams -- Saddam's Iraq, as a power boasting nuclear weapons, would have been untouchable by the West.

In the event, President Bush, backed by a broad coalition, crushed Saddam's forces in Kuwait, and this nightmare scenario was avoided. But a similar scenario now looms in the case of Iran. A nuclear armed Iran would have no need to invade its neighbors; as a Wall Street Journal editorial (Nov. 22) points out, Iran would become the dominant regional power, "its influence spreading wide in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the Caspian and the Gulf." In the case of Iraq, even now the U.S. is worried about the potential political influence of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy on its Shi'ite-majority neighbor.

Control of the Middle East oil spigot. The credible threat to unleash nuclear devastation on Israel or another target of the ayatollahs’ wrath. Possible transmission of nuclear devices to terror organizations like the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. These are threats so severe that the United States can ill afford to rest content with the European dance with Iran. As the Wall Street Journal editorial points out, the Europeans are engaged in a diplomatic charade, seeing Iran's emergence as a nuclear power as inevitable and something "that will have to be managed."

If President Bush acquiesces in the negotiating charade, he will be turning his back on his promise that the world's most dangerous regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's most dangerous weapons. The temptation to "leave it to the Europeans" and hope for the best is understandable, given the difficulties the U.S. experiences in Iraq. But as William Buckley has pointed out (National Review online, Dec. 7) Iran "is a concern that shoves Iraq to one side, because nuclear weapons close off alternatives and trade in a million deaths. That challenge has to occupy the American strategic imagination...It is one thing to endorse and encourage ongoing military efforts in Iraq, another to permit, based on what happens there, an impotent fatalism about the nuclear question, a fatalism already visible in our half-dealings with North Korea and Iran."

Herbert Zweibon is the Chairman of American for a Safe Israel