As US and Israeli bombs and missiles rained on Iranian cities and nuclear facilities, the justification they offered was both familiar and revealing: Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon. The military action, sanctions, assassinations and flagrant violation of international law were all ‘necessary to prevent a future nuclear threat’.

The US claims to defend the global non-proliferation regime, yet it has spent decades shielding West Asia’s only nuclear-armed state — Israel. The same Western governments that condemn Iran’s nuclear ambitions have tolerated, financed and concealed Israel’s clandestine nuclear arsenal. If Iran can’t have nuclear weapons, how is it okay for Israel to have them?

Iran remains a threshold nuclear state. Despite decades of suspicion and hostility, US intelligence assessments have repeatedly concluded that Iran has not made a political decision to build a nuclear bomb. It possesses the technological capability to do so, but capability is not the same as possession. More recent US intelligence assessments have again concluded that Iran has still not embarked on the project to get nuclear weapons. Yet it is Iran that faces bombing campaigns, economic strangulation, cyber warfare, sabotage operations and targeted killings of scientists.

On the other hand, it is universally known and quietly acknowledged that Israel possesses nuclear weapons. Estimates place its nuclear arsenal at around 90 warheads, with sufficient fissile material to build many more.

Israel never signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It does not permit international inspections of its nuclear facilities. It has never publicly admitted that it possesses nuclear weapons, yet........

© National Herald