Israeli Nuclear Arsenal Survives NPT Conference

By Frank Collins

The New York conference which unconditionally and permanently renewed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in May was a complete victory for the U.S. strategy of indefinitely postponing action on nuclear disarmament. In spite of voluntary cutbacks of the overblown stockpiles of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, initiated independently of the NPT, in all other respects the status quo continues. Israel's nuclear arsenal remains completely undisturbed although it was challenged by Egypt and other Middle East countries at the NPT conference.

The speeches and corridor discussions at the conference revealed a considerable reservoir of dissatisfaction among the non-nuclear countries with the present status quo. The declared nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France) have unlimited rights to develop and manufacture nuclear weapons, while the remaining countries that are signatories of the NPT are denied possession of nuclear weapons and are subject to inspection of their "peaceful atom" activities. Yet such is the balance of political and economic power in the world that the Nuclear Five were able to marshall at the outset the support of a majority of the NPT signatories for the unconditional permanent extension of the NPT, thus ensuring the preservation of the status quo.

The United States was the chief protagonist for the unconditional and permanent extension of the NPT. The visits of U.S. Ambassador Thomas Graham to 40 countries last year to pressure them to support the American position obviously were successful.

The close collaboration between the administration of President Bill Clinton and the government of Israel meant that the Israeli nuclear weapons stockpile was never seriously called into question. Egypt and 13 other Arab countries did introduce a draft resolution which called on "Israel to accede without delay to the NPT and to place all its nuclear activities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards," and for all states in the region to take practical steps toward establishing a Middle East zone free of all weapons of mass destruction.

The draft resolution provoked heavy U.S. pressure for alteration of its terms. In the subsequent consultations, references to Israel were dropped and replaced by language calling on all states in the region to accede to the NPT and to place their unsafeguarded nuclear facilities under full-scope IAEA safeguards.

Israel, of course, is the only country in the region having nuclear facilities. Instead of acknowledging this, however, a statement added to the draft resolution "endorses the aims and objectives of the Middle East peace process and recognizes that efforts in this regard, as well as other efforts, contribute, inter alia, to a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons as well as other weapons of mass destruction."

For all intents and purposes, Israel has joined the Nuclear Five.

These changes in the draft resolution, as well as the manner in which the consultations were carried out, caused Egypt and the other Arab sponsors to drop out. They were replaced as sponsors of the resolution by the U.S., the U.K. and Russia.

Thus, in the final resolutions of the conference, the very existence of Israel's nuclear stockpile was never acknowledged officially. This is because an open admission by the United States of the existence of the Israeli nuclear program would raise the question of invoking the Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act. This amendment forbids extension of U.S. military aid to countries illicitly acquiring nuclear weapons.

Besides Israel, India and Pakistan also are believed to be undeclared nuclear powers and, like Israel, they are not signatories of the NPT. There is, however, a practical difference. China, India and Pakistan form a regional nuclear triangle conferring on the group a complementary deterrence much like that of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War.

Israel, however, is the sole nuclear power in the Middle East. It therefore is free to threaten, overtly or by implication, any or all other Middle East countries with total destruction without possibility of their retaliation.

Most experts believe that Israel's nuclear stockpile now contains 200 to 300 warheads and that it includes hydrogen bombs a hundred times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thus this arsenal is capable of destroying all major cities in the Middle East several times over. The rationale for this degree of overkill is difficult to fathom. The fact that the Dimona nuclear facility is financed by the Israeli military, who never are asked for an accounting of how they spend U.S. military aid, removes economic pressure toward a more modest nuclear weapons program. For all intents and purposes, Israel has joined the Nuclear Five. It has a number of warheads in the range of those possessed by China and Britain and, like the Nuclear Five, it is not subject to inspection by the IAEA.

Threatened Neighbors

Given the history of Middle Eastern hostilities, including such events as the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel and its continuing occupation of the southern border zone of Lebanon, it is understandable that the Middle East countries feel threatened by Israel's nuclear potential.

Their reactions to the existential dangers posed by Israel's nuclear capabilities contrast with Israeli and U.S. near-hysteria about Iran's acquisition of two light-water reactors from Russia. The circumstantial evidence produced by the United States that Iran is plotting to acquire nuclear weapons has been too ill-substantiated to convince even America's closest allies to take steps against Iran, even though they presumably have been shown the U.S. intelligence data.

The U.S. secretary of defense was quoted by the Jerusalem Post on Jan. 10, 1995 as saying that Iran would require 7 to 15 years to develop nuclear weapons capability, but that this time might be shortened if Iran obtained vital materials. In any case, the development of nuclear weapons by the Iranians would have to be done under the nose of the IAEA, which has greatly strengthened its verification procedures since its 1991 fiasco over Iraq's hidden program. Finally, the actions of Iran and Russia are in full accord with Article IV of the NPT which provides for "the inalienable right of all parties to develop research and production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination."

The "high moral ground" taken by the U.S. ban on trade with Iran, which no other nation has seen reason to take action to support, was clearly the result of heavy lobbying by Israel of the Clinton administration and the U.S. Congress.

According to reports in Israel's Hebrew-language press a year ago, the Israeli government, having declared Iran to be public enemy number one, was fuming over the U.S. government's initial disinclination to take further measures against the Iranian government. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and other Israeli leaders lost no time in lobbying both the Clinton administration and the U.S. Congress concerning the need for such measures, particularly steps related to its nuclear program.

Following this, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato, one of Israel's strongest Republican supporters, led a campaign in Congress for even more restrictive measures on Iran than a simple ban on trade. Evidently President Clinton feared a protracted congressional battle and proclaimed a trade embargo by executive order. Normally, an important executive order will be announced at a White House press conferernce. But the president timed the order on the trade ban for his announcement of it at the New York meeting of the World Jewish Congress, where it received an ovation.

Frank Collins is a regular contributor to the Washington Report.