North Korea exploded one nuclear device and is reportedly
working on a second test. Iran is working furiously to
construct an atomic bomb. Mohammed El Baradei, the head of
the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that as many
as 30 countries may have technology that would let them
produce atomic weapons "in a very short time."
Israel has always singled out Iran because of the threat it
poses to Israel and to the entire world with its extreme
Shiite ideas and advanced technology.
Israel has recently regarded Iran as its gravest existential
threat. This has intensified with the rise of its current
leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has made a series of
irresponsible and inflammatory statements, including denying
the historical facts of the German Holocaust and calling for
Israel's destruction.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during his speech at the
opening of the Knesset's winter session last Monday, that the
"Lebanon campaign" underlined the threat a nuclear Iran would
pose for the "region and the entire free world."
"Iran is deceiving the international community," he said. "It
is dragging its feet and trying to buy time to complete its
dangerous nuclear program. The Iranian threat is an
existential threat to Israel; it is an existential threat to
world peace."
Olmert said Israel was cooperating with the international
community in trying to stop the threat and that the matter
would be at the center of talks he would hold in Moscow with
Russian President Vladimir Putin this week and in Washington
with US President George W. Bush next month.
Olmert said the international community was now at a
"historic crossroads" and must prevent Iran from gaining
nuclear capability.
Olmert said recent events in North Korea illustrated the
danger when "irresponsible and reckless regimes acquire
nonconventional weapons for the purpose of threatening world
peace." The Iranians were watching how the international
community would deal with North Korea, and would draw
conclusions, he said.
"The international community must be determined, clear and
unequivocal in its actions," Olmert said. "There is no room
for hesitancy, no room for compromise and no room for games.
Determination and firmness is the only way to eradicate this
danger to the world."
Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of the IDF Intelligence
Directorate's research department, said that Iran saw that
the West was having difficulty building a coalition in favor
of sanctions, and believed that "they have more time to play
with."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the
European Union would endorse efforts to pursue sanctions
against Iran while keeping the door open to future
negotiations to resolve the nuclear standoff with Teheran.
EU foreign ministers planned to discuss Iran's nuclear
program in talks this week.
El Baradei said that more and more nations were "hedging
their bets" by developing technology that is at the core of
peaceful nuclear energy programs but could quickly be
switched to making weapons. He called these states "virtual
new weapons states."
It is conjectured that North Korea's recent nuclear test and
Iran's defiance of a UN Security Council demand that it
suspend uranium enrichment could spark a new arms race,
particularly among Asian and Middle Eastern states that feel
threatened either militarily or competitively.
Other nations, including Brazil, Australia, Argentina and
South Africa, have recently announced that they are
considering developing enrichment programs to be able to sell
fuel to states that want to generate electricity with nuclear
reactors.
Canada, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Taiwan, Spain,
Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania either
have the means to produce weapons-grade uranium, could
quickly build such technology or could use plutonium waste
for weapons. All are committed nonnuclear weapons states, and
no one has suggested they want to use their programs for
arms.
Japan also said it had no plans to develop atomic weapons,
but it could make them at short notice by processing tons of
plutonium left over from running its nuclear reactors. South
Korea also has spent reactor fuel and was found a few years
ago to have conducted small-scale secret experiments on
making highly enriched uranium that would be usable in
warheads.
Other countries considering developing nuclear programs in
the near future are Egypt, Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia,
Jordan, Namibia, Moldova, Nigeria, Poland, Thailand, Turkey,
Vietnam and Yemen, UN officials said.
There are five formally declared nuclear weapons states: the
United States, Russia, China, France and Britain. Three
others have publicly declared that they have such arms:
India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel is thought to have
nuclear weapons but has never announced it.
