In defence of his
decision to launch a series of attacks on Iran, Israel’s Prime Minister has
said that, by preventing Iran from ever possessing nuclear weapons, he is acting
not only in the interests of Israel, but also in the interests of the world as
a whole. There’s an obvious attraction in that statement: the world would
indeed be a better place if a deranged old man who is crazy enough to use such a weapon is prevented from having access to one. There
is a certain flaw in the logic, though: Khamenei isn’t the only leader of a
state for whom the description ‘deranged old man who is crazy enough to use
such a weapon’ might be appropriate. And they are not all orange-hued either.
Indeed, there’s even a reasonable argument that words like ‘deranged’ and ‘crazy’
could legitimately be applied to anyone who even wants to possess such weapons,
let alone solemnly announces a willingness to use them, as Sir Keir Warmonger
has done in the past.
Even if we disregard
such caveats and accept the basic truth that a nuclear-armed Iran is generally
not a brilliant idea, on what basis should an individual state – especially one
which is itself widely believed to have illegally developed its own nuclear
weapons, and which (unlike Iran) refuses either to sign the non-proliferation
treaty or to allow inspections of nuclear facilities – be free to decide to act
unilaterally? Whilst the theoretical answer might reference international law
and treaties, the de facto answer is much simpler – whenever the US government sees
fit to allow it. It’s not much of a basis on which to build a peaceful rules-based
world, and underlines humanity’s collective failure to find a way of living
together on a shared planet. And, whilst Netanyahu couches his justification in
terms of acting on behalf of the world, most observers suspect that it has more
to do with his own political survival. Venality usually seems to trump
humanity.
Leaving all of that
aside, and abandoning principle for practical efficacy, the biggest question is
the simplest of all: will it have the desired effect? On that, there is no
consensus. For every ‘expert’ who claims that it will set Iran’s nuclear
programme back years and deter it from ever seeking a nuclear bomb in the
future, there is another who claims it will actually accelerate Iran’s progress
in that regard, by encouraging a belief that only the possession of, and threat
to use, an atom bomb will deter Israel (or anyone else) from attacking again. I
don’t even pretend to know which analysis is correct; worse still, I don’t
believe that anyone else ‘knows’ the answer to that question either. It’s all
opinion and conjecture. The more certain someone is about the answer, the less I trust their judgement. What I am certain of is that the outcome of a
unilateral action will be significant way beyond the boundaries of the state
undertaking it, for people and countries given no input into the decision.
Even if Netanyahu’s opinion
of the effect on Iran turns out, with the benefit of hindsight some years from
now, to have been correct, it cannot be acceptable for one leader of one
country to imperil so many with no input from those who might be affected. For
that reason alone, Israel deserves to be sanctioned by the rest of the world,
but the chances of that happening are vanishingly small. Humankind still has a
long way to go to achieve real civilisation.
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