Israel 'has plan for nuclear strike on Iran'

According to the Sunday Times the Israelis are planning to use low-yield nuclear weapons to attack Iran's uranium enrichment facilities.

Under the plans conventional laser-guided bombs would open tunnels into the targets and then mini nuclear weapons would be fired, exploding deep underground. The nuclear-tipped, bunker-busting bombs would only be used if a conventional attack was ineffective, or if the US, which also wants to halt Iran's nuclear programme, fails to act. The leaking of the "plans" may well be designed to apply pressure on the US.

However, unspoken in all of this is the fact that Israel herself possesses nuclear weapons and is not a signatory to the Nuclear non-proliferation Treaty. Iran is a signatory and, under the Treaty, is allowed to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, which is what Iran insists she is doing.

Of course, the hypocrisy of Israel using nuclear tipped weapons, which she has yet to publicly admit she possesses, in order to prevent another nation from acquiring nuclear weapons is startlingly obvious.

Our entire approach to the Nuclear non-proliferation Treaty seems to be fuelled - not by a desire to ensure a nuclear free world - as much as a wish to ensure our nuclear dominance over other nations.

We cannot be surprised that other nations find this current situation unacceptable.

Until we prove that we are serious about living up to our commitments under the Treaty - and Bush's plans for new bunker busting nuclear weapons and Blair's recommissioning of Trident imply that we are not - then we will always come to this argument as hypocrites who demand others do as we say rather than as we do.

And that hypocrisy is applicable to Israel as well. She is condemning Iran for wanting weapons that Israel will not even admit to possessing.

This weaponry is either allowed or it is not, we can't have it both ways.

There is a hint of cultural superiority here, a notion that we are civilised enough to responsibly handle certain weapons that other nations are simply not advanced enough to be trusted with.

You can twist that argument in a thousand different directions, but - at it's core - it's an argument that is based on racism. And it's not one that I could ever bring myself to defend.

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tag: Israel, Iran, non-proliferation Treaty, Ahmadinejad