Nuclear Terror!

Clearly, the first and foremost objective of the Nuclear Security Summit, called by American President Barack Obama and scheduled to wrap up its activities on April 13, 2010, is to prevent terrorist groups from possessing nuclear weapons. Washington believes that this, if it occurs, could be a dangerous menace to international security. That is why he sought to oblige the leaders of the 47 participating countries to prevent such a situation.

And to be right about this, Washington is right about its attitude. That is because, if terrorists manage to have nuclear weapons, they will really be a threat to all countries of the world, the largest and smallest of them. Also, terrorist groups are not as responsible as countries themselves. And, since the U.S. used nuclear weapons against Japan in WWII with the intent of testing them, it is not unlikely that terrorists would use these weapons to achieve certain goals, or against those they deemed to be enemies or otherwise deserving of being annihilated by any means available.

However, it has been well established that the only way to protect the world against the abuse of these weapons is to eradicate them. And if this is currently difficult to achieve, especially in the shadow of the great powers’ acquisition of titanic arsenals of nuclear weapons, attention must be paid to evacuating nuclear weapons from the Middle East. This is due to the fact that this very region is where these terrorist groups, nagging the world and destabilizing its security, were bred. Moreover, those terrorists use many Middle Eastern places as shelters and starting bases for their terrorist deeds all over the world.

Additionally, the Middle East is situated to be a place for a renewed race of nuclear arms acquisition due to Israel’s development of its arsenal, which ranks it the sixth nuclear power in the world with respect to the amount of nuclear weapons in its possession. Also, Iranians aspire to have the know-how and technology of nuclear arms. Accordingly, this would spur other states in the region to seriously consider the development of nuclear weapons so as to be able to face Israel (now) and Iran (later).

Because of this, America should take care to make the Middle East region clear of nuclear weapons and not to exert efforts to avoid discussing this issue at the Nuclear Security Summit. Indeed, the U.S. needs to take into account the studied and continuous Egyptian calls to evacuate the Middle East of nuclear weapons, in addition to any other WMD.

It would not suffice for Washington to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons or even obtaining the know-how and technology of the industry. At the same time, America must not blink at Israel’s nuclear arsenal. It has to put aside all the silly claims of Israel’s being a democratic country, unlike Iran, and that, therefore, it would not be dangerous for Israel to develop its nuclear weapons. So, was America a democracy when it struck Nagasaki and Hiroshima with atomic bombs?

In summary, in order to guarantee that terrorists will not possess any nuclear weapons, our region must be evacuated of these weapons, with Iran and Israel on an equal footing.