Photograph Source: MSC / Preiss – CC BY 3.0 de
An angry argument is currently raging over the extent of the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear capabilities by the American attacks on Iran’s three principal declared nuclear sites.
While the argument is relevant, the reality is not.
It is now widely accepted that Iraq’s alleged possession of nuclear weapons was the excuse, not the reason, for the Israeli/American desire to destroy Iraq.
It should also be obvious than Iran’s alleged aspiration to develop and possess nuclear weapons is the excuse, not the reason, for the Israeli/American desire to destroy Iran.
If such an alleged nuclear weapons aspiration were a genuine Israeli concern, Prime Minister Netanyahu would not have opposed the negotiation of the JCPOA and would not have pressured President Trump to withdraw from and effectively negate it during his first administration.
The reason why Israel opposed the JCPOA is that it removed any alleged “Iranian nuclear threat” and hence deprived Israel of any excuse to attack and seek to destroy Iran.
In this context, continuing Israeli/American insistence that Iran’s nuclear capabilities have been obliterated, whether true or exaggerated, should deprive Israel and the United States, at least in the near term, of any excuse for resuming their effort to destroy Iran.
It is therefore in the best interests of the region and the world that the Israeli and American claims are maintained and are not definitively debunked by any contradictory facts.
After the effective neuterings of Egypt and Jordan (with the consent of their governments) and of Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Syria (by violence and successful regime change wars), Iran is clearly perceived by the Israeli and American governments as the only regional state still standing which might threaten an effective response and resistance to the long sought and increasingly open objective of the Zionist project in Palestine — a Palestine without Palestinians.
From a Zionist perspective, the last obstacle to achieving this objective, Iran, must be destroyed or, at least, neutered like the other regional states.
If Trump and Netanyahu maintain their claims of having achieved a great military success that has eliminated the alleged “Iranian nuclear threat” for many years or even decades, one may hope that they will cease to hold power before they can launch a new effort to destroy or neuter Iran and that, ideally because of positive developments in Palestine, their successors may no longer see any need to do so.
John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer.