Ledger Editorial Archives

The threat of Iran

A recent news story from Israel’s Artuz Sheva News Service tells us that Saudi Arabia has given Israel the green light to attack Iran’s nascent nuclear program. They sourced the story to Israel’s Meir Dagan, Mossad’s chief of staff.

We don’t know how true the story is, but it certainly is reasonable. In fact, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton is quoted in the same article as saying that this kind of cooperation between the Saudis and Israelis would make eminent good sense.

What is really hard to believe is that the U.S. has not joined the chorus of approval for Israel to move forward and more surprising is that the U.S. is not supplying whatever Israel needs to get it done. What the Saudis realize and the Obama Administration refuses to recognize is that if Israel is within range of Iranian nuclear rockets, then so too are the Saudi’s Gowahr oil fields, home of the largest, most usable low cost oil in the world. About 12 percent of the world’s supply comes from that area now.

The Obama Administration seems a bit slow in understanding this, but we’d point out that Iran would, with a nuclear capability, be able to light up those oil fields and make 12 percent of the world’s supply of oil radioactive for the immediate short term and more likely for many years after that. Taking 12 percent of the world’s oil out of the pricing equation would not just affect markets, but would also have a real affect around the world. There’s no question that a number of people in Africa, Asia and Europe, not to mention the Americas, would be without air conditioning in summer, heat in winter and food all year round.

Israel has more immediate concerns than those listed above. A nuclear Iran threatens complete annihilation of all of her citizens. The Saudis don’t face the same immediate threat, but can also be accused of acting with their own self interest in mind if they truly support an Israeli attack. Energy expert Fred Leder reflects that both the Saudi and Israeli policy, if true as characterized, speaks to their mutual realization that having “an unstable nuclear power in the midst of a critical region is not something that should be permitted to happen.”

What is also clear is that the U.S. is acting out of a profound ignorance of the consequences of being ambivalent to the threat of a nuclear Iran. And the culpability for that ignorance and ambivalence knows no bounds.

-nrg

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