(Cartoon by Carlos Latuff)
by John Mearsheimer, July 09, 2010
"What I want to do was ask four questions, and then answer them.
The first is, "why did Israel develop nuclear weapons to begin within the 1950s and 1960s?" Second, "does it make sense today for Israel to have a nuclear deterrent?" Third, "does opacity make good strategic sense for Israel?" "Does it matter for the United States?" And four, "is it in America’s interest for Israel to have nuclear weapons?"......
Let me just conclude with a few words on where this situation is headed.
I actually believe the situation is going to get much worse over time. I believe that we’re not going to have an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. I believe that talk of a two-state solution and all this talk about moving from "proximity talks" to "direct talks " is a charade. I find it hard to believe that people in this town take this discussion seriously. I think, at this point in time, that you’re going to get a "Greater Israel," and it either is, or is going to be, an apartheid state. It is going to cause us enormous problems, in the Middle East, or in the Arab and Islamic world. It is going to continue to keep relations between Israel and its neighbors in a troublesome state.
On the proliferation front, I would not be surprised if Iran and other countries continue to move down the nuclear road. You already see the Jordanians expressing an interest in developing a signification nuclear enrichment capability. It would be interesting to see if Turkey does. As I said before, I think Iraq will want nuclear weapons if Iran has nuclear weapons. It would be foolish not to from an Iraqi point of view. A Middle East where more than one state has nuclear weapons makes me very, very nervous.
What of course all of this is going to point to is the fact that America’s interests and Israel’s interests are going to continue to diverge. And the end result of that, back here in the United States, is that the lobby is going to have to work overtime to cover that up and make it look like everything is hunky-dory when in fact it’s not. And that has all sorts of negative consequences for domestic politics.
So I think things are very bad now but I’m sad to say they’re only going to get worse."
"What I want to do was ask four questions, and then answer them.
The first is, "why did Israel develop nuclear weapons to begin within the 1950s and 1960s?" Second, "does it make sense today for Israel to have a nuclear deterrent?" Third, "does opacity make good strategic sense for Israel?" "Does it matter for the United States?" And four, "is it in America’s interest for Israel to have nuclear weapons?"......
Let me just conclude with a few words on where this situation is headed.
I actually believe the situation is going to get much worse over time. I believe that we’re not going to have an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. I believe that talk of a two-state solution and all this talk about moving from "proximity talks" to "direct talks " is a charade. I find it hard to believe that people in this town take this discussion seriously. I think, at this point in time, that you’re going to get a "Greater Israel," and it either is, or is going to be, an apartheid state. It is going to cause us enormous problems, in the Middle East, or in the Arab and Islamic world. It is going to continue to keep relations between Israel and its neighbors in a troublesome state.
On the proliferation front, I would not be surprised if Iran and other countries continue to move down the nuclear road. You already see the Jordanians expressing an interest in developing a signification nuclear enrichment capability. It would be interesting to see if Turkey does. As I said before, I think Iraq will want nuclear weapons if Iran has nuclear weapons. It would be foolish not to from an Iraqi point of view. A Middle East where more than one state has nuclear weapons makes me very, very nervous.
What of course all of this is going to point to is the fact that America’s interests and Israel’s interests are going to continue to diverge. And the end result of that, back here in the United States, is that the lobby is going to have to work overtime to cover that up and make it look like everything is hunky-dory when in fact it’s not. And that has all sorts of negative consequences for domestic politics.
So I think things are very bad now but I’m sad to say they’re only going to get worse."
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