AbbaGav

Haaretz has some interesting comments from a leading Saudi that shed a little light on the Arab world's view of Iran's quest for nuclear weapons:

'I think the West allowing Israel to establish its nuclear capability has done the damage that we are all suffering from now. There are other countries that now are perhaps pursuing the same role,' Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said.

Yes, the damage is done, but what damage is that exactly?

It must have been all the vaporized Arab countries that disappeared over the last few decades of Israel's nuclear reign of terror.

No?

Then the damage must have come from the threat of Israel obliterating Arab states in order to satisfy the Zionists' well known Islamophobic blood-lust.

No? Wrong again?

Ok, wait, I'll get it. I'm tempted to guess it had something to do with deterrence of existential conventional threats. I would say Greater Islamarabia was forced to delay the gratification of massive invasions to annihilate the Neocon state, except that in reality they didn't delay it -- in fact, they've unsuccessfully attempted to trample Israel's borders a bunch of times, going back even to the Jews' pre-nuclear days. It didn't make any difference.

Ok, I give up. What exactly was this damage that was done? Inflicting Mordechai Vanunu on an unsuspecting world?

He said there could be no purpose in Iran developing nuclear weapons since if it fired them at Israel, it would kill Palestinians. If Iranian nuclear weapons missed Israel, they would hit Saudi Arabia or Jordan, he said.

And...

And...?

Didn't the Foreign Minister forget the part about the slaughter of millions of Jews -- men, women and children? No, he didn't forget, of course not. It's just the same logic used when asking Hamas to take a coffee break in its terror war against Jewish civilians -- it's not immoral or wrong to attack Jews, just momentarily counterproductive, a bad news cycle for the PR.

Warning to equivilationists: don't tell me Jews are the same. While the rest of the world will happily carpet bomb an enemy stronghold, Jewish soldiers gave up their lives going house-to-house through Jenin for the sake as much as possible of protecting innocent Palestinian lives.

But he also pledged that even if Iran did break its promise and go ahead, Saudi Arabia would not follow suit.

"Absolutely not. We don't believe in this at all. A nuclear weapon doesn't give you safety. A nuclear weapon is a threat."

This is the point where he lost me. Before this, he was making logical points -- despicable points, but logical in their own way. But if he believes that nuclear weapons don't give safety, and are only a threat, and if Israel has the bomb but makes no threat, what exactly is he complaining about?

The article concludes:

"We hope that they will join us in this policy and assure that no new threat of arms race happens in this region," he said, urging Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to toe a more moderate line.

Yes. Toe a moderate line. Aim carefully.

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