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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (35451)	8/1/2002 12:16:45 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If you get real serious about it, we don't know why Saddam wants nuclear weapons, we simply assume he does. Your statement was a good rephrasing of the conventional reason why Israel, Pakistan, India, etc. have acquired them. Makes sense it would apply to Iraq as well. As for the moral equivalency stuff, is that supposed to stop an argument. Anything Sharon does is ok; anything anyone else does in the ME is wrong. Please. Well, we can never be certain of anyone's motivations, but that doesn't mean we can't draw conclusions from a general pattern of behavior. You won't ever hear me claiming Sharon is an angel. The difference between the Israeli and the Iraqi bomb projects is of intent. The Israeli bomb project originated in the fact that in less than 30 years, the state had been invaded and threatened with destruction three times, and it was ringed by neighbors that continued to be hostile. The Iraqi bomb project originated in the fact that repeatedly, Iraq's aggression had come to miserable defeat. Other than the Gulf War and the (Iraqi instigated) Iran-Iraq War, Iraq hasn't been threatened with invasion and destruction in its modern history, to my knowledge. The principle remains - Iraq logically seeks a bomb to level the conventional field against Israel (and/or to terrorize Iraq's smaller neighbors) and in the event of defeat or, more rare, victory, deter. The difference, as I see it, is in a distinction of using nuclear weapons to deter national destruction, or to reinforce national aggressive aspirations. Derek