In what would be the most hypocritical military action in recent history, Britain’s Sunday Times has cited several Israeli military sources confirming Israel’s plan to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with nuclear weapons. While two sites, a heavy water plant at Arak and a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, would be targeted with conventional bombs, two Israeli Air Force squadrons have been training to blow up an enrichment plant in Natanz using low-yield nuclear bunker busters.

As the UN Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Iran, Iranian officials accused the UN of operating under a double standard by taking no action against Israel, which actually possesses nuclear weapons. In a letter to the UN, Iran’s UN Ambassador Javad Zarif said that the council should “compel [Israel] to abandon nuclear weapons, urge it to accede to the NPT [nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] without delay and demand this regime to place promptly all its nuclear facilities under IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] full-scope safeguards”.

Regardless of recent tensions over double standards, the Israeli plan to bomb Iran is nothing new. Writing in the New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported that Israel’s “cheap war with many benefits” against Hezbollah in Lebanon was merely “a prototype for a potential US preemptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations.” US and Israeli officials worked closely on the offensive which claimed over a thousand civilian lives. Israel falsely claimed the US-backed war was fought over two captured soldiers even though they had been planning the operation for months prior to their apprehension.

Israeli pilots have recently been training for the 2,000 mile round-trip to Iran by flying to Gibraltar in recent weeks. The Israelis plan to use conventional laser-guided bombs to open “tunnels” into their targets through which nuclear warheads would then be fired into. Iran’s facilities are heavily fortified. Many analysts believe they are too much for Israel to take on alone.

Washington acknowledged that attacking Iran is an option, but insists that it is trying to reach a diplomatic agreement. This is a false claim as the United States has not had a diplomatic relationship with Iran for over 27 years. President Bush even rejected an offer from the Iranian president for Iran to be completely open about its nuclear program, help stabilize Iraq, end its support for Palestinian groups the US considers terrorists, and to help disarm Hezbollah. All Iran asked in return was for the US to halt further hostile actions in the region, and to be removed from the “axis of evil”. The administration’s refusal to talk with Iran has heightened tensions in the region towards more extremist positions.

Both Israel and the United States are known for readily using “pre-emptive” military force in favor of diplomatic options. Seymour Hersh has also reported that the Bush administration would circumvent any legislative restrictions “and thus stop Congress from getting in its way” to attack Iran. Israeli sources say that if the United States declines to intervene with a conventional attack, then the nuclear strike will be used.

Israel’s strategy is wildly hypocritical since it is the only power in the Middle East which actually has nuclear weapons, a scary reality for a nation accused of carrying our “ethnic cleansing” by a UN envoy. Israel is not a signatory to the NPT, which means it is illegal for the US to fund them. However, Iran is a signatory to the NPT, giving their nuclear program the legal and moral high ground. Even the CIA has conceded that there is absolutely no evidence that Iran’s uranium enrichment program is being used to develop nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Israel has about 200 nuclear weapons it may soon be using against Iran with US approval.

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