PrintApril 25, 2008
Obama Keeps Hiring Anti-Israeli Advisors
Commentary Magazine's Gabriel Schoenfeld has noted that another Obama adviser, Joseph Cirincione, seems to have anti-Israel views. His senior aide on nuclear non-proliferation had denounced reports that North Korea had been helping Syria build a nuclear reactor and said such reports were nonsense and were, in part, promoted so as to derail talks with Syria.
Cirincione had written after Israel's strike against the suspected Syrian nuclear plant that stories about it being a North-Korean designed and built plutonium reactor were a lie -- a fiction being spread just as reports had been spread before the Iraq War that misled the press regarding Iraq's program. Shcoenfeld writes:
Cirincione had written after Israel's strike against the suspected Syrian nuclear plant that stories about it being a North-Korean designed and built plutonium reactor were a lie -- a fiction being spread just as reports had been spread before the Iraq War that misled the press regarding Iraq's program. Shcoenfeld writes:
Who was behind this nefarious manipulation? It appears, wrote Circincione, “to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted ‘intelligence’ to key reporters in order to promote a preexisting political agenda.” What exactly was that political agenda? “[I]t appears aimed at derailing the U.S.-North Korean agreement that administration hardliners think is appeasement.” There was also a dose of Zionist mischief thrown in: “Some Israelis want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria.”
Based on evidence shown to Congress yesterday, there is now incontrovertible proof that the building bombed by Israel was a plutonium-producing reactor that was geared toward the production of material for nuclear weapons -- exactly what Cirincionne had previously dismissed as lies, in part, cooked up by Israelis trying to influence America's foreign policy.
This tendency to blame and castigate Israel was not the first time phenomenon for Joseph Cirincione. He seems to have a penchant for targeting Israel for opprobrium.
In 2002, he wrote that Israel's possession of three diesel nuclear power submarines that can launch nuclear missiles complicates American efforts to restrain a nuclear arms race. He also claimed that the US Navy monitored the Israeli testing of a new cruise missile from a submarine in 2002 off of Sri Lanka, according to unnamed "former Pentagon officials".
There is no verifiable proof that Israel launched such missiles, just a claim by Cirincione. He also blamed Israel for stoking an arms race that is creating a difficult situation not just for the United States, but also for preventing other nations that have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty from breaking away.
Israel's has followed a principle of ambiguity regarding its nuclear program. Surrounded by an array of enemies that dwarf its own resources, Israel -- a nation founded after the Holocaust -- might reasonable be seen as needing such a nuclear force to protect its existence. It has been rumored that when Israel was on the brink of defeat during the Yom Kippur War , it made known that it might be forced to resort to a nuclear option. Cirincionne looks in askance at Israel's possession of such a deterrent and sees it as a problem for America and for the world.
In 2006, he declared that Israel's raid on the Osirak nuclear reactor was a "failure". This was despite the stunning success of the daring raid (only one man died) in derailing Iraq's program. Years later, Dick Cheney thanked Israel for disabling Iraq's nuclear program, for if Osirak had been allowed to be completed, Iraq might well have had a nuclear arsenal during the Gulf War in 1991. Instead, Cirincione held that it sped-up the Iraqi program and led to a more devoted effort to secretly build nuclear capabilities. This, of course, paradoxically conflicts with his other belief that Iraq did not have such a nuclear program and that America should not have invaded Iraq absent such proof!
He is in favor of persuading Israel to give up its nuclear program which, as noted above, might be the only thing that can prevent Israel's destruction. One book reviewer noted that Cirincione's believes (as shown in his book, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons):
Quite significantly, Cirincione thinks that Iran would also be encouraged to give up nuclear weapons building if it does not face a nuclear threat from what it considers to be its biggest enemy in the Middle East -- Israel. The nuclear balance in the Middle East is always going to be contingent on the political atmosphere in that politically and historically volatile continent, and Israel is a key player in these developments. While Israel giving up its nuclear program may sound utopian, Cirincione is optimistic that Israel with its vast and superior conventional forces could be encouraged to incrementally reduce or even eliminate its nuclear capability, perhaps starting by shutting down its production reactor at Dimona.
Cirincione states:
Yet somehow, Cirincione blames Israel for nuclear proliferation and seemingly wants to pressure Israel to shut down its nuclear program and strip itself of any nuclear weapons it may or may not have in its inventory. This man was chosen by Barack Obama to be one of his top advisers in the area of nuclear proliferation. He is also another in a disconcertingly long line of Obama advisers, who seemingly have an anti-Israel bias and who would be very willing to apply American pressure on our tiny ally to disarm itself in the face of its mortal enemies.
"The world does well to remember that most Middle East weapons programs began as a response to Israel's nuclear weapons," said Joseph Cirincione, director for nonproliferation at the liberal think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and co-author of its recent study, "Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security.
"Everyone already knows about Israel's bombs in the closet," he said. "Bringing them out into the open and putting them on the table as part of a regional deal may be the only way to prevent others from building their own bombs in their basements."
If this were not enough to give one qualms about the views of this important adviser to Barack Obama, Cirincione has expanded on these themes in a short article for The Globalist. He criticizes America for not publicizing Israel's weapons programs. He calls for an end of this practice.
If you do not know much about Israel's programs, it is not surprising. Israel is never mentioned in semi-annual reports the U.S. Congress requires the intelligence agencies to prepare on "the acquisition by foreign countries during the preceding six months of dual-use and other technology useful for the development or production of weapons of mass destruction."The agencies provide their assessment of programs in Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and others, but Israel (and Egypt) are omitted. This pattern is repeated across the board.For example, the 2003 report on the ballistic and cruise missile threat from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center lists 18 nations with missiles, including U.S. allies Bulgaria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Yemen, and Egypt — but not Israel.Yet, Israel is the only nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons and an array of medium-range missiles that could deliver them.
He wants to put U.S. muscle behind a plan for seeking a nuclear-free Middle East region. This, of course, would be flexed against Israel. He wrote (in 2005) that Israel was never more secure from external threats and has less need for nuclear weapons than any time in its history. He calls for an "even-handed" approach toward nuclear weapons programs and calls for Israel's nuclear program to be "put on the table" as part of a regional deal to prevent nuclear proliferation.
There are more such policy pronouncements by Joseph Cirincione. They all reveal a stunning naiveté regarding the nature of the regimes that are engaged in nuclear proliferation in the region. Pakistan and North Korea have engaged in a nuclear bazaar to sell nuclear technology; Iran has spent billions to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal; Syria is cooperating with North Korea (and probably Iran) on weapons of mass destruction . They all have monetary or geopolitical reasons to do so. Iran wants to be a hegemonic power in the region-and also may very well have theological "reasons" for developing nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein was a megalomaniac who wanted nuclear arms to expand his power.
Yet somehow, Cirincione blames Israel for nuclear proliferation and seemingly wants to pressure Israel to shut down its nuclear program and strip itself of any nuclear weapons it may or may not have in its inventory. This man was chosen by Barack Obama to be one of his top advisers in the area of nuclear proliferation. He is also another in a disconcertingly long line of Obama advisers, who seemingly have an anti-Israel bias and who would be very willing to apply American pressure on our tiny ally to disarm itself in the face of its mortal enemies.
