Disarming the Middle East by SHLOMO BEN-AMI*

Disarming the Middle East by SHLOMO BEN-AMI* Israel’s desperate plea that the world act to curtail what its intelligence service describes as Iran’s “gallop toward a nuclear bomb” has not gotten the positive response that Israel expected. With the United Nations sanctions regime now having proven to be utterly ineffective, and with international diplomacy apparently futile in preventing the Iranians from mastering the technology for enriching uranium, Israel is being boxed into a corner. What was supposed to be a major international effort at mediation is deteriorating into an apocalyptic Israeli-Iranian showdown. This is an intriguing anomaly, for, notwithstanding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vile anti-Semitic rhetoric, the implications of Iran’s emerging power extend far beyond the Jewish state. Indeed, it... [read full story]