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Entire Arab World Going Nuke

Mike

Well-known member
Six Arab states join rush to go nuclear
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor

Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia seek atom technology


THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology.



The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa.

The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE have also shown interest.

All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb.

“Some Middle East states, including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, have shown initial interest [in using] nuclear power primarily for desalination purposes,” Tomihiro Taniguch, the deputy director-general of the IAEA, told the business weekly Middle East Economic Digest. He said that they had held preliminary discussions with the governments and that the IAEA’s technical advisory programme would be offered to them to help with studies into creating power plants.

Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was clear that the sudden drive for nuclear expertise was to provide the Arabs with a “security hedge”.

“If Iran was not on the path to a nuclear weapons capability you would probably not see this sudden rush [in the Arab world],” he said.

The announcement by the six nations is a stunning reversal of policy in the Arab world, which had until recently been pressing for a nuclear free Middle East, where only Israel has nuclear weapons.

Egypt and other North African states can argue with some justification that they need cheap, safe energy for their expanding economies and growing populations at a time of high oil prices.

The case will be much harder for Saudi Arabia, which sits on the world’s largest oil reserves. Earlier this year Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Foreign Minister, told The Times that his country opposed the spread of nuclear power and weapons in the Arab world.

Since then, however, the Iranians have accelerated their nuclear power and enrichment programmes.
 

Judith

Well-known member
here we go...... Mrs. Greg do you still have that bazooka we talked about? You and I might just be going on a little trip......
 

jigs

Well-known member
so they all get a nuke or two....they will eventually blow each other up..... can some one point out the down side to this?
 

Judith

Well-known member
The only downside would be if one of the flunkies fell on the controls and ended up pointing things in our general direction. :)
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
jigs said:
so they all get a nuke or two....they will eventually blow each other up..... can some one point out the down side to this?

If that was what the outcome would be then more power to them, but afraid the biggest target would be the U.S. are allies and interest. Eventually a terrorist will get a Nuke Device and will set it off in the U.S. It is inevitable especially if we allow these unstable Countries to get easy access to them.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
Red Robin said:
Judith said:
The only downside would be if one of the flunkies fell on the controls and ended up pointing things in our general direction. :)
Strategic missle defense! Now!

If MD worked then why are we not useing it on our bases in Afghanistan?
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
Red Robin said:
Uhhhhh I guess because the afgans don't have ICBM's?

Okay why didnt they use it in Israel this summer?
If MD only works when the roket is fired from the other side of the world its no good because any commercial boat or private yacht could simple go to NYC harbour and launch.
Or an even easier way would be to simple put the nuke in a container and ship it<container ship or frieght ship> to the harbour of their choice, example San Diego
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
RoperAB said:
Red Robin said:
Uhhhhh I guess because the afgans don't have ICBM's?

Okay why didnt they use it in Israel this summer?
If MD only works when the roket is fired from the other side of the world its no good because any commercial boat or private yacht could simple go to NYC harbour and launch.
Or an even easier way would be to simple put the nuke in a container and ship it<container ship or frieght ship> to the harbour of their choice, example San Diego
So because some could slip a dirty bomb into our country we shouldn't protect against ICBM's? Use your noggin.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
Red Robin said:
RoperAB said:
Red Robin said:
Uhhhhh I guess because the afgans don't have ICBM's?

Okay why didnt they use it in Israel this summer?
If MD only works when the roket is fired from the other side of the world its no good because any commercial boat or private yacht could simple go to NYC harbour and launch.
Or an even easier way would be to simple put the nuke in a container and ship it<container ship or frieght ship> to the harbour of their choice, example San Diego
So because some could slip a dirty bomb into our country we shouldn't protect against ICBM's? Use your noggin.

Nations like Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia are not going to openly attack you that way.
If and when it happens it will be done covertly.
BTW I was talking about Nukes. Not dirty bombs. Today dirty bombs are the most likely threat but as more and more of these camel jockeys go nuke the more likely we are to get a nuke instead of a dirty bomb.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
You see even if MD does work im concerned that it will give Americans a false sense of security and the dangerous idea that they can just bring the troops home.
You see all these Arab states are rushing to go nuclear because of Iran. Plus you have the Soviets and Chinesse providing the weapon systems!
Here is a link and an exerpt
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/009197.php
the regimes, and their prospects:

Algeria - major natural gas exporter to Europe, exploration and export infrastructure a bit weak but partly mortgaged to Russia in a major arms deal. Large al-Qaeda affiliate in country and on the other side of a long-running civil war. The government has the upper hand for now.
Morocco - fairly stable, Algeria's rival. Wouldn't let Algeria pursue a key military technology without responding in kind.
Egypt - a famously corrupt and inefficient state that has been Islamizing underneath for decades, while issues like maintaining standard of living and even adequate food production remain questionable into the future. Meanwhile, the population continues to grow. The major alternative to the government is The Muslim Brotherhood, the fore-runners of al-Qaeda; the Mubarak regime cynically stokes associated sentiments and hopes to divert them outward against Jews, the West, et. al., in order to prolong its existence. See my December 2004 article "Egypt: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Mubarak?" Many experts doubt that Egypt can avoid long-term collapse.
Saudi Arabia... no shortage of predictions from intelligence sources and others that give the House of Saud less than 10 years of survival; large segments of its population supportive of al-Qaeda. Helped finance Pakistan's drive for the bomb; probably expects and may have already received help in return.
That's 3 of the 4 with future prospects that range from shaky to dubious to deeply dubious, and a takeover by al-Qaeda itself or a very similar movement as the alternative futures. The implications of seeking "stability" through such allies are rarely pondered, rarest of all by those who laughably call themselves "foreign policy realists." If you think Pakistan was bad, just wait until we're faced with a world where several even less stable Islamic states have nuclear weapons, still others are spurred to follow, and all it takes is one failure to essentially hand al-Qaeda the nuclear weapons it has promised that it will use.
Assuming, of course, that nothing else goes wrong, from an intra-Muslim war, to escalation involving Israel that invokes the "Samson Strategy" of destroying all of its enemies as it goes down, to a breakdown of control within these famously fragmented and corrupt societies that ends up handing a weapon over to the Chechens or some such.
Wretchard's famous 3 conjectures, and related posts, talked about the current window of time as equivalent to "the golden hour" during which a trauma patient can still be saved and death averted. This announcement tells us, very clearly and in no uncertain terms, that The Golden Hour has just about passed us by. Welcome to a future in which the use of nuclear weapons in war approaches certainty, followed by the inevitable responses. Welcome, in other words, to Fibonacci's propagating nuclear spiral of a multi-proliferation future. One that features nuclear weapons in the hands of death-cult barbarians, the vast majority of whom grew up in an atmosphere glorifying suicide-martyrdom as mankind's greatest moral achievement.
The world in which your children will live.
I reiterate my prediction of 10-100 million dead within the next 2 decades. Or maybe numbers don't do it for you, and you'd rather read this story as a kind of mental intro. to the sorts of futures to prepare for.
Have a nice day.
 
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