Iran Sees Hypocrisy as West Mum on Israel’s Nuclear Expansion

For years, anything Iran does even tangentially related to its civilian nuclear program elicits gasps of horror from Western leaders. This is true particularly when those actions have nothing to do with nuclear arms. One might think Western leaders are so misinformed on nuclear activity that they don’t know any better.

Or maybe its just Iran. FM Javad Zarif couldn’t help but notice hypocrisy among leaders when reports emerged of substantial expansion of Israel’s nuclear program, which is already known to include a nuclear arms component, and which the West continues to ignore.

Israel doesn’t officially acknowledge its nuclear arms, but they are well established to have them. They also don’t offer anywhere near the transparency Iran does, which Western officials rarely make note of, let alone press for improvements on.

Israel’s Dimona site is, as Zarif put it, the region’s only “nuclear bomb factory,” from which Israel’s arsenal came. Satellite images show substantial growth in Dimona, the sort of thing the IAEA would be reporting heavily on if it was happening anyplace else.

The US has long made it a matter of policy to not mention Israel’s nukes or the program by which they get those nukes. Somehow this policy deafness has grown to infect the whole permanent UN Security Council at this point, and given what busybodies they tend to be on every little thing Iran does, it’s increasingly glaring what a double standard there is.

During the Obama Administration, the US signed on to a call for a nuclear-free Middle East, and on the very same day denounced the measure when it was pointed out Israel is in the Middle East. That standard, such as it is, will likely continue to inform the Biden Administration, as they continue to try to show a “tough” face to Iran, and try to avoid making an issue of the region’s lone nuclear-armed state.