Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has changed his plans and will not attend President Barack Obama’s nuclear summit beginning Monday in Washington. Israeli media reports that Netanyahu backed out after reports that Middle Eastern nations would use the 47-nation summit to criticize Israel’s failure to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This does raise an interesting concern with Obama's foreign policy and our treatment of allies. You see, the five major sponsors of nuclear weapons in the world, the so called NWC (Nuclear Weapons Club) are signers of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They are the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China. These are the nations currently in negotiations with Iran.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was approved in 1968 and closed in 1970. Today 189 countries have signed or acceded to approving the Treaty. North Korea originally signed the Treaty but withdrew in 2003. Three nations have never signed the Treaty, Israel, India and Pakistan. India, Pakistan and North Korea have admitted to testing nuclear weapons.
The only three countries refusing to sign the treaty are US allies. Of these it is widely known that Israel does have a nuclear capability even though they refuse to acknowledge it. Both India and Pakistan also have much smaller arsenals but they do have nuclear weapons. Why is the United States leading a worldwide effort to eliminate nuclear weapons yet we give billions of dollars in foreign aid to the only three countries who refuse to sign the agreement and are not bound by anything we propose? Is it time to reconsider our foreign policy?
If we can't influence these nations with nuclear weapons of mass destruction why are we so concerned with Iran who has no nuclear operating facility nor nuclear weapons? We are prepared to let Israel go to war with Iran simply because Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. but the Administration and media never mention the three countries who do have nuclear weapons and gained them by ignoring the United Nations and the Treaty.
Of the nations refusing to recognize the Treaty it is estimated India and Pakistan have under 100 nuclear weapons while North Korea has under 25. Israel has never offered information nor inspection of their nuclear generating and weapons producing facilities but best estimates are Israel has about 200 nuclear weapons along with nuclear and enhancement facilities to make additional warheads.
The center of Israel's weapons program is the Negev Nuclear Research Center near the desert town of Dimona (the center is usually identified simply as "Dimona"). A nuclear reactor and plutonium production facility was secretly built by France at this facility in the late 1950s and early 60s. All of the production and fabrication of special nuclear materials (plutonium, lithium-6 deuteride, and enriched and unenriched uranium) occurs at Dimona.
The NWC nations, the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China, are the same nations who were responsible for providing the nations refusing to sign the Treaty with the materials, equipment and fuel to build their own nuclear plants and nuclear weapons capability outside the Treaty.
France provided Israel with the nuclear weapons support. The United States and Canada were the source for the India nuclear program. North Korea's nuclear weapons programs was helped by the Soviet Union and then Russia. China was behind the Pakistan nuclear weapons program.
Is there something wrong with this picture? Our billions in foreign aid go to three of the four renegade nations with nuclear weapons while we do not require them to be part of the worldwide nuclear treaty that we support.
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