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No Nukes

Mohammed at Iraq the Model on Iraqi anti-nuke sentiments … they don’t like the idea of any rotten Arab or Persian regime having them. They don’t mind Israel having them. Other Arabs don’t get it. But judging by the Iraqi views expressed, they get that and a lot more: 

Recently I’ve been reading through one of the BBC forums whose topic is basically “do Arabs have the right to possess nuclear weapons?“. I didn’t hesitate to read all the contributions, which numbered over 600 from various Arab countries. I wasn’t surprised by the nature of Iraqi contributions to the discussion. I had always called these “singing outside the Arab flock”.
This “singing” is almost always faced by attacks from the rest of Arabs who often generously use the word “traitors” when addressing their Iraqi counterparts just because they have different views about one issue or another.

What made me tackle this issue was not only the difference between the Iraqi and mainstream Arab views but the characteristic understanding exhibited through these Iraqi contributions of the nature of the challenge posed Arab possession of nuclear weapons to the region and especially to Arabs and Muslims themselves.

42 out of 47 Iraqi commentators voiced absolute rejection to the idea of nuclear weapons in Arab hands. More important is the consensus among those commentators that stable democracy is prerequisite to the acquisition of immense tools of power such as WMDs. Not only that, in fact some of the commentators even emphasized that only Israel has the right the possess nuclear weapons in the region because of the hostility and fanaticism of the regimes it’s surrounded by.

There’s no doubt how dangerous it is to allow dictatorships and WMDs to exist in the same place, and it seems that the change in Iraq has strengthened this conviction among the people. I am not surprised that Iraqis, whose country’s been the field of war are more vocal and serious about rejecting proliferation and violence that peoples in countries where change hasn’t happened yet. in my opinion this is the answer to present to those who claim that war has led to more extremism. In fact war did lead to more extremism, but only among those opposed to the change and who see in it a threat to their extreme ways which they try to impose on the others.

Whole thing.

Topics: Iraq, nukes, Arabs

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:37 am on Wednesday, May 7, 2008

2 Responses to “No Nukes”

1. RebeccaH Says:
   May 7th, 2008 at 10:11 am

   Iraqis, unlike most other Arabs in the Middle East, have caught a painful dose of reality.

2. Michael Lonie Says:
   May 8th, 2008 at 12:21 am

   Rebecca,
   Sounds like the Iraqis have been “mugged by reality.” Does that make them Neocons now?

   This is very gratifying in a way. If the attitude to Israel is so reasonable perhaps if the change comes to other Arab countries they will also become reasonable. Once the Arab countries stop trying to destroy Israel and commit genocide on its Jewish inhabitants there will be a real possibility of peace there. There is nothing Israel can do to bring peace, for all the initiative and the aggression come from the Muslims. If that diminishes considerably there is greater hope. I’ll believe it when I see it, though. Until then si vis pacem, parabellum.

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