A NUCLEAR IRAN
The threat of nuclear and ballistic proliferation in the aftermath of the Cold War appears to have taken a quantum leap towards reality amid reports that Islamic fundamentalist Iran may have already crossed the threshold and joined the ‘Atomic Club’, a development that has far-reaching implications for Israel, and for much of the rest of the world too.
The Middle East’s military balance will undergo a radical change in the coming year if, as appears likely, Iran achieves its twin goals of acquiring nuclear weapons to match its new generation of long-range Scud-D missiles which will bring Israel within range. The missile, which is believed to be highly accurate over a range of 1,300 kilometres, has been tailor-made to specifications provided by Iran and Libya, allowing the two states to realise their common goal of having the means to strike at any part of Israel from within their own territory. Israeli military analyst Alex Fishman, writing in the Hebrew-language Hadashot, noted:
“A Middle East in which Israel is threatened by a Libyan-Iranian missile umbrella is a totally changed region”. The Iranians, he wrote, are confidently entering the vacuum left by the destruction of Iraq’s non-conventional power; and once the new missiles are delivered “they will not hesitate to fire them”. The Libyans, he added, “also will have no inhibitions”.
IRAN’S GROWING INFLUENCE
Iran’s race to acquire nuclear weapons will have implications, not only for Israel, but also for much of the rest of the Islamic world. For, while Iran is animated by a profound hostility to Israel, it is also engaged with Turkey in a high-stakes contest for political dominance in the Muslim states of Central Asia and North Africa. In its drive to extend its influence over the fifty million Muslims who inhabit the six republics of Central Asia, Iran has already opened an embassy in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, and has plans to extend its diplomatic representation throughout the region into Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kirgizstan.
Given its potential hegemony over the vast Islamic bloc, its growing influence in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and Libya, coupled with its long-standing strategic alliance with Syria, non-Arab Iran with its message of Islamic fundamentalism would then become the logical axis for the entire Arab Middle East, if not the Islamic world. The gathering danger has been noted in Egypt, where the semi-official daily Al–Ahram warned the Gulf States not to expect the dawn of a new era of moderation in Iran.
10,000 PALESTINIANS LIVE IN JERUSALEM ILLEGALLY
At least 10,000 Palestinians are living in Jerusalem illegally, according to official figures complied by the security services and revealed recently. Police can do virtually nothing about the problem until the government decides what it wants done, said Jerusalem police chief Haim AlbaIdes.
“The problem has been referred to the highest levels”, he told senior government officials during a tour of East Jerusalem neighbourhoods with high concentrations of illegal homes. “Someone has to tell us what they want done”, AlbaIdes said; “the problem does not just exist in Jerusalem, it is nationwide”. East Jerusalem settlement groups are angry over the latest discovery of illegal Arab construction in the capital—next to the site where they hope to build a large housing project. Under cover of darkness over several nights Arab workers cleared away the ground and put up several walls just inside Herod’s gate. Their plans are to build a sports centre on the site.
DANGEROUS CURRENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Military and political analysts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies point to “dangerous currents of change eddying in and around the Middle East”, including massive Iranian rearmament, and turbulent conditions in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. “All spelled danger for the admirable attempt to normalise Arab-Israeli relations”.
The Middle East was “an area of such political mistrust that control over water supply is regarded … as a strategic asset, a bargaining tool or a political weapon with a significant influence on the regional balance of power”.
IRAN SEEKS SILKEN TIES WITH ITS CENTRAL ASIAN NEIGHBOURS
When the Iranian president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, recently inaugurated work on a railway between Iran and neighbouring Turkmenistan, an enthusiastic Iranian press portrayed it as one more example of links being forged between Iran and its Central Asian neighbours. Mr Rafsanjani reminded his audience in the northeastern city of Mashhad that the railway would provide a link between landlocked Central Asia and the “open seas through the southern border of Iran”, also forming a “bridge” between Europe and Asia.
The Turkmenistan railway is not the only transport project used by Iran to capitalise on its proximity to the Central Asian republics. Teheran recently announced that it plans to spend 2.5 billion dollars upgrading and extending a railway line from the Caspian Sea to the Gulf. Iran clearly regards its ability to facilitate trade to and from the newly emergent states as a key card in the evolving competition for power and influence in the region. Six former Soviet republics—Kirgizia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan—plus Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, recently gathered for a summit in Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenistan, and, intriguingly, called for moves to reopen the Silk Road.
This ancient route, stretching some 6,400 kilometres from China through South and Central Asia (including what is now Iran) to the Levant, was pioneered in the second century B.C., and was one of the principal conduits for the transport of silk to the Roman Empire.
MOSCOW REACTS TO TURKISH THREATS ON ARMENIA
Russia has moved swiftly to signal its support for the republic of Armenia following Turkish threats of military intervention in Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijan. Top aides of President Boris Yeltsin and Marshal Yevgeny Shaposhnikov (head of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States) flew to Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, for talks with the republic’s leaders on the status of its seventh army based in Armenia.
The conclusion of a treaty permitting the stationing of Russian troops in another state would be the first such agreement since Russia decided to form its own army recently.
It would also send a clear signal to Turkey and Azerbaijan that Armenia is in Russia’s sphere of interest. The talks came just two days after Mr Turgut Ozal, the Turkish president, threatened to send in troops, after reports, denied by Armenia, of the entry of Armenian soldiers into the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan, situated between the borders of Armenia, Turkey and Iran. Marshal Shaposhnikov warned that such intervention could “create a third world war”.
However, Russia’s top aide “ruled out” a Turkish intervention. There are also fears that the broader conflict between Armenia (supported by Russia) and Azerbaijan (supported by Turkey) over the Armenian-dominated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh could escalate into a regional conflict.
VATICAN RELATIONS
A papal commission has for the first time joined Jewish leaders in calling for progress in establishing diplomatic ties between the Vatican and Israel. The call came at the end of a meeting in Baltimore recently between the Holy See Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee for Inter-Religious Consultations.
Current events illustrating the role of India as the Eastern Tarshish (1988)