Editorial comment warns against bombing Iran
10 June 2010
Yesterday the UN Security Council announced that it was imposing a fourth set of sanctions on Iran, intended to curb its nuclear programme. The possible implications of the sanctions were widely discussed, with three of the broadsheets publishing editorials on the subject.
Two scenarios were discussed. The first, as described by Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian, was that an Iranian bomb would trigger a destabilising nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The second, as outlined by Roula Khalaf in the Financial Times, was that the world would learn to live with a nuclear Iran, in much the same way it had learnt to live with a nuclear Pakistan.
Despite several references to Israel, no mention was made of another scenario, one in which Iran’s nuclear bomb poses an existential threat to Israel (as many there fear). The closest that any of the commentary came to discussing the topic was in a piece by Bronwen Maddox in The Times, where she wrote, ‘[Iran] retains close ties with Damascus, Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza, and is manoeuvring to increase Israel’s sense of threat on those fronts.’
Despite this, several references were made in the editorial coverage to the possibility that Israel might attack Iran, without an explanation of why it might consider pursuing such a course of action. Of the four references to a hypothetical Israeli attack, three described the potential consequences in very negative terms, again highlighting the disparity between how seriously the threat to Iran was taken, with the lack of discussion of a threat to Israel.
The Financial Times editorial, ‘Iran sanctions’, described the measures taken by the UN Security Council as an attempt to stave off ‘two evils – the first being Iran with the bomb and the second, Iran itself bombed’; the latter being thus described since it would ‘spell disaster for the region and the world.’ No mention was made of why an Iranian bomb might be disasterous.
Roula Khalaf, also writing in the Financial Times, came closer, mentioning that Israel finds the prospect of a nuclear Iran ‘intolerable’, but not clearly indicating why. Instead, she argued that Iran was unlikely to use a nuclear bomb since its leaders ‘are concerned above all with maintaining power rather than with the demise of Israel.’ This was in stark contrast to other threats, which were taken seriously. For example, Khalaf stated that there was ‘No doubt a nuclear Iran would destabilise the Middle East and embolden Tehran’s allies’, and that were Israel to bomb Iran, ‘it would also inflict pain all round, with the US and its allies receiving their share.’
Timothy Garton Ash, writing in The Guardian, drew a similar comparison, noting that one extreme position, ‘as advocated by hotheads in the US and Israel’, was to attack Iran, which would ‘almost certainly produce a wave of patriotic solidarity with the regime.’ On the other hand, the opposite policy of allowing Iran to develop a bomb would risk ‘sparking a Sunni-Shia nuclear arms race in the Middle East’, a result described as ‘very grave.’ Again, there was no mention of Iran attacking Israel with a nuclear weapon.
Finally, writing in The Daily Telegraph, Damien McElroy noted that, while the sanctions might slow Tehran’s nuclear programme, ‘the door would remain open for Israel or America to deliver a knockout blow by military means.’ While no explanation was given for this course of action, McElroy did not voice any opinion on the consequences of any party attacking another. So unlike the other coverage, he did not criticise the possibility of an Israeli attack without providing some context for why such an attack might happen.