THE WESTERN DOUBLE STANDARD: IRAN CANNOT HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS, BUT ISRAEL CAN
What follows is my English translation of an article by Domenico Moro, originally in Italian, published on ComeDonChisciotte.org yesterday, Sunday 15th May 2025.
(All emphasis mine, footnote original).
According to the Israeli government, the reason for the extremely serious Israeli attack on Iran lies in the fact that Iran was in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons and that these weapons would have been used to destroy Israel.
This is a highly questionable motivation for three reasons. The first is that Israel's attack on Iran took place, as many commentators have pointed out, just before the planned meeting between the US and Iran to discuss the issue of Iran's uranium enrichment, which would have enabled it to build nuclear weapons. This shows that Israel rejects the diplomatic route even at the cost of destabilising the entire Middle East. The second is that even if Iran had these weapons and wanted to use them first, it would be very difficult for it to use them against Israel, as it would expose itself to massive retaliation by the US. But above all, there is another reason, which, it seems to me, has not been highlighted by commentators: Israel has nuclear weapons. The claim that Iran should not acquire nuclear weapons represents a double standard on the part of the West, which supports Israel, given that no one applies the same ban to Israel.
In fact, unlike the other eight countries in the world that possess nuclear weapons (the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, India, Pakistan and North Korea), Israel maintains a dangerously ambiguous stance on this issue, neither acknowledging nor denying that it has such weapons. As a result, Israel is not bound by international treaties such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. According to the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2024 Israel had 90 nuclear warheads, although some researchers, based on the available fissile material, estimate a maximum of 300 warheads1.
Since Israel does not admit to having such weapons, it is difficult to say what strategic doctrine Israel plans to use them under. What is known, according to interviews given by a retired Israeli general, is that Israel had planned to use the atomic bomb in 1967 if it had lost the war against the Arabs. Furthermore, at the end of 2023, several Israeli politicians and commentators, including a government minister, suggested using atomic weapons in Gaza against Hamas. These are important statements by political actors who admit Israel's possession of such weapons.
According to SIPRI, declassified US documents reveal that Israel has had atomic weapons since the late 1960s. For this purpose, Israel has used not uranium but plutonium produced by a reactor at the Negev Nuclear Research Centre in Dimona. This site is not under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and there is a complete lack of information about it. Commercial satellites have revealed that since 2021, the site has undergone significant expansion, the purpose of which is unknown.
According to SIPRI, Israel has three types of delivery systems for the military use of nuclear weapons. The first is represented by F-15 aircraft, which are said to have 30 warheads, and in the future by F-35 aircraft, which according to the US were also built as nuclear weapons carriers. The second is represented by ground-based missile installations, which are said to have 50 warheads. The missiles are the medium-range Jericho II and the more recent Jericho III, which can reach a distance of over 4,000 km, i.e. as far as Iran. Finally, Israel has five German Dolphin I and II class submarines which, according to unconfirmed reports, may have been equipped with Popeye cruise missiles capable of launching the other 10 warheads estimated by SIPRI. A sixth submarine, launched in 2023, has a vertical missile launcher, according to available images. This launcher could also be mounted on the hulls of three new Dakar-class submarines ordered from Germany in 2022.
In conclusion, although Trump claimed to have been warned in advance but not to have been involved, Israel could not have carried out such a heavy attack without the tacit consent and assistance of the US. But Trump also bears another responsibility, that of withdrawing in 2018 from the JCPOA treaty, which set limits on Iran's uranium enrichment and which, according to the IAEA, the Middle Eastern country was complying with. After withdrawing from the agreement, Trump reinstated sanctions against Iran, which, despite repeated requests from Tehran, the Europeans also adhered to. As a result, Iran no longer considered itself bound by that agreement and resumed uranium enrichment. However, in June 2023, there was an informal bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, which seemed to reduce the risk of conflict, having contributed to greater cooperation between Iran and the IAEA and the unfreezing of Iranian assets by the US. But tensions between Israel and Iran rose again with the Gaza war.
More recently, Israel attacked Iran twice, in April and October 2024, and Iran responded in a restrained manner. This third time, Israel attacked Iran two days before the summit in Oman with the US [originally scheduled on Sunday 15th June 2025], for two reasons. The first is that Iran's inevitable reaction would have reunited with Israel all those in the West who are currently criticising it for its handling of the Gaza war. The second lies precisely in the desire to prevent the establishment of an agreement that would have made impossible the military solution that Netanyahu had been thinking about for years.
The point is that Israel is not only the longa manus [Latin for “long hand” literally, i.e. proxy] of US imperialism in the Middle East, but also wants to be the hegemonic power in the area. Underlying this hegemony is the desire to expand territorially, starting with Gaza and the West Bank, from which Israel is trying in every way to expel the Palestinian population, and continuing with the appropriation, after Assad's flight, of some Syrian territories. To do so, however, it needs to eliminate Iran as a regional power, especially after that country established more relaxed relations with the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, starting with Saudi Arabia, which strongly condemned the Israeli attack. Based on this objective, Israel has no qualms about starting a fire that could potentially engulf much of the Middle East.
Sipri, Yearbook 2024, Cap. 7 World nuclear forces.
It's so simple it's staring everyone in the face. But yet again people can't see the forest for the trees. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Iranian nuclear plants & their civilian use. Iran got hold of 3 terrabytes of data just 3 days before they were attacked. They hacked the Israeli Mossad Military & everything else sensitive the Israelis had. Including how they've compromised every Western but mainly US politician. You know stuff like what is in all of the Epstein files we'll never get to see. The Iranians have in their possession enough information to destroy Israel & bring down every Western government. There you go there's your reasons for American/Israeli desperation. They'd rather set the whole world on fire than the Truth to come out. The Truth has always been their biggest enemy.
Pakistan should offer nuclear weapons to Iran before Israel deploys the Samson option pre-emptively.