French President Jacques Chirac has said it would not be very dangerous for Iran to have a nuclear bomb, but later retracted the remark, according to an interview with two U.S. newspapers and a French magazine published on Thursday. Chirac spoke to reporters from the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur earlier this week, and in initial comments said Tehran would be razed to the ground if Iran launched a nuclear attack against Israel. A day later, he called the trio of reporters back to his office and said he thought he had been speaking off the record and withdrew many of his remarks, the reporters said.
Chirac spoke to reporters from the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur earlier this week, and in initial comments said Tehran would be razed to the ground if Iran launched a nuclear attack against Israel.
A day later, he called the trio of reporters back to his office and said he thought he had been speaking off the record and withdrew many of his remarks, the reporters said.
Q: Mr. President, you spoke earlier about nuclear energy. What are the possibilities for nuclear energy in the future, especially for emerging countries, a country like Iran, for example? A: I would like to tell you there are first of all two different problems: nuclear power for electricity and nuclear technology for military purposes. What worries us in Iran, it's not electro-nuclear (nuclear energy) as such but uranium enrichment. That's what worries us. It is the refusal of Iran to accept the constraints of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and so to stop enriching uranium. It's very dangerous. It's very dangerous. One has to pay careful attention to that. I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb - having one, maybe a second one a little later, well, that's not very dangerous. But what is very dangerous is proliferation. This means that if Iran continues in the direction it has taken and totally masters nuclear generated electricity, the danger does not lie in the bomb it will have, and which will be of no use to it. Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground. What is dangerous is proliferation. It is really very tempting for other countries in the region that have large financial resources, to say: 'Well, we too, we're going to do it. We're going to help out others to do it. Why wouldn't Saudi Arabia do it? Why wouldn't it help Egypt to do so as well? That is the danger. So one has to find a way to settle this problem. That, then, is the military nuclear issue.
A: I would like to tell you there are first of all two different problems: nuclear power for electricity and nuclear technology for military purposes. What worries us in Iran, it's not electro-nuclear (nuclear energy) as such but uranium enrichment. That's what worries us. It is the refusal of Iran to accept the constraints of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and so to stop enriching uranium. It's very dangerous. It's very dangerous. One has to pay careful attention to that.
I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb - having one, maybe a second one a little later, well, that's not very dangerous. But what is very dangerous is proliferation. This means that if Iran continues in the direction it has taken and totally masters nuclear generated electricity, the danger does not lie in the bomb it will have, and which will be of no use to it.
Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground.
What is dangerous is proliferation. It is really very tempting for other countries in the region that have large financial resources, to say: 'Well, we too, we're going to do it. We're going to help out others to do it. Why wouldn't Saudi Arabia do it? Why wouldn't it help Egypt to do so as well? That is the danger. So one has to find a way to settle this problem. That, then, is the military nuclear issue.
Israel hasn't (yet) a ballistic capacity to hit the whole of Iran more than on its western border, unless they have cruise-missile armed submarines in the Indian Ocean, which is not probable - yet (they newly ordered two new Dolphin-class submarines from Germany). Only the US and to some extent France/UK could retaliate immediately (assuming that Russia and China wouldn't).
Assuming that a nuclear armed Iran really wanted to hit Israel, they probably wouldn't send a Hiroshima-class nuke and wait for the response. What is theoretically possible is to send (in some distant future) a swarm of let say 10 middle-yield missiles. In that case Israel would completely cease to exist, due to its size and because about 75% of its population is concentrated in 3 cities. Iran might be hit by retaliating nukes, but would survive due to its size and scattered much larger population.
One could imagine that a "Mahdi mad" Iranian leader could bet on such a gamble. But the most likely is that a nuclear armed Iran would reverse completely the balance of power in the ME, and just because the nuclear option (the "Samson option" becomes unrealistic), it allows conventional war again. Alliances could switch, Egypt and Jordan changing sides and compelling Israel to retreat. A nuclear Iran would probably cause that both Saudi Arabia and Egypt would go nuclear very rapidly too. So of course the whole scenario is a nightmare for the US which as usual tries to solve the problem through force rather than trough diplomacy, with probably the adverse effect.
I have no memory of having done so, but my connection did crash when I was posting a comment and something spurious might have happened.
Apologies to Colman keep to the Fen Causeway
Proliferation increases the number of command and control systems that can go wrong
Yup.
Building nukes is a 'done deal' if a country wants to spend the money and effort.
Building the CIC systems to control them is a much harder problem. One serious temptation is the release of nukes to Theater Commanders, as happened in the India/Pakistan thing 2 years ago, in fear if they weren't released they could be destroyed in their (known) storage facilities by a first-strike. By doing so the country breaks internal security increasing the potential for those nukes to be hi-jacked out from under control of the CIC.
