Israel's Membership in The Club

From today's State Department briefing (via email):

QUESTION: The GCC today demanded the application under the Chapter 7 of the UN chapter on Israel after the Prime Minister Olmert implied that Israel has a nuclear bomb.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: What do you think of this --

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, from everything that I've seen about Prime Minister Olmert's comments, the Israeli Government has said that there is no change in their policy, which has been neither to confirm nor deny possession of nuclear weapons. And so to my knowledge, there is no change in any policy.

QUESTION: Well, maybe his tongue slipped, but he was the second one to say that in a few days. The new Defense Secretary also said something like that recently. So do you think it's a good thing when you are trying to stop Iran toget a nuclear weapon that everybody speaks about the --

MR. MCCORMACK: Like I said, Sylvie, there is no --

QUESTION: -- (inaudible) --

MR. MCCORMACK: There is no change in the Israeli policy. They have stated so. And I'm not going to try to draw any equivalence between Iran's behavior and any other state because, quite frankly, Iranian behavior is far -- the behavior of this particular regime is far outside the bounds of pretty much any regime that we see on the face of the earth -- or, if not, then a pretty small collection. So you know, Iran is, in our view, in abrogation of its treaty commitments not to seek nuclear weapons when they committed -- they committed under the Nonproliferation Treaty to try to develop peaceful nuclear energy and not -- and forego the development of nuclear weapons.

QUESTION: Do you see it as -- I mean, Sean, I understand that they are claiming that they have not changed policy, but the fact of the matter is he's quoted as saying they are -- they, meaning the Iranians, are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia. That's different from several decades of Israel's policy where there has been a very deliberate decision to maintain ambiguity as to whether they have such weapons or not.

Regardless of whether they're calling it a change in policy or not, does it seem to you to be destabilizing for one significant player in the region to -- for its Prime Minister to state that they have nuclear weapons? Is that not a destabilizing thing?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I guess the Israeli Government is quibbling with
yourfundamental premise. They're not saying -- they're saying that's not what he said or meant to imply.

My take on this: two senior Israeli leaders don't slip up like that...this was a message intended for Iran and that whackjob leading them. Mutually Assured Destruction is a deterent...or at least, it used to be...I'm not so sure in this case that it will change Iran's intentions to use these weapons once they acquire them.