Roto-Reuters: Israelis piqued by Gates nuclear "confirmation"
Robert Gates, the incoming U.S. secretary of defense, won plaudits in Washington this week for his candor on the Iraq war.
Some Israelis were less pleased, however, to hear Gates mention with equal frankness what U.S. administrations have long avoided uttering in public -- that the Jewish state has the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal.
To be fair, it was pretty oblique.
During his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Gates speculated on why Iran might be seeking the means to build an atomic bomb. "They are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons: Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west and us in the Persian Gulf," he said.
The statement led Israeli news bulletins, with some pundits suggesting that former CIA chief Gates may have breached a U.S. "don't ask, don't tell" policy dating back to the late 1960s.
"I haven't a clue why Gates made those remarks," Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a member of Israel's security cabinet, said in a radio interview.
A retired Israeli diplomat, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, called the testimony "quite unprecedented" and added: "I can only assume he (Gates) has yet to get to grips with the understandings that exist between us and the Americans.
I think everybody, including the Israelis, should be upset with the apparent moral relativism of Gates' statement. Iran is not just another country. Heck, Pakistan with the bomb is bad enough (When their current Generalismo goes, we are going to need India's help. Big time.) but the crazed, bloodthirsty goat rapists who run Iran are dangerous now and will be very dangerous tomorrow.
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