Israel is the New Regional Sheriff

The Wild Middle East is brought to order in Chapter 16 of PAX ARABICA

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PREVIOUSLY IN PAX ARABICA (Chapter 15):

On Zionism and the Duty to Protect

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Image courtesy of the New York Times

PAX ARABICA

CHAPTER 16: On the New Regional Sheriff

WHEN INTERNATIONAL LAW CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD

Enforcing nuclear non-proliferation

Commentary on the US bombing of Iran was perverse. Inane Democrat discussions on the legality of action. Nauseating condemnations from the UN Secretary General. They were obviously living in a different Universe to me; for here in the Clarkosphere, international law had been enforced. Finally and wonderfully.

Nuclear proliferation is one of the greatest dangers, if not the greatest danger, facing the human race. Just one error, one misinterpreted dot on a radar screen, could trigger the countdown to catastrophe. It ever so nearly happened in the era of the Yeltsin and with evermore countries having access to the nuclear trigger, the possibility of mistaken calamity increases precipitously.

Such analysis would hold true whatever the nature of the Iranian regime. Whether the boss was nationalist, monarchist or democratic, a nuclear Iran would catalyse a Middle Eastern race for the bomb. From that moment on, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and more besides would see it as their divine right to blow us all to kingdom come.

That the Iranian regime is theocratic, fundamentalist and determined to wipe Israel from the map has called us to greater urgency. It forced the Israelis to act hard and act now. At their moment of greatest weakness, with Hezbollah neutered and Syria tamed, the moment to decapitate the snake had arrived.

Yet nuclear non-proliferation is not dependent on regime. It is the very essence of international law. If that rules-based corpus has any meaning at all, it is to prevent humanity from nuclear self-destruction.

There may be no more nuclear armed states in the world and the American-Israeli action has made that dictum reality.