Arms race is well underway.

Jerusalem--Israel has perfected a missile with a long enough range to target Iran, which it accuses of being a threat to the world. This claim is being echoed by Jewish media around the world. In Canada, one editorial in the Canadian Jewish News (August 5, 2004) argued that Iran "has now become the chief threat to peace in the world;" another one (September 23) exhorted the West to "stand firm against Iran." Other articles hammering on the same theme have appeared in the Jewish-owned National Post.

As Israel and its American supporters see it, Israel has a right to have long-range missiles, but Iran does not. Now that Iran has successfully tested its Shahab-3 missile, capable of reaching Israel and the U.S. bases in the Gulf, Iran becomes a threat to Israel and therefore--as far as Israelis are concerned a threat to the entire world.

There is no Israeli recognition that Israel started the arms race. It has a well-stocked nuclear arsenal developed secretly, but it denies its existence. Iran says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but Israel refuses to believe this and accuses it of preparing to build nuclear weapons.

Israel accuses Iran of not submitting to the inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But when the Agency's chief officer visited Israel in June, he was kept far away from Israel's nuclear plants on the well-worn pretext that Israel does not have nuclear weapons and that, therefore, there is nothing to talk about.

In the United States, foreign-policy makers dislike Iran, first for the nationalization of the oil industry in 1947 and, secondly, for the overthrow of the Western-style regime of the Shah some 30 years ago and its replacement with doctrinaire Islamic leaders who are suspicious of democracy and anything American. Nor should it be forgotten that the United States financed and aided Saddam Hussein in his nine-year-long war against Iran in the late 1970s.

Israel accuses Iran of financing Hezbollah militants in Syria who keep sending rockets into Northern israel in protest against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Hezbollah, according to Jewish sources, is committed to the overthrow of Israel.

The Israelis, with American funding, are working in California on an anti-ballistic missile to intercept the Iranian Shahab-3 (CJN, Sept. 2, 2004). On September 22, Israel acknowledged that it had bought 500 "bunker buster bombs" that could be used to hit Iran's nuclear facilities (Toronto Star, Sept. 23, 2004). Israel is also being given 4000 smaller sized bombs. Earlier, the U.S. gave them more than one hundred improved F-16 fighter planes, which puts Iran in Israel's range.

Israel has a long history of preemptive strikes, as in 1981 when they destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities. They also have a record of assassinations and kidnappings in other countries. Under President Bush the United States has also adopted pre-emptive warfare. Most recently, President Vladimir Putin announced the same policy for Russia.