ويني عنك من زمان؟

*I stumbled upon a translated version of this article in Il 6alee3a, thanks again to 7amad Il M6airi who was showing me an article about A7mad Il Fahad. 7ist o 6i7t 3alaiha.

*I found the name of the writer and did a search, arriving at the original article written in 04/04/06 in the Guardian.

*The following is my edited version (not only the bold-ing and the italicizing, but also the deletion and the -re-arrangement of arguments). The blue-and-between-square-brackets is obviously my attempt at sounding cocky. Please find the original and the translated articles at the end.

- - - Part 1 - - -

There is widespread international agreement that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons is an alarming prospect [no shit!], but very little attention is paid to the most obvious, immediate reason why [7adithna ya David, wa lima yakono thaalik?] that there is already a Middle Eastern nuclear power, Israel [la laaaaaaaah?], insistent on preserving its monopoly.

Iran is the unfriendliest possible, encouraging the widespread assumption that it alone is responsible for creating the crisis - and settling it. But is it? [La 6ab3an, bas ikhss 3ala akbar shanab bel dawla ely ma tejara' wegolha ya David]

It certainly isn't blameless [I agree - for what it's worth]. First, its nuclear arming would deal a major blow to an already fraying international non-proliferation regime. [Ya 3ami zain, akhaf bas sej] Second, it would involve a huge deceit. Third, the US divides actual or potential nuclear powers into responsible and irresponsible ones. [Il thaher ana kent naayem lama ejtam3aw The Board of Executives of Planet Earth o etafgaw 3ala ena the US ehy ely et7adid] Iran would be irresponsible, being already the worst of "rogue states". [Another word for rogue is unreliable]

Yet, in nuclear terms in the Middle East, Israel is the original sinner [Ashwa enha yat menik hal mara]. Non- proliferation must be universal [Khalas, en6erny 3ad inta]: if, in any zone of potential conflict, one party goes nuclear, its adversaries can't be expected not to. [Wallah gelt'ha ana ya David 3-4days ago "Mafeesh 7ad a7san mn 7ad"] No matter how long ago it was, by violating that principle Israel would always bear a responsibility for whatever happened later. [Bas khobrik, il Kwaity la sar Liberaly eb kaifah yegolek qal6at falas6een .. la tes'alni shlon wetgalib il mowaji3 ya David.. Ikhss 3al shanabaat]

Mindful of what Israel's mendacity portended, the CIA warned in 1963 that, by enhancing its sense of security, nuclear capacity would make Israel less, not more, conciliatory to the Arabs [La laaaaah? Bas rabi3na khoufik may3arfon el CIA, khalha "FBI" a7la o yesadgounha akthar chethy el khamma ely 3endena]; it [Israel, la7ad yethaye3] would exploit its new "psychological advantages" to "intimidate" them [them = Arabs, la7ad yethaye3 ham].

Which, thirdly, points to the irresponsible use Israel has indeed made of it.

[Israel] came into being as a massive disrupter of the established Middle East order, through violence and ethnic cleansing. [6ayyib.. ashwa yat menik] Such a settler-state could only achieve true legitimacy, true integration into a still-to-be-completed new order, by restoring the Palestinian rights it violated in its creation and growth. [Laysem3ik Kwaity imsamy rou7a liberaly, yaaaiw.. shefokik 3ad .. yegolek hatha "sha'an falas6eeny o ma7ad lah sheghel feeh"]

But settlement never comes, because Israel resists even that compromise. [Which goes only to prove that this isn't just about rights. It's about Il Quds.] Its nuclear power, on top of its already overwhelming conventional superiority, ensures that. [Not to mention, takhaathul il muslimeen wil taqany bel dawla il madaniya o sarf il nethar 3an who they truly are. Bunch of pussies if you ask me.]

Such irresponsible use of it is what Shimon Peres was alluding to when he said that "acquiring a superior weapons system would mean the possibility of using it for compellent purposes - that is, forcing the other side to accept Israeli political demands". [Ya3ni Shemon Biraiz b nafsa gaalha, fa laish iyoounek ba3th il naas yegolounlek "laaaa israel bas etdafi3 3an ro7ha khanat 7aily" is beyond me]. Or what Moshe Sneh [Hala yoba, tesharafna], a leading Israeli strategist, meant when he said: "I don't want the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to be held under the shadow of an Iranian nuclear bomb." [Lena inta 3arif 7ajmik, ra7imma allah emre'en 3arefa gaddr nafsah]

As if the Arabs haven't had to negotiate under the shadow of an Israeli bomb these past four decades.

READ THE ABOVE. Please.

- - - Part 2 - - -

There are three ways the crisis can go.

1) Israel insists on, and achieves, the unchallenged perpetuation of its "original sin". [Ib'aa aabelny] For it isn't so much "the world", as President Bush keeps saying, that finds a nuclear Iran so intolerable, but the world on Israel's behalf; [Thank you for having the balls to say it. Ikhss 3ala shanabaat rijalat il dawla ily ma feehom zilim yan6eg ya David.]

He continues: not the risk that Iran will attack Israel that makes the crisis so dangerous, but that Israel will attack Iran - or that the US will take on the job itself. [7alaatik gaayel mn wain, 7alaaaatik gayel mn wain. Please read previous posts on the matter now]

In effect, Israel's nuclear arsenal, or the protection of it, has become a diplomatic instrument against its benefactor.

So here is a superpower, wrote the US strategic analyst Mark Gaffney, so "blind and stupid" as to let "another state, ie Israel, control its foreign policy". [Il 3omoom yadry il thaher, bas 3ad arid o agoul, waina il zilim ily ye7achi mn mas'oleena il ashaawis?] And, in a brilliant study, he warned that a US assault on Iran could end in a catastrophe comparable to the massacre of Roman legions at Cannae by Hannibal's much inferior army [Did a search for those interested, found this pretty simple account of the battle]. For in one field of military technology, anti-ship missiles, Russia is streets ahead of the US. And Iran's possession of the fearsome 3M-82 Moskit could turn the Persian Gulf into a death trap for the US fleet. [Ya3ni sheghel saving private ryan 3ala topgun 3ala madri aish ma yidour? .. Please read about the Iranian military training a.k.a. flexing of muscles for the Gulf and the US-bases in the Gulf]

And sure enough, from the Bush administration itself, the first hints have been coming that, given the regional havoc Iran could indeed wreak, there may be nothing the US can do to stop it going nuclear. [Except perhaps stir up a war between il shee3a wil sinna if muslims don't get their priorities straight by disregarding any silly 'nationalist' articles in daily newspapers?]

2) Israel obliged to renounce its monopoly and the Middle East entering a cold-war-style "balance of terror". It could be a stable one. Clearly, like Israel, the mullahs would make irresponsible, political use of their nukes. But, like Israel's, Iran's nuclear quest is essentially defensive, even if not in quite the same fundamentally "existential" sense.

READ: Nothing could have more convinced it of the need for an unconventional deterrent than the fate of that other "rogue state", Saddam's Iraq, which the US had no qualms about attacking because it didn't have one. [If I might add, under the lie Bush marketed that Iraq was filled with WMDs]

3) Iran's abandonment of its nuclear ambitions - would stand its best chance of being accomplished if Israel were induced to do likewise; [madry laaaaish] not just because reciprocity is the essence of disarmament, but because it would signify a fundamental change in America's whole approach to the region.

And that might have positive effects beyond the nuclear. "There is only one way," said the Israeli military analyst Ze'ev Schiff, "to avoid a nuclear balance of terror: to use the time left, while we still have a monopoly in this field, to make peace ... In the framework of peace, a nuclear-free zone can be established." [3an nafsi? Ma athin.. call me pessimistic for all I care]

But that is the wrong way round.

To make peace, as the CIA foresaw, Israel doesn't need the intransigence that absolute security brings, but the spirit of compromise that a judicious dose of insecurity might. [Fancy way of saying: Israel i3yalt il kalb don't need to be so worried about changing their position. Itha rikhaw shway yemken mn sale7hom]

A utopian notion perhaps [la mo perhaps, ila shay akeed], with the world now so focused on the villainy of Iran - yet better than a US onslaught that would add so thick a layer to an already mountainous deposit of anti-western feeling that Israel could barely hope ever to win acceptance in the region. [Shlonek enta zain? Chethy 3ad mara wa7da acceptance?]

- - -

Original article.

Translated article.