Sir, – “While it is nice to be optimistic, one first and foremost needs to be realistic. Why does Iran need nuclear power when it is sitting on one of the largest oil fields in the world . . .?” (Boaz Modai, ambassador to Israel, November 5th). I think the answer is in the question; as a deterrent, lest one of its belligerent nuclear neighbours have a beady eye on such a desirable property. And that’s without mentioning fossil fuel finitude and the urgent need for carbon emission reduction.
An at least equally relevant, and less tendentious, question might be why does Israel need an arsenal of nuclear warheads with a range greater than Tehran when it has the most powerful conventional army in the region and the unflinching support of the most bloated military empire hominid martial psychopathology has ever assembled?
Perhaps the ambassador would venture a response. It is a debate we need to have. While we still can. The nuclear clock ticks. Iran seems to be one of the few nations trying to raise the issue of multilateral decommissioning of these infernal technologies of instantaneous mass incineration.
As we approach the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the man who resisted his hawkish generals’ eagerness to unleash just this diabolical idiocy perhaps our somnolent government might consider honouring him in more than lip-service; by returning to a once honourable record on the issue. It will not occur of its own accord. Anyone semi-literate in history knows what tends to happen when things are left in the lap of deities: Mars tends to celebrate. – Yours, etc,
DAMIEN FLINTER,
Castleview Estate,
Headford,
Co Galway.