Middle East studies in the News

I see Juan's back to his old tricks again ...

by Dan Darling
Regnum Crucis
October 15, 2005

http://regnumcrucis.blogspot.com/2005_10_09_regnumcrucis_archive.html#112930549865888864

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/2235

To begin with, he argues that neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia have any serious WMD capabilities by virtue of the fact that the Center for Nonproliferation Studies doesn't seem to indicate as much on their websites. Which is fine, so long as you recognize that the Center's webpages on both countries appear to have been last updated in May 1998 and June 2000 respectively.

Also, if you head over to the Center's Iraq webpage, you find entries like the following on the subject of Iraq's nuclear program:

# With sufficient black-market uranium or plutonium, Iraq probably could fabricate a nuclear weapon.
# If undetected and unobstructed, could produce weapons-grade fissile material within several years.
# Engaged in clandestine procurement of special nuclear weapon-related equipment.
# Retains large and experienced pool of nuclear scientists and technicians.
# Retains nuclear weapons design, and may retain related components and software.
# Repeatedly violated its obligations under the NPT, which Iraq ratified on 10/29/69.
# Repeatedly violated its obligations under United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 687, which mandates destruction of Iraq's nuclear weapon capabilities.
# Until halted by Coalition air attacks and UNSCOM disarmament efforts, Iraq had an extensive nuclear weapon development program that began in 1972, involved 10,000 personnel, and had a multi-year budget totaling approximately $10 billion.
# In 1990, Iraq also launched a crash program to divert reactor fuel under IAEA safeguards to produce nuclear weapons.
# Considered two delivery options for nuclear weapons: either using unmodified al-Hussein ballistic missile with 300km range, or producing Al-Hussein derivative with 650km range.
# In 1987, Iraq reportedly field tested a radiological bomb.

And so on. So if the Center's website is to be considered the authority on the subject then we should all be thanking the US for ending the WMD threat posed by Iraq that included a revived nuclear program.

Then we get into the realm of conspiracy theory:

The real question is who his aides are really working for, who wants Bush to believe these dangerous fantasies.

The answer, judging from Juan's previous statements on the subject, is probably some variation of Israel, Sharon, or the Likud party. Why he doesn't just come out and say this is beyond me given how clear this is from everything else he's said on his blog.

Then we get this interesting twist of events on the al-Zawahiri letter. Juan thinks it's a forgery and among the reasons given are the following:

The letter then says how much Zawahiri misses meeting with Zarqawi. Zarqawi was not part of al-Qaeda when he was in Afghanistan. He had a rivalry with it. And when he went back to Jordan he did not allow the Jordanian and German chapters of his Tawhid wa Jihad group to send money to Bin Laden. If Zawahiri was going to bring up old times, he would have had to find a way to get past this troubled history, not just pretend that the two used to pal around.

Juan then concludes that it is either a psy-ops operation or the work of a Shi'ite group and/or Iran pretending to be al-Zawahiri. To which I might add that it might also just be that the administration was telling the truth and that all the experts who believed there to be a heated rivalry between Zarqawi and the rest of al-Qaeda were wrong, which is what I've been arguing for some time now.

But no, it couldn't ever be that.

Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.

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