Cassandra at Turtle Bay

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech last Wednesday at the United Nations warning the world about the Iranian nuclear program proved no more popular with the press mandarins at the New York Times than Winston Churchill’s constant alarums about a revanchistGermany proved with the press poo-bahs ofEngland in the 1930s. Like Churchill in his time Netanyahu has become a Cassandra offering dire warnings that are too painful to contemplate and which the world therefore prefers to ignore.

Netanyahu presented a thoroughly documented lawyer’s brief arguing thatIranis entitled to no presumption of innocence with respect to its nuclear program. Newly installed Iranian president Hassan Rouhani had claimed in his speech at the UN thatIran’s nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes. Netanyahu had a few questions for him. Why does a nation with enough oil and gas reserves to last 200 years require a nuclear program? And if that program is purely civilian why wasIrancaught hiding underground facilities at Natanz in 2002 and Fordow in 2009?

And if that program is peaceful why hasIranenriched uranium far beyond the level of any conceivable civilian use? Why does it insist on building a hugely expensive infrastructure for enrichment when it could purchase enriched uranium directly fromRussiaat a fraction of the cost? Finally what possible civilian calculus could make it worthwhile forIranto endure economic sanctions that have crippled the economy and almost completely depleted its foreign currency reserves rather than comply with UN resolutions on its enrichment program?

If Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful Netanyahu demanded to know why was the regime working on intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe today and the United States within three or four years? Why has it according to the International Atomic Energy Agency tested nuclear triggers worked on mathematical modeling of missile trajectories of nuclear weapons and tested components of nuclear weapons?