The World According To Obama Advisers

I found this thanks to Mark Levin, who pointed out that one of Sen. Barack Obama's advisers on nuclear issues has a most intriguing position on nuclear weapons.

Israel should give up its nuclear weapons to ensure Iran halts its illicit nuclear program, argues an adviser on nuclear issues to Sen. Barack Obama.

Joseph Cirincione, director of nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, also previously dismissed reports Israel's Sept. 6 airstrike targeted a Syrian nuclear reactor as "nonsense" and called Damascus' nuclear program "miniscule."

Immediately following Israel's air raid, Cirincione listed "Israelis [who] want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria" as among those spreading rumors Syria was constructing a nuclear facility.

He thinks Israel should give up its entire nuclear arsenal - as a good will gesture to get Iran to quit its secret nuclear program.

Let's just say that Cirincione doesn't exactly have a solid record on which to make claims and assertions. For example, he can't come up with any reason why Syria isn't braying about Israel's attack on its facility in the September 6 raid, except to say that it wasn't a nuclear weapons program and thinks that the Syrian program is nothing to be worried about because it's been around for 40 years and produces only a small amount of isotopes for research.

That doesn't quite explain the purpose behind the building complex destroyed by the Israelis, its similarities to a North Korean nuclear facility, and the unbelievable silence from the Syrians over the whole matter.

Cirincione also thinks that the Israeli raid on Osirak in 1981 was a failure, though one has to wonder how exactly that works given that Iraq would have been nuclear capable well in advance of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the strategic and tactical calculus would have been quite different.

But, let's get back to the crux of the article - and that is how and why Cirincione thinks that Israel's unilateral nuclear disarmament will convince Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. How exactly does that work?

Israel gives up its nuclear deterrent, and Iran, whose nuclear program has progressed in secret can claim to give it up all while pursuing it via covert means? How exactly does that improve Israel's security posture? Why must Israel be the one to be sacrificed on the altar of diplomats who think that by making utterances and securing signatures on pieces of paper that they will obtain peace in our time?

There is absolutely nothing to indicate that Iran has any intention of giving up the ghost for obtaining nuclear weapons. Syria has been thwarted for the moment on its ambitions, but that doesn't mean that it will not continue to pursue those means.

In the meantime, remember that this is a person who is advising Obama on nuclear issues and the Middle East. Let's just say I'm not impressed.

UPDATE:
Via Jaunte at LGF comes this tidbit on how Cirincione thinks that missile defense is technical infeasible. I guess he missed the part about how the US did manage to take out one of its satellites using cobbled together technologies.