Gates' oops moment

[Watser?]

Robert Gates actually admitted this week that the Iranians may feel a little threatened themselves (as opposed to just being the threat they are continuously painted as):

During his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Gates speculated on why Iran might be seeking the means to build an atomic bomb. "They are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons: Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west and us in the Persian Gulf," he said.

Link

The Israelis were not pleased:

"I haven't a clue why Gates made those remarks," Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a member of
Israel's security cabinet, said in a radio interview.

A retired Israeli diplomat, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, called the testimony "quite unprecedented" and added: "I can only assume he (Gates) has yet to get to grips with the understandings that exist between us and the Americans."

According to recently declassified documents cited by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists magazine, under President
Richard Nixon the United States knew Israel had developed nuclear weapons but opted against insisting that its ally come clean on the capability and accept international regulation.

Israel neither confirms nor denies having the bomb, as part of a "strategic ambiguity" policy that it says fends off numerically superior enemies while avoiding an arms race.

By not declaring itself to be nuclear armed, Israel also skirts a U.S. ban on funding countries that proliferate weapons of mass destruction. It can thus enjoy more than $2 billion in annual military and other aid from Washington.

DOUBLE-STANDARD SEEN

This sanctioned reticence is a major irritant for Arabs and Iran, which see a double-standard in U.S. policy in the region.

[Watser?]

More oops, this time by Ehud Olmert himself. And this time people have payed attention.

Iran on Wednesday called for United Nations Security Council action against Israel, seizing on remarks by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert widely interpreted as an admission that Israel has nuclear weapons.

"This confession reveals a real threat to security and stability in the Middle East and shows the evil aims and plots of this regime," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini.

Quoted by the official IRNA news agency, Hosseini called for "effective and rapid measures in the Security Council and the Organization of Islamic Conference and other regional organizations to combat these explicit threats."

In a German television interview broadcast on Monday, Olmert said: "Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?"

Haaretz

Well, Iran would fume at the mouth at that, but more importantly:

Meanwhile, in Kuwait City, the secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah, called yesterday on the United States and the international community to sanction Israel for its nuclear policy. "The United States should not apply double standards, since it calls for sanctions on countries that have nuclear programs that we have not ruled out are the framework for nuclear weapons," Attiyah said.

Also Haaretz

The GCC is more or less an extension of Saudi Arabia and it is a pretty serious problem for the US if they make an issue out of this. If the most pro-western countries in the Arab League feel like this, the rest of them will not be far behind in their criticism.