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March 4, 2015 Special Dispatch No. 5982

Former Egypt IAEA Delegate: Arab Nuclear Weapons Are Crucial To Creating Strategic Balance In Region

March 4, 2015
Egypt, Egypt | Special Dispatch No. 5982

In a November 18, 2014 article in the London-based Arab daily Al-Hayat, Egyptian former MP Dr. Mustafa Al-Fiqi, who was the chairman of the Egyptian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee during the Mubarak era and also served as Egypt's delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the late 90s, called on Arab countries to launch a major nuclear program in order to restore strategic balance to the region. According to him, Arabs cannot remain besieged by Israeli and Iranian nuclear might, which are like a sword at their necks. Al-Fiqi stressed that in the current age, force is the best way to achieve deterrence, restore rights, and achieve justice, and therefore Arab nuclear power was an inevitable necessity. He added that the U.S., the West, and Israel are attempting to thwart any Arab attempt to develop nuclear weapons, hinting that they were behind the assassination of Arab nuclear scientists in recent years.

It should be mentioned that already in 2002, Al-Fiqi published a series of articles calling on Arabs to attain nuclear weapons to create a strategic balance vis-à-vis Israel.[1]

The following are excerpts from the article:[2]

Force Is The Path To Justice; Nuclear Weapons Will Give The Arab Nation Value And Status

"In recent decades there have been stories and studies regarding the Arabs' nuclear capabilities and their future chances in light of the current regional and international situation. I am among those who believe that nuclear capabilities are not just a deterrent but also an expression of patriotism and of the homeland's international prestige... 


Dr. Mustafa Al-Fiqi

"First, the might of nations and peoples is measured by their ability to defend themselves and preserve their national security and supreme interests. All this is not possible without recognized and known military capabilities, since we live in a world where justice and rights are only attained by the logic of force, whether by using it or by threatening to use it. There are so many just causes where the aggrieved side cannot find redress because the other side usurps, rampages, occupies land, and tramples holy sites in the full sight of the entire world, while ignoring [international] legitimacy, simply because it can and because it is far from deterrence and safe from punishment. I am certainly not calling to transform countries into weapons depots... but [only] warning against foregoing rights or underestimating [the importance] of obtaining force, since this is the way to attain rights and realize justice.

"Therefore, I am not surprised by the repeated claims by Arab writer Jihad Al-Khazen [former editor and current columnist for Al-Hayat] that it is important for some Arab countries to launch a large-scale nuclear program,[3] because it is time to do so in light of the Israeli nuclear arsenal, which includes over 200 nuclear warheads... We [repeatedly] raise this issue because we believe that nuclear weapons - regardless of the risks, cost, and difficulties they entail - will give the [Arab] nation value and status at a time when it is facing unprecedented foreign and domestic threats.

"Second, use of peaceful nuclear energy - from producing electricity, to desalinating sea water, as well as dozens of [other] vital activities that are crucial to modern societies - has become a need that cannot be ignored... The difference between peaceful nuclear energy and the manufacture of nuclear weapons is no longer great. Nuclear technology is within almost everyone's reach and is no longer a secret reserved solely for members of the nuclear club. During my work over the years as Egypt's delegate to the IAEA, I discovered that technological applications derived from this energy are infinitely more numerous than strategic or military ones. Therefore, the Western ban on nuclear programs is nothing but a ban on progress and development, and on the opening of promising new horizons for the future in very many countries that suffer from energy shortages..."

The Purpose Of Iran's Nuclear Program Is Military; Arab Nuclear Weapons Will Be A Nightmare For The West And Israel

"We have all followed the developments in Iran's nuclear dossier and their transition to the stage of uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel production. I am among those who believe that Iran's goal is first and foremost military-strategic, and it is hard to forbid Iran from pursuing it when the West has enabled the existence of a nuclear arsenal in 'Israel.' The Arabs cannot be like beggars at the table of nasty skinflints, besieged by two nuclear programs that constitute a deterrent, even in terms of morale, and which are like a sword held to the neck of the [Arabs'] future.

"Several years ago, I was surprised when an American official asked to meet me during his visit to Cairo due to an article I had written regarding the need for an Arab nuclear program. When he visited my office, he brought with him an English translation of this article. That is when I realized that Arab nuclear weapons are a nightmare for the West, and even more so for Israel.

"Can we forget that our scientists in this field have fallen one after the other, from Sameera Moussa to Yahya Al-Mashad?[4] Moreover, I recently heard that a great Egyptian woman scientist who was an assistant to Dr. Al-Mashad also died while traveling back [to Egypt] on an Egyptian airliner that was downed in American territorial waters while en route from the New York airport to Cairo! The American civil aviation authorities insisted at the time that the plane had crashed because the pilot used it to commit suicide![5]

"I wish to remind everyone that Egypt launched a nuclear program in the 1950s under the supervision of Salah Hedayat, but the disaster of the 1967 [war with Israel] halted the process entirely and Egypt made do with small research reactors only. Whenever we consider building large nuclear plants we are told that 'nuclear safety' is a complex matter and reminded of the Chernobyl disaster and the potential risks in this field. They also mention the Austrian referendum, in which the [Austrian] people voted to discontinue the use of nuclear power plants due to concern for the safety of the country! But they forget that two large southern nations  - India and Pakistan - became nuclear nations despite the lack of resources and the burden of [their] high populations, since possessing a nuclear program in our current international jungle has become a necessity..."

There Is A Secret Ban On Any Arab Attempt To Attain Nuclear Weapons

"Is it conceivable that the massive Arab financial resources or even a small portion of them were never used to create nuclear weapons, while other [peoples] benefit from [such weapons?] Even relatively poor countries have managed to attain [a nuclear program], while we follow events with concern and bewilderment, seeing the double standard that dominates today's world. Former IAEA head Hans Blix - a Swedish diplomat who served as his country's foreign minister before becoming IAEA head for 16 straight years - once said during a visit to Cairo that Egypt has a [solid] scientific foundation in the form of a cadre of nuclear scientists. [He added that] its capabilities are no less than those of its sisters, the Gulf states, so that Arab entry into the world of nuclear energy can be done through the front door. [But] everyone knows that there is a secret ban on any Arab attempt to attain nuclear weapons, while Israel has enough nuclear arms to destroy the region, in addition to its ongoing deterrence policy...

"Moreover, there is a siege on Arab nuclear scientists. Recently, several of them were eliminated in Syria amid the chaotic events in that Arab country, which faces challenges from every direction.[6] All these are signs of the dangers this region faces, for which Arabs pay the price in every case...

"Israel does not hesitate to hint from time to time that it possesses a 'nuclear arsenal' and weapons of mass destruction. When additional information is leaked, they neither confirm nor deny it, but rather leave the matter open to the imagination, in an attempt to scare the Arab armies and stress the significance of the 'deterrent weapon,' over which they have exclusivity in the region. Recently, the [Israeli] newspaper Maariv published a report on Israel's nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as its submarines, and jets, [which are all] part of their nuclear weapons arsenal. In past decades, Israel remained opaque [on this topic] and the question of the scope of its nuclear arsenal remained open to speculation. But a new American research confirms that Israel possesses nuclear warheads fitted to missiles that can easily reach Iran and Arab countries, if need be. When Arabs consider this provocative Israeli information, they understand the danger and importance of nuclear weapons. Moreover, some research confirms that Israel has 400 nuclear warheads, and not 200 as we thought. Therefore, the final conclusion of a close scrutiny of the situation in the Middle East confirms that Israel continues to vigorously strengthen its nuclear arsenal, outside the IAEA umbrella, as a weapon of deterrence that determines facts on the ground in any condition. At the same time, [Israel] has no compunction supporting terrorist movements such as ISIS and its ilk in order to crumble the foundations of the Arab East [Mashreq] and of the other regional countries...

"An Arab nuclear program is urgently required, in order to convey an Arab message that restores strategic balance to the region and prevents Israel or others from carrying out a nuclear adventure against an Arab country under some pretext or other. Some Arab countries did well by not signing the Chemical Weapons Convention!..."

 

 

Endnotes: 

 

[1] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Reports No. 118, 119, and 120, Egypt Rethinks Its Nuclear Program Part I: Scientific and Technological Capability Vs. International Commitments, January 14, 2003, Part II: The Egyptian Nuclear Lobby, January 17, 2003; and Part III: The Nuclear Lobby (Continued), January 17, 2003.

[2] Al-Hayat (London), November 18, 2014.

[3] See Jihad Al-Khazen in Al-Hayat (London), December 1, 2014.

[4] Two Egyptian nuclear scientists. Sameera Moussa was killed in a car accident in California in 1952; Yahya Al-Mashad was murdered by an unknown man in a Paris hotel in 1980.

[5] Referring to EgyptAir Flight 990, which crashed on October 31, 1999, killing all 217 passengers and crew. The cause of the crash is disputed, but a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation concluded that it was the result of the first officer's control input, which some have speculated was a deliberate suicide.

[6] A Syrian human rights organization reported that, in early November 2014, five nuclear engineers - four Syrians and one Iranian - who worked at a scientific research center in northern Damascus were killed in an ambush on their convoy. Syriahr.com, November 10, 2014. No organization claimed responsibility for the attack. Iran denied that an Iranian nuclear engineer had been killed and claimed that no Iranian nuclear engineers were in Syria. Syria-news.com, November 12, 2014.

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