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An Iran deal and Israel’s nukes

Would a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran put the spotlight on Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program?

View of the Israeli nuclear facility in the Negev Dest outside Dimona August 6, 2000. Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technical, spilled Israel's nuclear secrets to a British newspaper in 1986 and a short while later was abducted to Israel to stand trial. He is currently in the 13th year of an 18-year jail term. Vanunu claimed Israel had built 200 atomic bombs at the Dimona site. Today, August 6, is the 55th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in Japan where some 200,000 people were killed, le
View of the Israeli nuclear facility in the Negev Desert outside Dimona, Aug. 6, 2000. — REUTERS/Jim Hollander

Negotiations with Iran are aimed at winning the Islamic Republic’s commitment not to obtain the necessary ingredients for the construction of a nuclear bomb. This objective is all fine and good, and there is much in the events of the last few months to suggest that a solid basis has begun for progress toward this desirable goal.

But if Iran does its part, opens its program to effective supervision and satisfies the international community of its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons, will President Barack Obama's administration move beyond rhetorical support to implement the broader goal of a nuclear weapons-free Middle East? Here, the picture becomes distinctly unclear.

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