Editorial: Israel is Unwise to Raise the Nuclear Stakes!

This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to release its latest report on Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. If the leaks are to be believed, that report will accuse Iran of construct -ing a steel tank at the Parchin military complex for testing explosives associated with atomic weapons design. The allegation is hardly new. Since 2004, there have been suspicions of work at Parchin, related to weapons design, and in May this year, the agency listed a series of research projects it suggested could not make sense unless related to weapons research. If the report is significant, it is because with each IAEA report on Iran comes a familiar diplomatic ritual of threa -tened new sanctions from the US and its allies, and reports of threatened military strikes from Israel. If there is a difference this time, it is in the strong impression, after years of veiled threats from Israel, that it will act alone if necessary to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, that the country's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his closest allies in a cabinet split on the issue would like to launch a preemptive military strike, a view opposed by other senior figures in Israel's security establishment. There are many reasons for the inter -national community to oppose Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, not least the fact that nuclear arms proliferation is a dangerous and retrograde step in a world that has been reducing its stockpiles.