Who's Next?

Jerusalem is leaking like crazy in the days before Bibi Netanyahu addresses the UN:

“A bad agreement is worse than no agreement at all,” the Israeli official said, reading a statement from the prime minister’s office that he said reflected Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks.

President Rouhani, in advance of his arrival in New York this week, has signaled a willingness to negotiate. The Obama administration, while professing wariness, is clearly intrigued by the possibility of resolving a problem that has bedeviled President Obama as long as he has been in office. And that, in turn, has deeply unsettled the Israelis.

“Iran must not be allowed to repeat North Korea’s ploy to get nuclear weapons,” said the Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

“Just like North Korea before it,” he said, “Iran professes to seemingly peaceful intentions; it talks the talk of nonproliferation while seeking to ease sanctions and buy more time for its nuclear program.”

Don’t forget that the Saudi provided the seed money for Pakistan’s nuclear program back in the ’90s — and you can get your bottom dollar the House of Saud got a little tit for their tat. We don’t know anything for sure, but the thinking has been for years that in case of an emergency — like, say, a nuclear Iran — the Saudis could ramp up their own program quickly. The Turks would likely follow suit. Ankara might even desire a nuclear, as an excuse to fulfill their own nuclear ambitions.

It’s difficult to imagine anything much scarier than a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.