No selective arm-twisting

If nuclear transparency is demanded from Iran, the same should be applied to Israel
The recent statements by senior American and Israeli officials about Iran's nuclear capabilities seem to have been well orchestrated. They were issued in tandem and the pronouncements are so similar as to suggest the same pen formulated them.
Last Thursday, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said that in less than a year, Iran would be on its way to making a nuclear weapon.
Mofaz was repeating what Mossad chief Meir Dagan had said in an appearance before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee last Tuesday: "By the end of 2005, Iran will have reached the point of no return in its technology for manufacturing nuclear bombs. Three to four years later it will be able to build a nuclear bomb."
Mofaz went on to say that an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran could not be ruled out.
The Israeli comments went hand in hand with those echoed in Washington. Last week, and on the day that George W. Bush was sworn in for his second term, US Vice-President Dick Cheney said that Iran was "right at the top of the list" of what he described as "global trouble spots".
Cheney, too, said that Israel would most probably attack Iran.
It seems that Mofaz and Cheney are working for the same administration. Undoubtedly, the region should be free of all nuclear weapons. Iran should definitely comply with international regulations governing nuclear programmes.
And so should Israel, which has neither signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty nor allowed its activities to be monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. If transparency is demanded from Iran, the same should be applied to Israel.
The real question is why tensions are being heightened now when there are serious developments taking place on two important fronts Iraq and the Palestinian Occupied Territories.