NAAWAN, Misamis Oriental (MindaViews / 18 June) — Israel carried out massive air strikes on Iran in the early morning hours of June 13, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities, nuclear scientists, and top military leaders in a bid to prevent Tehran from building atomic weapons, which Israel already possessed.

Israel has developed nuclear weapons since 1966. Its stockpile is estimated at around 90 plutonium-based warheads.

This capability is delivered, accordingly, via a nuclear triad consisting of aircraft (likely F-16s and potentially F-35Is), and land-based ballistic missiles (the Jericho II and Jericho III with ranges up to 4,000 km).

So what right has Israel to wipe out Iran’s dream of developing its own nuclear facilities to improve its energy supply outside fast-dwindling fossil fuel, as well as nuclear weapons to deter the threat and aggression of its enemies with such weapons?

It is a deranged entitlement for a country that possessed a weapon for mass destruction to forcibly prevent others from having it, too. Why stop others from having what you have?

Such a stance expresses the height of arrogance; if not supremacism.

It seems Israel banks its so-called preventive action against Iran on the West’s marking of Iran, particularly the US, a rogue state that tends to endanger world peace. The Western perception is that Iran’s nuclear weaponry will immediately be used to destroy its enemies, foremost on the list is Israel.

But come to think of it, historically it is the US and its Western allies who are behaving as rogue states in demolishing thriving Middle East regimes and governments, maiming and killing the civilian population in coveting the precious wealth of the region—fossil oil.

And now resulting from its paranoia, Israel becomes a rogue state in assaulting Iran, a reckless move that threatens world peace.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. William R. Adan, Ph.D., is retired professor and former chancellor of Mindanao State University at Naawan, Misamis Oriental.)