Madam, - Charles Krauthammer reckons that the United States should secure Israel against Iran by publicly underwriting Israeli security with the threat of a retaliatory American nuclear strike (Opinion, April 14th).
His rationale for this is that Israel, though possessed of nuclear weapons itself, could find them wiped out in a heinous "first strike" scenario, and that this prospect nullifies their deterrent value. Washington should therefore step into the breach to forestall another Holocaust.
Yet if Mr Krauthammer had done the most cursory research into what he was talking about, he would know that Israel's nuclear deterrent is based on its three (soon to be five) Dolphin-class submarines, deployed deep in the Indian Ocean, which carry the bulk of Israel's warheads.
These are capable of hitting various targets within Iran, and, given the fact that the latter possesses no real deep-water navy, are virtually impervious to attack. Any American nuclear guarantees would therefore prove not only inflammatory (as declarations on total destruction usually are) but superfluous to Israel's real security needs.
And so we have again what has become the reigning tenor of Mr Krauthammer's columns: bizarre, dangerous, and utterly unsupported by the facts. - Yours, etc,
SEAN COLEMAN, Lindisfarne Lawn, Dublin 22.