4 Opinion, Page 8 Tuesday, June 16, 1981 The Michigan Daily The Michigan Daily Vol. XCl, No. 29-S Ninety Years of Editorial/Freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Dragon deflator P ERHAPS THE BIG, bad federal government isn't a monstrosity in everyone's eyes after all. Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the national stripmining law is a clear-cut vic- tory not only for ecology but for federal! regulatory power. The law-which requires mining companies to leave land in the same condition it was before they mined it-had been challenged in the courts by the claim that such alaw was a usurpation of states' rights. The Court's surprising decision contains multifold benefits: It should prove a boon to en- vironmentalists, who have lately been fighting a losing battle against the Reagan Ad- ministration's concerted campaign to roll back ecology statutes for the benefit of big business interests. More importantly, the ruling provides a desperately needed shot in the arm for Washington's embattled regulatory agencies, relentlessly castigated by Reagan & Co. as the living symbol of bureaucratic obtrusiveness. Perhaps the Court's decree will enlighten some Americans to the fact that regulation is not the root of all Big Brother evil; in many cases it remains the only effective means of protecting the individual against the abuses of both cor- porate and governmental power. It's going to take a gargantuan effort to suc- cessfully puncture all the phony dragons Mr. Reagan has inflated for public consumption. The Supreme Court's unexpectedly gutsy ruling is one step in the right direction. ULIET DIPLOMACY MX/fP p ( '; ,S tA ARfTh ~ A AaD Gov - Bullies of the desert By FRED SCHILL Paranoia invites paranoia. Reactie'i invites cause. There could surely be no better way for Israel to legitimize its own paranoid nightmares to provoke hostility from its neighbors. Fifth Column a By Fred Schill The June 7 pre-emptive strike on an Iraqi nuclear reactor by Israeli forces is thus one of the Given such a conlusion, it is even possible to see the perverse rationale; of Israel's do-unto- others-before-they-do-unto-you rea- soning. But if Israel intends to pursue such a policy, they have a lot of others to do unto in the next few years - and it isn't going to be easy now that the others have caught on- to the game. Since the United States opened this Pandora's box almost 36 years ago, only six other nations (if one includes Israel, a safe assumption) have developed their own nuclear toys. That; however, is changing. Most experts expect all of the following to achieve nuclear capability in the more comfortable and (I hope) likely than the idea that Israel really intends to police their corner of the world. Attempts by the United States to do the same thing on a larger scale have embroiled the world's most powerful nations in a costly and pointless nuclear arms race. How could it be any different in the Middle East? Israel declares that if the Iraqis rebuild their reactor, they will blow it up again. Such a proclamation triggers hostility of the sort Israel is always complaining about; it pours salt into already-deep wounds. Peres' ideas about achieving peace in the Middle East may be unrealistic, but they damn sure beat 4 J THE L. A. TIMES SYNDICATE more twisted and neurotic ac- tions in the recent history of a twisted, neurotic conflict. This is the action of a belligerent child, hitting his brother and then screaming indignantly to his mother, "He wants to hit me!" How can one have sympathy with Israel's oft-stated claim that Arab nations want to destroy it when Israel itself takes such a destructive action? Moreover, the Israelis have added a new twist to the big- brother bullying. Now the cry goes more like, "Not only does he want to hit me, but he's wanted to all along." So Israel struck first. IT WOULD, of course, be naive to believe Iraq intended to use its reactor strictly for benevolent purposes (all French pretensions notwithstanding). Oil-rich Iraq, after all, needs a nuclear reactor like Newcastle needs coals. The French knew that, and it didn't take Israel long to catch on. In that sense, Israel is caught betweeen Iraq and a hard place. next 10-15 years: South Africa, Pakistan, Taiwan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Note that, the last five are in the Mideast. Oddly, Shimon Peres (Menachem Begin's rival in the upcoming Israeli elections) has loudly stated his supposed intentions to make peaceful overtures to Saudi Arabia and Jordon's King Saddam Hussein, and was leading Begin in public opinion polls. Now there's a good one for you - a man who spouts peace rhetoric leads in the electoral polls until his opponent belligerently attacks another nation. Then the populace swings toward the aggressor. GO FIGURE IT. Apparently peace is only popular in the absence of war, or at least that's what the reaction of the people of Israel would indicate.'Begin knew it all along, and quite probably attacked Iraq first and foremost because he knew it would garnerPiim votes,(as long as the raid succeeded, as Israeli raids nearly always do). Sinister as that suggestion it; it is Begin's visionarypolicestate. THERE IS no way Israel can peacefully prevent its traditional enemies from developing nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Libya surely would not tolerate such attacks as passively as Iraq did (Iraq, after all, already has a war with Iran on its hands). Attacks like the June 7 episode are at best fruitless and at worst apocalyptic. At most they can only encourage Arab nations to build nuclear weapons more quickly and ardently (paranoia invokes paranoia), since they obviously have an aggressive neighbor. At worst, they will cluse those nations to use such weapons - against Israel and others. Surely there must be safer, saner methods of relieving Middle East hostility. If Menachem Begin believes differently, then one can only hope Israel chooses Peres' way. Fred Schill is a staff writer for, tfie Daily. His column ap- -pears each Tuesday. 4 4 4