Sorry about the delayed response, forgot about this thread
Yeah, and technically, Iraq had the US out-gunned and out-manned in both the gulf war and the Iraq invasion. Numerical superiority does not equate to military superiority. Israel is not just conventional forces militarily superior to the combined forces of its neighboring opponents it is regionally dominant.
Who said numerical superiority? That's a given. I was combining this with the technologically advanced weaponry that the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Qataris, Jordanians and Egyptians have bought over the past decade for both their naval forces and land forces from EU nations, Russia, US, and China, from the S-300's to the Saudis and the UAE, M1-A2's to Egypt, littoral and corvette ships to all of those mentioned, MANPADs galore, etc. that rival and at times surpass the current technology used by the Israelis.
How so what? Its pretty straightforward. Disarming won't do squat if Iran doesn't disarm, which is not hinged on Israel having a nuclear program but more Iran wanting to have leverage and significance in the ME.
Perhaps, there is some confusion going on here about what the NPT is about with regards to declared nuclear weapons states. With a declared Nuclear Weapon's State, we are primarily dealing with Article1: "Each nuclear-weapons state (NWS) undertakes not to transfer, to any recipient, nuclear weapons, or other nuclear explosive devices, and not to assist any non-nuclear weapon state to manufacture or acquire such weapons or devices."
Primarily dealing with, but not only, which is why Israel is not part of it, not because of some paranoia that Israel might be proliferating nuclear weapons technology. Israel has only two major ports, in Haifa and Eilat, the prior of which is used more for military/naval purposes. Checking for any proliferation is quite easy, especially when the US, one of the nuclear watchdogs, using these ports quite frequently for a layover between EU and ME ports with its advanced loitering ships, notwithstanding that as of recently, the US has been operating a Doppler/x-type radar site in Israel proper. Article 1 would not be the issue why Israel is not joining NPT, apart from the fact that it wants to keep its nuclear ambiguity stance.
Signing the NPT wouldn't necessarily mean that Israel couldn't possess any nuclear weapons (depending upon the terms under which it is welcomed into the treaty), merely that they would have to establish some transparency and broad/general international oversight into their nuclear weapons program, something that both the US and the USSR managed to do despite multiple decades of (not-always-so) Cold War.
In relation to the previous, I doubt Israel is really concerned with whether NPT would require Israel to possess x-amount of nukes. I think the core issue would be, and this is nothing new:
IAEA presses nuke-free Mideast
...
Even as diplomats huddle at the United Nations during the second week of a month-long conference, IAEA officials are focusing on Israel amid growing calls for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East.
...
But the same article does voice concerns of Israel, in what can be interpreted as forcing Israel to make unilateral concessions in regards to its nuclear program in hopes that Iran would do the same whilst the latter is already part of NPT.
"The IAEA cannot allow itself to be hijacked by those who seek Israel’s destruction,” US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wrote in a letter to the IAEA’s Amano.
“Rather than fixating on Israel, the IAEA should take immediate action to suspend all membership privileges for Iran. It must cease all technical assistance programs to Iran until the regime comes into full compliance with UNSC resolutions and its nonproliferation obligations.”
So overall, I doubt article 1 is really the most concerning article when talking about Israel, especially if the other NPT signatories cannot abide by the same articles and disarmament clauses...
