Gates says Israel’s nuclear program does not threaten the region because the Jewish state does not seek to destroy its neighbors or support terror

This reply from the US defense secretary Robert Gates to a question at the Manama Dialogue conference Friday, Dec. 8, was greeted with laughter by the audience of Arab officials.
Gates denied the US applied a double standard by defending Israel while demanding that Iran abandon uranium enrichment. “Israel is not training terrorists to subvert its neighbors; it has not shipped weapons in a place like Iraq to kill thousands of innocent civilians covertly, threatened to destroy any of its neighbors or trying to destabilize the government of Lebanon.
Earlier the US defense secretary blasted Iran’s support for insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Hizballah and Hamas terror. “There can be little doubt that their destabilizing foreign policies are a threat to the interests of the United States, to the interests of every country in the Middle East and to the interests of all countries within the range of the ballistic missiles Iran is developing.”
Gates argued that Iran is still developing ballistic missiles and uranium enrichment and its weapons program could be restarted any time.